wedding bells.

Last month, I made my way up to my hometown, Ottawa ON to attend my sister's wedding. I was her Maid of Honor so I was right by her side throughout the day and tried to help out with whatever she needed me to do. It was no small task as I was just getting filled in on the day's schedule and events that were to ensue and of course, I wanted to do a good job and relieve any stress from my sister. Well the day went off without a hitch and my sister looked stunning on her very special day. 

These pictures turned out so great! This last picture kills me though. We're so hip. Oh and the fellow to the left in both group shots is my big brother! It was so nice to spend that day with both my siblings.

All pictures courtesy of Julie Butler Photography

baby blue.

As promised, here is my outfit I wore to a special preview of the BHLDN Fall/ Winter 2011 line. I wanted to go feminine, romantic and just wear something simple so that I'd be comfortable during the evening.

details: top & skirt via Kensie (no longer available)| thrifted shoes & clutch| belt, via Gap| Earrings & ring, via Monet

Alright folks, I'm out of here for the weekend! We're taking an impromptu trip to Vermont to visit some friends. I've scheduled a very important post for Saturday so make sure you check back tomorrow...

BHLDN Preview

Last night I had the pleasure to get a sneak peak of BHLDN's new Fall/Winter 2011 line. For those of you wondering what the heck?? BHLDN is pronounced "Beholden" and is Anthropologie's Bridal line. So many lovely gowns, capelets, bridesmaid dresses and wedding favors all in one place. I was quite smitten as I've never really been in a position to shop for such beautiful things.

Before I get to the pictures I took last night, I need to post these of the invitation they sent. Lovely watercolor paintings in a paperdoll style. Aren't these gorgeous?

Here are a few pictures from the night.

I met up with a few other bloggers, Veronika, Kendi, Sara as we mingled, had a few drinks and gawked at all the beautiful dresses surrounding us. Don't worry, I did get the chance to get some full outfit pictures and those will be posted shortly, I just didn't want to overwhelm you with photos! Thank you to the lovely ladies behind the BHLDN line and a special thank you to Dana for inviting me!

For more pictures of the soiree, please visit: BFANYC . {You might even get a sneak peak of my outfit!}

Goodwill shopping.

I'm attempting to do my very first post through my phone. I've been all set up with the Blogger app for a while now but had yet to use it. Since my camera died on me and I only had phone camera pictures i thought this was as good a time as any to start.
After dropping my mom off at the airport on Monday, me and my pal, Maresa decided to take a drive up to Queens at check out the goodwill distribution center. Basically, where clothes go to die. Now this isn't your usual thrifting. Think, large bins filled with the most random stuff in no particular order. It was quite the feat but I came out with a bag full of goodies that is currently waiting to be put through a wash, oh the joys of vintage.

vegan pesto.

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend we finally made some pesto sauce. We got a whole bunch of basil from the Farmer's Market and incorporated it with some from our own basil plant. It takes a lot of Basil!!!

What you'll need:

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts, or walnuts. {We found that Trader Joe's was the cheapest option for pine nuts}
2-3 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of salt, {we used sea salt}
1 cup of packed fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of vegan parmesan (optional)
1/3 cup of parsley (optional)

What you do (scroll past pictures):

1. Toast the pine nuts on medium heat until they turned a golden brownish color.

2. Add the nuts, garlic and half of the olive oil in a food processor/chopper and pulse for about a minute. You want the nuts to be fully chopped. 

3. Stir the contents of the processor and add your basil leaves and the rest of the olive oil. Pulse for another few minutes until all ingredients are pureed together. 

4. Taste the pesto sauce and modify to your liking. We played around with the salt, garlic and vegan parmesan cheese a little bit until we were happy with the end results. We even did one batch adding parsley as an ingredient. It highly depends on your personal tastes which means this is a hard recipe to screw up!

5. Depending on how much basil you have, you might need to do this in a few batches. Transfer the first batch to a bowl and continue until all you basil is used. Once finished, store pesto sauce in an air tight container. It should last up to a week in the fridge, or you might want to freeze a portion for later! 

hot weekend.

So it was kind of bad timing that my mom had to experience the heat wave we had here in NYC {and I'm sure everywhere else on the east coast or south} over the weekend. We have a/c in our apartment but this heat called for extra back ups which we I think we worked out for indoors but it was still unbearable to be outside for long periods of time. We tried to make the best of it and still managed to wander over to a few places but since it was so hot, I barely took out my camera out of sheer lazyness. Here is my feeble attempt at a recap.

We tried out a new bar that is just a few blocks from our place, called Black Star. We were quite taken with how nice the servers are, a rarity in this neighborhood and the cocktails were delicious! {pics.1-2.}

We finally made a batch of pesto, recipe to follow later this week.{pics.3.} On Sunday we strolled around Williamsburg, making sure to hit up the Brooklyn Flea, as well as the Artists & Fleas, a lesser known vintage market gem in the neighborhood that's worth checking out. {pics.4-5.}

mustard skirt.

Details: tee via ex bf (reworked)| skirt via caramelized vintage| belt via Value Village| shoes c/o Seychelles| bracelets mix of beacon's closet & F21| necklace via beacon's closet.

Just a really quick outfit post for you as I'm spending some quality time with my mom. She's visiting us until Monday so we've been out and about in this crazy heat trying to keep cool. We just came back from seeing Jersey Boys on Broadway (great musical!) and tomorrow will probably hit up the Brooklyn Flea. I'm having so much fun showing my mom around our neighborhood too. Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far and keeping cool. I'll be back on Tuesday!

concrete love.

My sister got her wedding pictures! I just received a handful so far but once I get my hands on a few more I'll post them on the blog! It was the most beautiful wedding and I'm not just saying that because she's my sister.

selling stuff.

I wanted to do a follow-up post regarding selling clothing & accessories to re-sales shops. The most common thing I hear from friends and readers is: I brought my stuff to {insert store name here} and they didn't take anything. It can sometimes be discouraging when this happens since this your clothes! clothing that you paid for! and have worn proudly flaunting your outfit. And now this store full of other peoples clothes deemed all of it unfit to buy. Ouch.

Here are a few tips & things to keep in mind when bringing clothing to resale shops. Please keep in mind that these are simply things that I've found have helped me in the past, and picked up along the way. If there are no resale shops in your town, you could also consider consigment shops, what's the difference?

Resale shop: They will go through your clothing, pick out what they want, price it right there, and you can leave with either your cash or store credit on the spot, usually taking the store credit works in your favor as they'll give you approx, 55% from the retail price, and cash is usally 35%

Consigment: They will go through your clothing, price it, then put it out on the selling floor for a period of usually 3 months to sell. If it doesn't sell, they will call you to pick up or donate. If your clothing sold, you can pick up either your cash/cheque or store credit at the end of the month.

1. Prepare what you're going to bring in ahead of time. It's always good to call the shop beforehand to see what season they are buying, {i.e if it's August, are they still buying for Summer or do they just want Fall items?} This will help you decide what to focus on when cleaning out your closet and save you from hauling a whole bunch of items they won't even look at.

2. Presentation is everything. Make sure all clothing is clean, no buttons are missing {i'm guilty of this one}, shirts are buttoned up, zippers are zipped. You can even go as far as ironing out the wrinkles. Just think, you are selling this. Would you buy something that looks like it was just picked up from the back of a closet and posted on etsy?

3. Seasonal items only. Shops do not hold goods in their backrooms or storage to put out next season. They only want in season pieces, unless it's an amazing,-never-been-worn-with-tags-obscure-designer-deadstock-piece. Yeah, didn't think so. So make sure you're not dropping off Summer items in Winter or vice-versa.

4. Less is more. Now this is a weird one but I found that if you're bringing a full garbage bag they are less likely to take anything rather than simply bringing say, an Ikea blue bag or smaller. Maybe it's less intimidating to sort through? All I know is that people bringing in garbage bags pulled out from the car trunks, are usually hauling it back in. try to keep it to a two bag maximum.

5. Don't get discouraged.  If they don't take as many items as you'd like or any for that matter, it could be that the buyer that looked through your stuff doesn't have the same tastes as you. This is extremely unfair and shouldn't have any effect on what they pick but unfortunately it does happen. Try back in a week or two and most likely there will be a different buyer working and things might work out better.

Keep in mind that resale/consigment shops always have a certain amount of styles that they can/can't buy. For instance, if they try to have a mix of vintage & modern clothing and they just so happen to be overloaded with vintage, they may not buy any of yours at the time. This also goes with dresses vs. skirts vs. tops. If they don't take any of your skirts lets say, it might just be that they overbought skirts and need to sell through their invetory before they can buy more. In these cases, just bring them back next time you go and they might be in a different spot to take them.

Hopefully this helps you guys a little bit. And any more tips and tricks that you may have are definitely welcomed! Just comment below for other to see!

high winds.

Details: dress via Buffalo Exchange| shoes c/o Blowfish shoes| belt via UO|

sunglasses via Kensie| vintage slip via Value Village| necklace via Beacon's Closet

This outfit was a no brainer for my Monday morning. After all of your comments from seeing it in a pile on my bed, I just wanted to show you how great it is. The wind really caught me by surprise. Some of the pictures we took were pretty funny as I was trying to just play it cool and not crack a smile when it got a little out of control. Well, not totally out of control since I was wearing a slip underneath { I say NO to see through dresses}. I've been a fan of longer length skirts for a while now but you know, when you're 5'2" and a half, these things don't always flatter. I gave it a try and with a little help from my Gimmiks, I think I could actually pull it off.

to me.

from me.

I love it when my online purchases come nicely wrapped up just like little presents. This one comes via Etsy shop Caramelized Vintage. Contents to be posted soon.

grocery list.

When I told Soner that I was going to bring my camera to the grocery store last night, he thought for sure that I'd lost it, no not my camera, like, going crazy. But, in my defense, since food is a topic of conversation on this blog, I thought why not start at the root? What do we buy on a regular grocery shopping run? Here's a peak into out cart.

Since we both follow a vegan diet we fill up on a lot of fruits and veggies. We get alot of greens from the Farmer's Market so they're not shown here. I also love picking up some snacks to keep handy at work like sesame snaps and strawberries. Oh and we never forget to bring our own bags! I have some that I brought back with me from a trip to India a few years ago that have zippers and are so handy. They're pretty much amazing. See? I'm not so crazy afterall.