Nearly Nude

I bought this TopShop shirt off Ebay a long time ago - it was one of those totally impulse "bids" as the buttons on the back reminded me of what Holly Golightly wore in Breakfast at Tiffany's. You know the one, the Tuxedo shirt with the buttons down the back? (Ok so she had put it on backwards).



Anyhoo, wearing my nude platforms and with my new mermaid hair (what happens when I sleep in braids), I thought this breezy nude shirt would be perfect for our balmy, end of May weather.











In other news, I am having a clothing swap at my place tomorrow...I'm hoping to hold it by the pool (supposed to be SUNNY!) and plan to make heaps of Sangria. Mmmm, free clothes, clearing out my closet, sunshine, swimming, tanning and booze...sounds like a great saturday to me!

OH YEAH...

The winner of the blog exchange link is ASIAN CAJUNS! Congrats - now, tell me, is it the silver belt, gold belt or bangles of which you desire? Email me your address (on the side) and let me know. Woot woot!

PS the links will go up tonight, I was planning to do it at work today but our office seems to be in limbo at the moment....gotta look busy!

PPS Wanted to let you all know that I successfully went one full month without buying anything online! Woot! Now that's kinda broken lol (celebratory purchases, natch) but I'm probably going to do another month :)

Hope you all are having a wonderful Friday!

Hippie Hair

To answer your questions about my hair :P

I have inherited my mom's fine, thin blonde hair and it has been the bane of my existence my whole life. OK, that's an exageration. LATELY it has become the bane of my existence.

My hair gets damaged easily. It's very flat on top and string on the bottom. I have to wash my hair everyday because my scalp is super oily. It has a slight wave to it, so if I don't brush it after washing it it can look like this:



Which isn't so bad but it does make my hair look shorter than it is. Anyhoo, I've always had longish hair, like this:





Until Jan 2006 when I did the big chop and cut it to this:



At this point I had lost a lot of weight, so I felt that I could pull off short hair for once in my life. I enjoyed my hair at this length because it looked good curly too, like this:



Anyway, it eventually grew back (once I got past the awkward phase) to this:



Before I decided to cut it again, last April 2008 to this, (haha I love Kaiti's bf Greg's face in this pic):



And ever since then, it hasn't really grown...I had it cut again in November and in January but just a little bit. Anyway, big mistake, my hair just doesn't want to move.

So I was uber bored of having gross, in-between hair. I wanted it LONG again but I knew I would have to wait forever...or I wanted it short again, in which I would soon regret it. I just didn't like this shoulder-length blahness.

And so, I decided on getting extensions. I knew they were mighty expensive so I saved some money, researched the best places in Vancouver (ironically it's called Vancouver's Best Hair Extensions) for some that didn't ruin my already damaged hair.

Carolyn Kind, who runs the business out of her adorable studio apartment, just 4 blocks away from me, did a fantastic job with my Euro-locs. The real Russian hair she purchased was a fantastic match too, in terms of my real colour and and the way my hair behaves.

Euro-locs aren't weaved in, they aren't fused in and they aren't glued in, so the damage to your hair is minimal. The strands are applied to your own hair with wax and then sealed with a small metal clip. They don't hurt at all getting them put in, and they don't hurt after.

The extensions will remain in my hair for about 3 months - I should be getting a touch-up in July because it is normally for clips or strands to fall out but so far, it's all pretty stuck in there!

I'm still getting used to it. I've never had hair THIS long before and not this thick. The texture is a little rougher than my own hair, so I have to start investing in more anti-frizz gels and sprays - my own hair was too limp to handle them.

There are some things that I have to be mindful of...I can't blowdry everyday, I have to sleep with it in a bun, ponytail or braid - I've been doing the braid a lot and my hair has been nice and wavy. Wind is not my friend but luckily even if a clip is exposed, it matched my hair colour so it's hard to see. I can't just brush my hair, but must hold the hair with one hand first and then brush, so I don't pull out the clips.

People do look at me differently and not just the people I know, though everyone at work kept remarking how they never realized how long my hair was! I guess because I had been wearing it up for a long time. I feel different wearing it to, younger and more casual and have a feeling I will be inclined to dress way more BOHO than usual this summer!

I thought that longer hair would help with confidence and it kind of has (it gives me leverage) but by no means does it make me feel any thinner lol, as I stupidly thought it would. I still feel like a chunky girl, just one with long hair! At least that's something...








These shoes are the Harajuka Girls ones I scored at Winners for $60CND...just saw them on ASOS for $134USD - finally, I win at Winners! Dress: Forever 21; Necklace: French Connection UK; Bag: Some store in Italy; Ring: ASOS

PS - Blog contest is still going on, don't have the time to do the draw today so it will be tomorrow. And if you forget the rules of the contest: A) link me to your blog and I will link you (will be updating all my new links tomorrow - yaya, so excited for new blogs!) and B) pick your prize! (see previous post)

Neckties + Necklaces

Awhile back, I saw this gorgeous necklace on Cherry Blossom Girl's blog; it was a heart drawn up in the way that DaVinci would have favoured. She told me the stores name Paraphernalia and its location (Etsy). Well I bought two necklaces from there and kinda of forgot about it. A month later, no necklaces. I look up the store to complain and it had been removed from Etsy!

Irrate (this was my first time buying on Etsy), I contacted the website and the old owner. Etsy couldn't help, but I located the store at it's new location and the owner promised me they would refund my money and explain what happened. Well, they never explained what happened to my necklaces but they did refund me and we both went on our merry little ways.

Then last Friday, I come home to find a small package in the mail. This was very odd because it had been exactly one month since I had purchased anything online, so I had no idea who was sending me stuff.

Turns out it was the store - they refunded me AND still shipped (eventually) my necklaces! What a swell bunch of guys - and what awesome necklaces (click to enlarge).



Necktie, anyone?


Mad Hatter

So, onto the Blog Link Exchange contest: what would you rather have as a prize? A black elastic belt with gold pyramid clips OR with silver pyramid clips? The pic below is me wearing the silver ones:


Or a set of tropical, stone-like bangles from Forever 21 (white/bone colour with pinkish ikat like designs, very tribal) don't have a pic but I promise you they are nice)?

BTW - if you are wondering about my hair in the Mad Hatter picture above, yes I got extensions over the weekend. They are fabulous, real hair and fooling everyone left and right. But more on that later!



PS - if you can't enter the contest because we are already exchanging links, not to fear! My 500th post is coming up and for that I am giving away TWO amazing dresses (one GoJane or ASOS and one Love YAYA). Please note, I am notoriously slow with shipping though lol - Amelia and CopperOranges, hold tight, they are coming!

Inspired By: The Steve Miller Band

The Steve Miller Band is classified as country to some, maybe even folk. But I consider SMB to be straight-up 70's rock with an alfalfa twist. The perfect music to blast from your iPod as you cruise down the open-road.

That said, I had to make SMB part of my road-trip music (along with a heavy dose of The Eagles, Dire Straights and...Elton John?), and it wasn't until a few months ago when I heard his Greatest Hits that I realized how many songs I already knew and recognized....

Swington, Jungle Love, Jet Airliner, Take the Money and Run, Fly like an Eagle, The Joker ("Some people call me Maurice *whistle*"), to name but a few.

Of course, you'll probably recognize the scarf and belt from my previous post. Did I get up that morning with Steve Miller on my mind? No, in fact, this is the same day as my previous post, I just changed out of the green dress since I was tired of flashing my butt to everyone everytime the wind gusted up. But as we cruised along back country-roads while listening to Rock'n Me ("I went from Phoenix, Arizona, all the way to Tacoma..."), I looked down at my maxi and thought, yup this seems right.
















Dress and Beaded Sandals: Target; Belt and scarf: Forever 21;

~~~~~~~~~~~~PS I'm making things a little more interesting regarding the link exchange. Let me know in the comments below if you wanna exchange links (to those who don't know: I put your blog link on my blog, mine goes on yours etc) and I will enter you in a contest to win something rad - what is it exactly? YOU decide! Look for my next post where I will be giving away a prize, you decide which one out of three I should give (warning: nothing major, just something fun and cool...could be clothes, could be cheap jewelry!) - oh and if you asked to do an exchange in the last post, you're already entered :) - if you haven't and you want to, get to it, I'll be doing the draw Thursday! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pacific Winds

Last Sunday morning, we popped into my car and zoomed out of Portland, sad to leave but eager to get a taste of the Oregon Coast.



After spending a good hour raiding Target, where I picked up a periwinkle maxi dress, as well as some sandals and tons of makeup from Jemma Kid, Napolean and Pixi (their concealer palette is AMAZING) and my bf finally got some new shorts, we pulled off of the busy I-5 and hit the small highway heading to the coast. It was hot, very green, with a big blue sky - perfect weather, perfect moments. We even saw Elk on the side of the road (must have come from the nearby town of Elk City).



When we hit Newport and the coast though, BLAM! It all changed in a second. The closer our car got to the ocean, the foggier and windier it got. The temperature dropped from about 85 to 70 in minutes and half of the town was sunny, while the other half looked like it came from the film The Mist.



Regardless, we soon found ourselves on NYE Beach, a sprawling expense of misty air, howling winds and suprisingly warm, soft sand. My dress blew up several times and I was ever-so glad I wore boy short undies underneath!

























Dress + Scarf + Belt: Forever 21; Sandals: GoJane; Bag: Mango MNG; Jacket: Express

I have to say, Oregon is one hell-of a friendly state. This day alone, I got four different compliments from random strangers on my outfit! At home, people would never be so nice!

For more information about the town of Newport and more pictures from our visit
there, please click onMy Travel Blog Link

PS - I'm adding to my links this week, so if anyone wants to do a link exchange just let me know!!

Portland's Saturday Market

Last Saturday we arrived in Portland to some gloriously hot and sizzling weather, punctuated by an endless blue sky and Willamette River-fresh breezes. Not knowing exactly where to go (I knew about Powell's Used Books, the infamous bookstore that is the size of a city block) we decided to just hop on the MET rail system (free heading into the downtown core) and see where we ended up.



With luck on our side, I picked the Skidmore Fountain stop as the place to embark on our journey, and what a fantastic place it was! We ended up smack in the middle of the vibrant and pulsing Portland Saturday Market, where cool clothes, bags and hippie accessories abounded at every turn.






Bought the skirt/dress! Gotta support the locals :)


Keep Portland Weird!

Admist the chaos, were local Portlanders who mesmerized me at every turn with their unique and eclectic style. If the Sartorialist ever makes it up to the Pacific Northwest, Portland has to be on his list - no offense to Seattle or Vancouver but I found Portland so much more zesty. Everyone looked so fresh and fabulous, from emo hipsters, to moonforest children, to colour-coordinated families. I wanted to become a street-style photographer right there and then but was way too shy (what exactly do you ask these people?), so I snuck a few pics where I could:


These long, slouchy bags were everywhere - and how awesome is the other girl's tattoo?


Monochrome Family Brights


And to think that I thought Hendrix was dead...


Please check out that awesome mess behind me :P


The market also served alcohol (how perfect was that Corona?), had live music and an amazing array of eateries.









Though we ended up spending more time than we should have at the market (and missed the bookstore as well as the outstanding amount of vintage clothing stores that Portland happily posesses), I feel like I got the perfect taste of Portland in such a short time. I'm already plotting my next trip there!


Dress: Unknown; Scarf: Forever 21; Woven Bangle: French Connection; Fringe Bag: Miele Bianco; Cork Wedges: Michael Kors

To read about where we ate in Portland (highly recommended), please click onMy Travel Blog Link