Christine

I feel like this outfit has both a CHRIStmas vibe and ValenTINE vibe... a CHRISTINE vibe, if you will (which is my name). Since I'm already being a nerd and blathering on about my name, can I tell you that I love anagrams? I do. Did you know if you rearrange all the letters in "Christine" you can spell "nice shirt"... just sayin'...

Shirt - Target

Belt - thrifted
Skirt - thrifted Talbots
Tights - Target
Shoes - Seychelles

For when I inevitably get cold... asymmetrical Esprit sweater from high school...

P.S. My Lasik appointment on Friday went great! I've got a date with a laser on March 24! Wahoo!

Mr. Leather... the contest

Yes, folks, I am off to the Mr. Leather contest at a local gay bar... oddly I had MANY appropriate outfits to choose from. I'm pretty excited, it should be super fun! Besides, I always feel better about myself after a night out at the gay bar. For some reason gay men seem to flock to me like the salmon of Capistrano. I guess it's because I always dress up and I'm sassy. Anyhoodle, I'll be back Monday (though I suspect NOT with photos since they probably won't be appropriate.)

Necklace - Claire's (from when I was Little Orphan Annie for Halloween years ago)

T-shirt - Target

Skirt - thrifted vintage

Tights - TJ Maxx

Clogs - Zigi Soho

Side shot so you can see the very important gold chains:

Sometimes I worry that some of high school students from my work will find this blog and then I will have to stop swearing and blathering on about gay bars... luckily that has not happened yet!  Also, I am aware that no one will notice or care what I wear because they will all be looking at the beefy men parading around in leather harnesses... 

Not quite a Cosby sweater

I'm generally not into much '80s stuff, but for some reason I love this vintage sweater! Maybe because it reminds me of stuff my mom and aunts wore when I was a kid?

Glasses - Prada

Sweater - thrifted Leon Levin
Scarf - TJ Maxx
Jeans - thrifted The Limited
Shoes - thrifted Target

Last night I went to the Best New Bands 2010 show at First Avenue... I know, I'm still a walking death trap and shouldn't be staying out until 1:30am on a school night, but it's one of my favorite shows of the year and I already had tickets! Plus, you can't beat $7 for seven awesome bands (Ok fine, five awesome bands and two shitty bands, in my opinion.) Anyway I'll be able to sleep in tomorrow since we don't have school (the end of the semester is today!) The only thing I have to do tomorrow is go to my Lasik consultation at 1pm, wahoo! Hopefully I will be a candidate and end my 23 years of wearing contacts and glasses sooooon!

A $100 shine on a $3 pair of boots

That's a quote from Bill Murray in Stripes, a fine '80s Army flick, FYI...

Glasses - Prada

Shirt - thrifted vintage
Skirt - ? No tags and it's from high school
Ballet flats - Mudd

The VERY IMPORTANT back of the shirt... it's glorious!

I LOVE this shirt. An insanely large amount. It's kinda difficult to figure out how to wear though... last time I wore it's with black cropped pants, but now it's was too cold for that! Today is my first day back at work, so I decided to wear this shirt because it's the softest and most comfortable thing on Earth, it seriously must have been washed a million times by it's previous owner because Army shirts are STIFF when they are new. Throw in a jersey skirt and it's like I'm secretly still in pajamas! OK, one more picture of the back... look at all the cute fabrics that are hand-sewn on!

 

I think this shirt is one of the first things I would try to save in a fire... I love it that much!  I just wish I knew who owned it before me... I can just barely make out his name on the pocket, it says "GARBER."

Saved by Saturday

Ooooh, I just remembered I have two Saturday outfits to show you!

Saturday, 1-15-11...Went to a pub crawl on a converted school bus for a birthday celebration...

Glasses - Prada

Sweater - GAP

Lace shirt - thrifted Target sample

Skirt - Modcloth

Tights - DKNY

Socks - Target

Boots - Seychelles

Saturday, 1-22-11... worked artist check-in at Midway Contemporary Art's Monster Drawing Rally, met Miles Mendenhall and did not recognize him which I thought was pretty ironic and fitting...

Glasses - Prada

Dress - Target GO International

Tights - Target

Boots - Seychelles

I'll be back to work tomorrow, but we have Friday off work, so I only have a two day work week! Wahoo! I'm already feeling better thanks to the antibiotics, but I slept so long and so hard I hurt my neck! Oops!

P.S.  I got bored of my plain grey blog after nearly three years... so I'm adding in one of my other obsessions... honeycomb! So sorry if things are changing a bit around here and temporarily looking wonky!

My hazy lung

Sorry dudes, I've got walking pneumonia. Remember when I was sick 13 days ago? Well I never really got better and it turned worse all of a sudden. No biggie, at least it's only in my right lung this time, so old lefty is keeping me oxygenated. As awesome as it would be to put up a picture of me in my PJs, I'm not gonna, so here is the dapper gent who lives on my fireplace (along with my vintage Girl Scout issued binoculars.) I should be back Wednesday (thank you antibiotics!). In the mean time I'm spending a few days in bed, wincing every time I breathe. It's phenomenal. Toodles!

Negative Nancy, Chipper Christine

It is -16F (-27C) out right now without even factoring in the wind chill, so there are MANY hidden layers going on today.  It's ok Minneapolis, I still love you. You are America's Best Bike City (according to Bicycle Magazine) and allegedly the Gayest City in America (according to The Advocate). So I will forgive you for being a frozen tundra, but let's try to get up to a reasonable and pleasant zero degree temperature, okay?

 Hair scarf - thrifted
Cowl - knitted by me
Cardigan - thrifted Land's End
Blouse - thrifted Kenneth Cole
Jeans - GAP
Boots - Rockport

It's almost the weekend! Tonight I'm hanging out with my friend Jeanette whom I love but don't see often. We're totally having a sleepover and I'm super excited! Saturday I'm off to volunteer at the Monster Drawing Rally (which has nothing to do with monsters. It's a fund-raiser where a bunch of artists draw for four hours and you watch them and then you can buy pieces right as they finish them for $35!)  If you live in Minneapolis you should come, I'll be there the whole time (doing artist check-in, not drawing!) and it's super fun! Last year they had awesome brandy-spiked cider and a fire pit and most importantly CHEAP ORIGINAL ART! Then Sunday it's FOOTBALL (I grew up in Chicago then moved to Wisconsin... the Packers vs. Bears border battle will never fail to thrill my heart even though I am now a Vikings fan.) Wahoo!

Simple seventies suede

Glasses - Prada

Cardigan - Daisy Fuentes

T-shirt - Target

Suede skirt - thrifted (during my blogger meet-up this summer!)

Tights - TJ Maxx (I assure you they are BROWN not black!)

Shoes - eBay (brand is worn off, all I can see is "Made in Brazil")

Shoes:

Have you noticed I've been wearing my glasses all week? It's going to continue until next Friday, when I have a doctor's appointment to see if I am a candidate for Lasik. I've had glasses since first grade and contacts since sixth grade. My prescription is astronomical. Last year I ordered contacts from a big company online and after a few weeks they still hadn't arrived. I called them and they said they would be in soon, but they don't stock contacts that strong, they had to special order them from the factory. When I got these glasses the guy who worked there was giving me the schpeal about how they would be done in about an hour and then he looked at  my prescription and said they would be ready in a week and a half, after they special ordered my lenses. It sucks. So I'm stuck like this for two weeks and wearing my glasses gives me a headache because it is such a strain for my eyeballs to see the whole inch or so to where the lenses are. Plus wearing glasses all the time makes things difficult (running, reading Infinite Jest), impossible (putting on eyeliner, yoga), ridiculous (showering - spent several minutes this morning squinting at the floor of the white tub when I dropped the white soap) or dangerous (shaving legs - will either be hairy or lose a lot of blood). Ugh, I really hope I am a candidate for Lasik and can say goodbye to contacts and saline and foggy glasses when I come in from the cold forever!

Seahorse and sweater

Ok, first things first... a classic look... t-shirt, jeans, and a tattoo! When I posted this picture on my Facebook, my friend Julie referred to me as a "Redhead without a cause, if you will." Bwahahaha!

Yep, I went in to the Ink Lab last night to talk prices, size, etc. about my tattoo (which I have wanted for years, FYI, this was not on a whim!) and wound up getting it right then and there. No fanfare, no friends, no photos. Awesome. I'll show you guys a close-up once it's done healing, but you get the idea! Sorry, mom! This seahorse I drew is the first thing that I made a screen of when I first started screenprinting on my own (like 5-6 years ago?) I've wanted him tattooed for a while and when they started selling my shirts at the Walker, I decided I had to get him as a little reminder to believe in my silly little dreams.

I found this in the coat section of a thrift store but it's just a wool knit, so I vote it's made for indoor wear.

 Glasses - Prada
Cardigan - thrifted vintage Hark
T-shirt - Target
Jeans - Earnest Sewn
Shoes - thrifted Target

I've never bought Target shoes before because I am a shoe snob, but when I found these brand new Xhilaration shoes with the original tags still on at the thrift store for $3 - I couldn't resist!

Bye kids! I'm still spazzing out a bit over the tattoo! It's going to take some getting used to but I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at it!

SOMEthing

SOMETHING might have happened tonight and WHERE it happened might have been a tattoo shop...

Um, sorry, mom! I think I still have fewer tattoos than Tory (my litte bro, FYI). Pictures soon...

Black and tan... and brown

When I thrifted this sweater, I immediately knew I wanted to wear it with this dress and really hoped they would look as good together in real life as they did in my mind...

Glasses - Prada
Cardigan - thrifted Liz Claiborne

Dress - Rodarte for Target 

Tights - TJ Maxx

Shoes - Zigi Soho (DSW clearance)

Some pattern mixing detail and my $10 clogs (they were on super-clearance and I had a $20 off coupon!) The sweater is dark brown and tan and the dress is black and tan, the tights are dark brown and the shoes are black, FYI.

I had a relaxing day off yesterday, I spent most of it cleaning and organizing and I always feel much better after a good sprucing up... I also stopped by an Arc's Value Village since it was 50% off day (which was where I found today's cardigan, some vintage Pyrex bowls, and an original 1976 printing of...

for eighty cents! Shel Silverstein is the cutest!

Psst... everything in my etsy is still 25% off until Friday, so tell your friends, your readers, and your mama. Just follow the instructions at the end of this post! And thanks to everyone who's browsed and ordered, I'm slowly inching closer to a new Macbook!

Grey swan

There is something about this outfit that makes me feel like an off duty ballerina. I did take ballet for one year when I was about six and I only remember two things about it . One is my teacher Miss Vicki. She wore a teal letterman's sweater with a big white V on the left breast pocket every day and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  The other thing I remember is the recital. At some point all of us little ballerinas exited the stage during the performance and two of us at a time came running out and did a little pirouette move. When me and my partner ran on from the sides of the stage and did our simultaneous pirouette, the record started skipping. We both froze for a second and then just went, pirouette, pirouette, pirouette, pirouette, every time the record skipped. The crowd was cracking up at our little panic pirouettes! Someone fixed the record and we finished our little section and carried on. Yes, I am that old that a record skip ruined what surely would have been a long and illustrious career as a professional ballerina. 

Shirt - Some little shop in Seoul, Korea

Skirt - thrifted Liz Clairborne
Tights - Target
Shoes - Bakers 

Have a fabulous weekend internet! I 'm excited because I have Monday off for MLK day, but not that excited because I have a dentist appointment that morning. Otherwise my only plans are to go on a pub crawl on Saturday in Nordeast Minneapolis (no, I did not spell that wrong, it's Nordeast not Northeast) where I will be the "token straight girl" with my friend Amber and a huge group of lesbians. It's pretty fun cause whenever they get hit on at bars they can just shove the boys toward Amber and I and tell them we're the token straight friends and hitting on anyone else in the group is a lost cause. Wahoo!

Psst... didja see miss Tavi, the Style Rookie herself, wearing some Futurelint vintage again the other day? Yessssss.

A crash and a squeak

So Monday turned into The Worst Day Ever. In the afternoon I felt a tickle in my throat, by dinner it hurt to swallow, and by the bedtime it was so painful I couldn't sleep. So I figured I'd just watch some TV on my computer to lull me to sleep. Nope. My Macbook wouldn't turn on. Logic board = destroyed. So on Tuesday I woke up with a fever and went to urgent care to get tested for strep throat since it's been going around my school. Then I stopped to get my computer checked and my worst fears were realized when the nerds confirmed that my logic board did in fact bite the dust and it would cost $600 to fix (so it's not even worth fixing, at this point I may as well just buy a new one since mine is five years old and pretty beat-up anyway). Luckily I am cool and have an external hard drive so all my stuff is safe and can be transferred to the new computer. But now I'm freaking out about how I don't have $1000 laying around to buy a new Macbook. Wednesday I felt a bit better and today I'm back at work. Whenever I get sick I lose my voice for a day or two so I have this squeak as a voice. It's super embarrassing to answer the phone "Health office, Christine speaking..." when I have to squeak it out and I sound like I'm at death's door and should not be providing medical care to anyone except myself... I feel much better though, I just sound terrible! 

Necklace - thrifted
Sweater - Daisy Fuentes
Shirt - Anthropologie
Jeans - thrifted Banana Republic
Shoes - Madeline

Anyhoodle, I need to raise some funds for the computer and I also need to get some of this rack-o-vintage out of  my condo. So everything in my etsy shop is 25% off (not including shipping costs) until next Friday so shop away and enter "LOGICBOARD" in the instructions to seller part at check-out and I'll refund you the 25%! Wahoo!

8th grade all over again

I used to wear this sweater all the time in 8th grade.1995. I was a total Free People junkie. The arms were really annoying though. They were three layers thick, blue, and had multicolored letters on them that spelled out Free People. So I cut them off. Rebel, rebel. I also wore Dr. Marten's a lot in 8th grade (though not these ones, my feet were much smaller then). So anyway, today I am 29 going on 13.

 Vest - Free People (sweater from 8th grade, I cut the arms off years ago)
Black shirt - Target
Skirt - thrifted
Tights - TJ Maxx
Shoes - Dr. Marten's

I only took one photo to show the back of the vest and it turned out blurry - oops! You get the idea though, yes? 

To really get in 8th grade mode, now I just need to spend the whole day writing notes full of drawings to my friend Annie and then fold it up in a really elaborate manner.

Pinky

I do not wear pink. I never have. I mean, I own a few items of pink clothing, but generally I look bad in pink so I just don't buy pink stuff.  I looked over the past year of outfits on my flickr, and only twice did I wear pink. The pink pants and the dress with hot pink sequins. That's it! For the whole year! I guess this is a bit of a coraly pink but whatever. It counts as wearing pink in my book.

Collar - thrifted
Thermal shirt - Target
Skirt - thrifted The Lodge
Ombre tights - Target
Shoes - MIA

Considering how much I dislike wearing pink, I sure do love this outfit (and the other two pink outfits from this year, actually!) Tomorrow I'm going to the Farewell Show at the 501 Club and I'm super excited... it's a great music venue and my favorite spot for brunch... their falafel hash was amazing! I am sad they are closing though! Otherwise, I suspect the weekend will involve lots of football watching and etsy listing. Have a good one!

Accordion pleats

I realized I haven't worn a skirt or dress in like a month (with the exception of Christmas and New Year's Eve)... it's just been so darn cold that I keep wearing pants! Enough is enough, so I threw on this long accordion pleated skirt (plus tights, cropped knit leggings, and silk slip for warmth) and went out to face the tundra. I'm not in love with these shoes with this outfit, but they were the best I could do for closed toe shoes. None of my brown shoes were the color of my cardigan (they were all too dark chocolate brown or too yellowy brown and it just looked odd... this baby blue color was also impossible to match and black shoes looked too boring.)

 Cardigan - Paul Frank via Opitz Outlet
Tank - little boys Fruit of the Loom
Brooch - vintage shoe clip
Pleated skirt - thrifted
Tights - Target
Shoes - Seychelles

Detail on the top of the back of the cardigan (Sorry it's kinda blurry. Taking a photo of your own back? Difficult.)

Seeing Red-Orange

Today is one of those days. Already. I am grouchy and tired and it is too cold. Getting up when it is still pitch black outside and turning on the news to see it's -3F is getting old. And I have three more months of it. I was hoping a super warm and soft cardigan and bright pants would help turn my day around, so we'll see. My day may also get turned around if I get to go watch our school's staff vs. high-school basketball team game this afternoon at the Target Center. I'm pretty sure the staff will win because one member of the staff is a former Harlem Globetrotter, our principal is playing and he's 6'8" and another teacher played college ball and is 6'10"... sorry 16 year old boys, you are going down.

Yes, my pants are the exact color of Crayola's Red-Orange crayon.

Cardigan - thrifted

Brooches - thrifted
T-shirt - Target
Pants - thrifted J.Crew
Clogs - thrifted Carlos Santana

Shoes and pins:

Why in the world is Carlos Santana making women's shoes? I had no idea he did until I thrifted these clogs last year. So strange.

EDIT: I do get to go to the basketball game! The kids are super excited to play on the same court as where the MN Timberwolves play and I'm super excited because I have to bring my EMS bag...

which matches my pants! Now I'm double awesome/nerdy!

"So expensive."

I was antique shopping with my mom the day after Christmas and after digging through a big rack of vintage clothes decided to buy only one dress. My mom said, "I really like that beaded cardigan, too bad it's so expensive." I hadn't even seen this awesome cardigan that was displayed on a dress form! It's sad that we both thought $30 was expensive... I realize that is the price of an average cardigan at say, Target, as opposed to this vintage hand-beaded one so we had nothing to complain about!  What can I say? I guess being frugal is in my genes! Luckily I was feelin' cashy since my grandma had just given me some Christmas money, so now it's mine-all-mine!

Glasses - Prada
Cardigan - antique shop in Hebron, IL
Tank - little boys Fruit of the Loom
Jeans - GAP
Shoes - thrifted Enzo Angiolini

Cardigan detail shot... there are sooooooooo many seed beads! It's insane! The tag inside says "Gene Shelly's Boutique Internationale. Hand decorated in Hong Kong."

Yes I am wearing this fancy pants beaded cardigan with a little boys undershirt. Some things never change.

The grind

Back to work, back to regularly scheduled programming... I can't complain though, after 16 days off, I'm ready for the routine again! I had a fabulous last day off yesterday, watching football and eating chili with 11 boys (why am I still the only girl who likes football amongst our friends, why?!?) I had a major "To Do" list for break, and honestly, I only did the three easiest things and nothing more. Oh well, I'll just have to be extra motivated this week!

 Headband - antique store
Cardigan - hand-me-down from a friend
T-shirt - Target
Jeans - GAP
Boots - Timberland