ootd: one outfit, three destinations

The Weekend Road Trip

Shirt: Vintage

Shorts: J. Crew

Belt: Vintage/came with the shirt

Shoes: Steve Madden

The Brunch With Friends

Cardigan: J. Crew

Belt: J. Crew

Flats: Forever21

The Country Club

Blazer: Di Vita

Belt: J. Crew

Shoes: H&M

Pearls: Vintage

Clutch: Boutique

OOTD: one romper, three destinations

The Picnic on the Beach

Romper: Forever21

Picnic Basket Scarf: Vintage

Shoes: I can't remember! H&M?

The Afternoon Barbecue:

Ballet Leotard: Sports Store

Bag: H&M

Shoes: H&M

The Casual Date Night

Cardigan: J. Crew

Headband: Anne Taylor Loft

Clutch: A boutique

Don't forget to click here and weigh on our housing situation!

I'm making a colorful-rug-blanket-caster-wood-ottoman-coffee-monster

This coffee table cost us about 28 dollars. We bought it on Craigslist and spray painted it a nice aqua-ish color, and it's lasted about a year or so. But now it's time for this little table to be on it's way, and I have very big plans for it's replacement!

My idea for it is all in my head, and a bit hard to explain, but it's going to be a bit like this ottoman from Little Green Notebook...

a bit like this chair from Anthroplogie ...

a bit like this cushion platform from Urban Outfitters ...

And a lot like something out of Flea Market Style, an amazing coffee table book that my bestie Jilly gave me last year for my birthday:)

Stay tuned to see how (or if) it all comes together:) And check back soon because I have a lot more home projects going on that I'll be posting about soon!

all you need is love (and flowers)

Hi everyone! Hope all of you had a wonderful Valentine's Day full of lots of xoxoxo's from your loved ones:) My day started with these gorgeous flowers from my hubby. I'm afraid this OOTD business is bringing out the worst (i.e.: vanity) in me! I decided to show off my Valentine's OOTD by "modeling" my flowers, and I got a little carried away...

Some might say that it's not very fashionable of me to wear a white dress before Easter, but I haven't worn this dress in a few years, and when I ran across it in my closet I thought it looked just like a white doily, perfect for Valentine's Day!

Maybe this is weird, but whenever I get a bouquet of flowers, I always break them up into several arrangements right away ... as you can see in the picture above. I'm no Eddie Ross, but I do enjoy pretending to be an expert in floral arrangement every now and then:)

Dress: Mango

Bracelets: Assorted bangles

Shoes: H&M

Earrings: Vintage - they belonged to my Gran:)

Here's a close-up of the shoes. 

The best part about turning one large arrangement into three smaller ones is that you get to enjoy your flowers all over the house! Here are a few of them sitting in the adorable hobnail pitcher that my little sister Lizzie gave me for Christmas:)

I saved a single rose to put on my desk.

And this little bunch has moved to the kitchen window since I took this picture. They looked so sweet and cheery in the morning sunlight today:)

HAPPY (belated) VALENTINE'S DAY!

a bit about the new design

Lately I just can't get enough of ads, illustrations, borders and fonts from the 1920's and 30's, and I decided to overhaul my blog design (again!) in the style of an ad from that era. Here are a few things I noticed about the ads that I tried to incorporate into the blog's new look:

sunbursts...

LOTS of different fonts...

(the fonts I used for the banner and new buttons all came from fontspace, under "art deco". Click here to download them for yourself!)

And the beautiful and unique color schemes! I love the mustard yellow in the ad below. 

And here we have an ad by General Electric, showing us how useful it is to have several outlets per room. That way you can read in bed, curl your hair, vacuum, and even turn lights off and on right by the door! Oh, the convenience! Aren't the colors lovely? Pink, orange, cobalt blue and turquoise, all in one room? Yes, please.

Of course, having the new design means I won't be needing my silhouette buttons any more. If any of you have use for them, just send me an email at whitewaxflower@gmail.com and I'd be more than happy to send you the file. I'd love for them to go to good homes;)

In other news, in my most recent Jigsaw post, Moe commented that I should decorate him according to the holidays. I embraced this idea whole-heartedly, and bedecked him with paper hearts for eyes like on those silly retro cartoons. I already know what he'll be wearing for Easter, too!

And finally, and I say this with a bit of embarrassment because I know some people think OOTD's are lame, today I'm posting my first-ever OOTD post (that's "Outfit of the Day", in fancy fashion-blogger talk). This isn't actually my outfit from today, it's my outfit from Monday, when I had fancy places to be.

necklace: vintage

shirt/belt: Anne Taylor Loft

skirt: H&M

shoes: vintage

PS  Re: my byline in the banner ... just in case anyone was wondering, I'm not really a detective, but I do plan to be just like Nancy Drew when I grow up.

Hope you guys like the new look!

Copying Kate

I was doing a little shopping this weekend when I spotted these absolutely adorable flats in the window of Kate Spade. If you want the real thing they'll set you back $250, but I'm a bit on the short side (5'3'') and prefer to wear heels, so I began plotting how I could get the shoes, plus a heel, minus the hefty price tag.

I started with these basic tan pumps that I bought for $14.99 (originally $49.99) at Ross.

Then I headed over to Michaels for the following supplies, which cost about $20 

• small wood rectangles
• assorted clear jewels
• glue
• gold leaf
• wire

I painted the wood pieces and waited for them to dry.

Then I glued the wood to the shoes and secured them down with wire until the glue had dried thoroughly.

I used a spare piece of wood to plan my jewel-layout. I did the above design on the right shoe, and a mirror-image of the same design on the left shoe.

Et voila! I'm quite pleased with them. I was worried they'd fall apart right away and I'd be leaving a trail of bling behind me everywhere I went, but so far everything has stayed put! Now we'll have to see how they hold up after an evening of dancing out on the town with my husband:) That will be the real test!

speakers and wires and tri-pods, oh my!

I promise I'm not slowly trying to turn this into a fashion blog or anything, but I was so blown away by the amazing prices at H&M recently that I just had to mention them to you guys, in case any of you are in need of some cute basics! This skirt was only SIX DOLLARS, and the shirt was only 8 dollars! Crazy, right? I got the skirt in stripes and in black, and I got the shirt in gray and in white. And just for the record, H&M isn't paying me to say any of this ... I just get really excited about cheap, cute clothes, haha:)

And I just wanted to say again: thank you guys so, so, so, so, SO much for all the kind words about my hair. You guys have nooooooo idea how much your sweet compliments meant to me ... I read them all over and over and over! Cutting all that hair off wasn't easy. When they put it up in the "donation" ponytails and got ready to snip it off I closed my eyes and buried my face in my hands until it was over! But I'm so excited to be able to donate alllllll that hair, and thanks to all of you I'm feeling very secure about my new 'do! And, as you can see in the photo above, I can even ditch the Audrey look and style it into a pretty sweet 'hawk when I feel like it;) LOL

And now on to something more house-related, I have a confession to make: While I'd love to be able to claim that the wall behind our sofa looks this picturesque all the time, the reality is that it most often looks like this ...

We don't have an entertainment center, so all of our DVDs and video games stay in this library dresser you see below, our TV stays in the guest bedroom....

and we use a projector to watch TV downstairs. Which is AWESOME, because it's like having a 100 inch TV screen in our living room whenever we want, but the problem is that without an entertainment center, the shelves behind our couch are constantly covered in speakers, tripods, etc.


What do YOU guys do with all of your TV-and-movie-watching gadgets? Do any of you have pictures of your living room set-up on your blog that you could link me to in the comments? I'm looking for solutions, here!