Happy Holidays!

May your holidays be filled with love and family! Mine will be a good one with my two awesome boys...aren't they so cute together? We'll be doing lots of cuddling, eating, hanging out with family and just general re-laxation!!! Yay!

Have a wonderful Christmas and talk to you all soon!

Style Peek: floral top + black cardi + skinny jeans

Life kinda looks like this these days....like long cardigans and jeans and flowy tops that disguise excess holiday baking binges. Things are pretty routine and I'm counting down the days to 10 glorious days off work...these will be spent lounging at home in stretch clothes, hanging with Jack and Gus and celebrating Christmas with the families....AWESOME! Yoga has been giving me some relief and I've been allowing myself to lag off on my blogging, it's been nice. Did I mention that Jack started our massive bathroom renovation? Things are a little chaotic in the house but with chaos comes the joy of tile selection, paint colours and vanity searches...when he's done building it of course!

black cardigan - Gap (shop here)

floral top - Handmade by my sister

skinny jeans - American Eagle Outfitters (shop here)

black boots - Steve Madden (shop here)

I hope you're all well and I'm wishing you the happiest of holidays seasons! Thanks for always coming back to visit me...I love reading all your notes and comments. I continue to read the blogs, just more low key on the commenting. Life...I'm allowing myself permission to be less than perfect and it feels pretty amazing. You should too...

Style Peek: sapphire dress + mustard cardi + red belt

Sapphire + Mustard + Red? Oh yes. I was feeeling a little feisty and decided to throw them all together in one happy outfit! This is my new Modcloth dress and I love love it...it's so cute, comfy and vibrant...plus it will go four seasons! I topped it with my favourite mustard cardi plus this cute skinny tomato red woven belt. How's that for taking a risk?

You probably can't tell but it was so cold the day I wore this that I have on tights, leggings, butter socks AND my boots! Anything to be able to wear those dresses... :)

Sapphire for Hire dress - Modcloth (shop here)

mustard cardigan - Gap (shop similar)

red woven belt - American Eagle Outfitters (shop here)

charcoal leggings - Hue (shop here)

tall brown riding boots - Bare Traps via Famous Footwear (shop here)

Tell me...what's the craziest colour combo you've put together and loved?

Have an amazing day friends! Hope you're getting into the holiday spirit!

Style Peek: hearts dress + green tights + peep toe flats

Hey friends! How are you doing? My trip to Calgary was a blast but of course, now that I'm back into my routine it feels a million miles away...I guess that's why we need to live in the moment. Because that's all it is - a moment and then you're on to the next one! I had amazing visits with my girlfriends and got to stay with my dad and stepmom Laura, who happen to live just minutes from my fave latte spot. Heaven! 

Of course I did a wee bit of shopping, but I made myself only visit 2 stores that I don't have here in Winnipeg - H&M and Anthropologie. You'll definitely be seeing my new duds in posts to come...for now, here's an old pic from last week. It's my faithful hearts dress, with black and white that seems to go with everything! I paired it with a cozy black cardigan and my rockin' green tights from We Love Colors. And those shoes? Well, sadly they are a pair that look adorable but pinch my toe in a weird spot (any tips for this prob?). So they got in the picture but not out the door :)

black and white hearts dress - Forever 21 (shop similar)

black cardigan - Gap (shop here)

olive green tights - We Love Colors (shop here)

black and white flats - Faryl Robin via Soul Shoes

Hope you're all having an amazing week friends! Can you believe Christmas is only a few short weeks away?? Eeek!

Style Peek: black crewneck + black tights + summer skirt

Hey strangers...how have you been? I'm super excited because I leave tomorrow for a long weekend jaunt to Calgary! I'm going to see my dad and stepmom, have tons of great visits with my girls and do a wee bit of shopping. Can't wait!

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the mild November we're having but NOT loving it be dark both before and after work...hence the dark photos. One of the great things about the mild days is being able to still get away with tights. I've been wanting to wear some of my summer skirts, like this one. So I paired it with a plain black crewneck, plain black tights and black flats...so comfy and it puts all the focus on the skirt. Plus I feel kind of ballerina-ish in this colour combo!

black crewneck sweater - Gap (shop similar)

blush embroidered skirt - Gap (shop similar)

black tights - Silk Plus 

black leather flats - Aldo (shop similar)

Hope you're all having a lovely week friends!

Hair Ramblings

So now that I've cut my bangs...I'm can't stop picking at them. I'm snipping and trimming and shaping every second day! I'm working my way up to this...my dream hair....

Not the flaming red even though that looks flaming hot (baby steps!)...just the cut. I imagine she's Florence from Florence & the Machine's young hip niece...I want to be young and hip too :) So I'm starting with the haircut!

image via asos.com

What's your fantasy hair these days friends? How do you work up the nerve to take a leap?

Modcloth reduces shipping to Canada!

Hello everyone! I have some great news for us Canadian gals who love Modcloth...they've adjusted their shipping fees!

I made an order in the summer and it was something ridiculous like $17 for one item. I definitely think shipping fees are a huge barrier for companies wanting to increase their online shopping market. Well after seeing Modcloth advertising lower international shipping, I plugged this cute dress into my shopping cart for fun to see what shipping would be...would you believe it calculated at $1.98? I refreshed my screen a few times to make sure I wasn't seeing things! Nope, all correct. So of course I couldn't help myself and ordered it.

Sapphire for Hire Dress - Modcloth (Shop here)

As a side note, I tried filling my cart with $200 worth of clothes and shipping was still under $20 so it must be pro-rated.

It's so much easier to think about buying one item here and there when shipping is close to nothing...Asos has really set the bar with this with their free worldwide shipping. I recently scored this dress for free shipping and no customs fees or taxes because the package value was below $50!

dress - Asos Curve (Shop here)

Let's hope everyone else follows their lead and starts reducing shipping fees to Canada!

*Ummm...can you tell I have a thing for blue dresses?

Have you scoped any new great deals you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them! Hope you all have a lovely rest of the week!

Style Peek: navajo sweater + skinny jeans + caramel boots

Hey everyone! I hope you're keeping cozy this November morning? Full blown winter has arrived here in Winnipeg and for a few moments I forgot what it was like....but I remember now and I'm all over sweaters, boots, berets and thick scarves!

See the happy look on my face (see above!)...I have some fab news to share! I've been named the new Winnipeg City Editor for Western Living Magazine (a Western Canada lifestyle mag)! 

What does this mean, you ask? Well, I'm still working full time at Fusion, but now I'm contributing monthly to the front-of-book section of Western Living - sourcing fantastic new and unique home decor and design items to be featured. It's a great little side gig for me, plus I've wanted to be a magazine editor since I was a wee lass picking up Seventeen mag...so this is my baby steps into this world!

On another note - I've been asked by you lovely readers about tights for us tall and curvy gals. So here's my scoop - I adore both HUE and We Love Colors for fantastic quality tights. 

I get my HUE tights at The Bay (in Canada) and Macy's (in the US). They have great texture and look for sizes 4 and 5 for more height and weight allowance. The bummer is those higher sizes are only available in basic colours like black and brown. 

This is where We Love Colors comes in...they have 51 fantastical shades in their Plus Size Tights to pick from. Shipping is $12 but I order 2 or 3 pairs at a time to make it worthwhile. I definitely recommend them if you're looking for something unique. Hope this helps ladies!

navajo sweater - PURE Alfred Sung via Zellers

white cotton top - Old Navy (shop similar)

skinny jeans - Gap (shop here)

caramel leather boots - Steve Madden (shop here)

Have a lovely week friends!

Style Peek: wrap sweater + slouchy knee socks + tall boots

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you're all having a fantastic weekend and joyful weekend ahead. It's been a busy work week but I'm so excited because I scored a seat sale to visit friends and family for a long weekend getaway to Calgary! Now to keep that shopping budget in check....why hello H&M...why hello Anthropologie....here I come!

In today's style peek, I'm showing off my newest obsession - layering knee socks under tall boots! Warm, cute and a fun look!

taupe sweater - Winners

black slouchy tank - Forever 21+ (shop here)

skinny jeans - Gap (shop here)

oatmeal knee socks - Winners

black leather tall boots - Steve Madden (shop here)

woven and faux leather belt - Zellers

What clothing trend are you obsessed with right now friends?

Have an amazing weekend!

Style Peek: navy dress + mustard cardi + chunky necklace

 

Happy Monday friends...I hope you all had a great weekend and your week ahead is looking bright! 

I'm super excited to share another sewing project with you. This was a very simple column pattern with an elastic inserted in the high waist for shaping. The pattern called for a knit but I'm not ready for stretchy yet so I took a chance and decided to go with this navy printed rayon. It came out pretty preppy so I tried to boho it up a bit with a chunky wood necklace, mustard cardi and espresso tights. I love the shape so I think I'm going to do a repeat on this on with some other fun fabric - maybe with a shorter lenght? More like a tunic to wear with leggings.

navy dress - handmade by me!

mustard cardigan - Gap

chunky wood necklace - bought a million years ago in Calgary

espresso tights - HUE (shop here)

brown leather flats - Aldo (shop similar here)

How was your weekend friends? You know what I've been thinking about...Christmas shopping. My family has abandoned our homemade Christmas idea - I think we'd need a whole year to pull that together! So now we're going to stick to one small gift each and try to make it sentimental...what are you doing for Christmas this year?

Have a lovely week!