holiday etsy picks!

Well, I won't be doing any more Etsy shopping this year, even though the plan was to buy 100% handmade. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT! But, I missed the shipping window. Lovely handcrafted wonders will just never get here in time no matter how hard they try. Even the "I think I can" mantra is useless at this point, mere DAYS until xmas. 

(And I'm surely too cheap to pay for expedited shipping.)

I've added many Etsy gems - both vintage and handmade - to my favourites recently. Why? Well, mostly I live in a daydream cloud. Reality shmeality. My feet might be tripping over the slightest deviation in the actual ground, but in my wonderful bubble, I'm floating gracefully over mountains of Pink Berry yogurt (vanilla, of course). 

I've referred Alex and my mom to my Etsy collections for gift ideas, but they'll be plum outta luck on the shipping front, too. No wonder Santa doesn't use Canada Post. Smart dude. Miracles aside, these won't end up under my tree. But a girl can always dream, can't she?

Holiday Etsy picks inspired by: 

candy canes • fireside romance • fancy-grown-up-lady parties • rosy cheeks

Vegan Shoes that are WAY too cute to be vegan shoes. (SOLD during the writing of this post. Frownsy face.)  Roni Kantor Vintage

A little Princess Di, no? Green Satin Clutch $15, unavesmas2

 I'm going skiing in Utah in a month. And, well, this just feels right. Buffalo Check Scarf $18, Simple Vintage

Too adorbs for eating! Much to hubby's chagrin, I've recently started mounting plates on the walls. Finch Plate $24, Tree House Club

 I'm too old for this, right? Heart Headband $40, Giant Dwarf

 Stamped Spreaders $24, Simply Sweet Studio

Oh! wouldn't this look lovely on our new art-wall? Montreal Pennant $18, Tree House Club

Oh the things I could make! Chevron Fabric, $11/yard

Very happy feet. Snakeskin Socks $28, Strathcona Stockings

Red Vintage Clutch (SOLD during the writing of this post. Boo.)  Steel City Vintage

Won't you drop by my lovely winterized cottage in the mountains for some delish crudités on my chic vintage nordic dinnerware? (You'll see, I'll mean it one day.) $62, The Fancy Lamb 

Saddest Etsy dog ever. Sled $100, The Fancy Lamb

Best for wrapping! Washi Tape Dispenser $27, Sugar B. Supplies

 
If you manage to secure the services of a reindeer, you're welcome to buy me anything on this list!

Merry shopping! • Buy handmade!

Crunchy leaves & cardis... it's Fall!

My must-haves for fall? Sadly, basics. It's not super exciting, of course, that my wish list is stacked with practical staples and classic/basic silhouettes. It's all about stretching my very limited wardrobe budget, though. My real wish list in the true sense of the term (read: unattainable/only- in-dreams) would be far more daring, bold and fun.  And yes dispensable and expensive. But to even dream about it would be torture. So let's pretend we didn't even go there.

It's kind of fun to have style with no money - you work harder, but the pay off is awesome ("Guess... just GUESS how much I paid for this!"). Reverse snobbery.

I just want to recreate these. With no budget.

[ Am I too old? Can I pull this off? I'll surely try. ]

 

It's no secret that half my outfits are composed (artfully) with a mish-mash of vintage, hand-me-downs, clothing swap gleans, rejigged last-season pieces, Etsy finds, and a good dash of scores from the sale racks at Zara and FCUK. Eclectic is a bloody cliché term, but I guess it's appropriate in my case.

Anywaaayyyy, I'm stuck with seriously little to spend as the weather cools and I gear up for my favourite fashion season. But Dayna, don't you have a real job now? Yep. But I also have a real musician for a husband. I also have real debt from a year of being between jobs (or as I put it at the time: "freelance"). So yeah, I have to be smart these days. Remember when 100% of your income went to fun stuff? Man, those were the days. The effin DAYS, man.

I'm determined to still have fun with this exercise: stretching my bucks and making practical purchases doesn't have to be as ho-hum as it sounds.

Here's the plan.

My Top Picks for Fall:

1. I'm super set in the leggings department. I happen to own the rainbow. THE rainbow. But I'm kind of dying to make the above-the-knee socks thing work. OK, I don't have the legs for it (anymore) but if I can take just ONE fashion tip from the Hooters gals: double-up on the nylons. I might, just might, be able to pull this off with some serious nylon action to help with the danger zone between the top of the socks and the bottom of the shorts. We'll see.

 asos.com

2. Winter shorts. Cuffed, high-waisted, woolly. An alternative to skirts and dresses and part of my plan to rock the school-girl socks (tastefully).

 asos.com

 phillip lim $445

 top shop $75

3. Easy dresses. Shirt dresses, tent dresses, sweater dresses. Short-ish and perfect for pairing with leggings and boots OR tights and flats.

 stella mccartney $935

 michael kors $135

 river island $70

4. Cardis that pop. Fun prints to break up the neutrals and solids. Ahhh, layering! It's just the loveliest part of dressing. I could go for wide strips or pin dots. Or just wow-colours!

 J.Crew $49

 Madewell $85

5. Chunky knit/wool accessories. Again, practical. 

 asos.com

6. Sensible shoes. In my world that just means "NOT lime green animal print". Simple, neutral (and ideally comfy) leather wedge pumps. Grey, maybe? Also, Simple black ballet flats. But wait. Easier said than done. This style is of the dime-a-dozen variety, but do you know how HARD it is to find the perfect pair?! Hard, OK. Hard. I have slim feet, so I need 'em narrow. I like the vamp to be shallow (i.e. toe cleavage is awesome) and the toe to be that perfect shape between round and almond. Also, structured - not slipper-y. A little bow would be OK. Loving these, but not the price. Then again, it could be an investment, right?

Locale $135

 french sole $155

7. Leg warmers. I'm a TTC-er come November (bye, bye sweet bike) and my above plan to pretty much never wear pants has flaws: I live in Canada. So, leg warmers are on my list. But, yeah, super hard to track down lws that are non-bulky and non-tacky. My personal shopping guru (who last week lamented "Ugh, there's nothing out there!" for the third season in a row) suggested dance wear stores. Maybe I just wanna be a ballerina.

8. Pendant necklaces. I wanna double and triple them up! Scouring the antique markets for some vintage to mix with cheap-o Forever 21 versions. (Just bought these two lockets on Etsy!)

 etsy.com

I have already made a couple tidy little online purchases and will post outfit pics once my packages arrive (Yay, snail mail). Today calls for some actual mall shopping, too (egads! malls!).

In the end, I need big impact for small bucks. Here I go!

Photos via: asos.com, polyvore.com, etsy.com, French Sole, Locale, Madewell, J.Crew.com

Pleather & Lace?

*swoon* 

Beauty or cruelty? [ Christopher Kane dress ]

This is weird. I've been acting as somewhat of an unlikely mentor to a friend who has gone vegetarian in the past year. Unlikely? Yeah, well, I'm a pretty terrible vegetarian. I've learned to adapt in an omnivores' world by flying under the radar: picking things off of pizza, not being fussy about non-meat/meat fraternizing in the pan, playing dumb in the face of poutine (gravy, what?) and taking care of myself food-wise (quietly). I've also been a part-time fish eater, more to make life easier with my fully supportive, yet fully meat-eating husband. Role model material I am NOT.

Then, the question.

My newbie-veg friend asked: "What's your stance on leather?"

Jekyll, meet Hyde. My animal-loving, eco-conscious, (mostly)-vegetarian self does not always agree with my style-crazed, clothes-loving, shop-happy self. They are contradictory. They clash in a resulting ulcer-inducing turmoil. The ever-present inner-struggle: what IS my stance on leather?? I grappled with this for a while, and here is my (wavering) conclusion:

The challenge wasn't in replacing leather with other materials - there are enough options out there. My concern was environmental. I'm as much an advocate of animal rights as I am a steadfast environmentalist (OK, I'm not the best example of either, but I care about both very much). My issue with the alternatives (PVC, pleather, etc.) is that in a lot of cases, they are an environmental nightmare to produce and they never break down in landfills. And, leather substitutes crack and peel easily, forcing me to buy more. I hate waste.

My new-ish shopping philosophy is to "buy less, buy better" so that items last and I am not contributing as much by-product. I try to buy ethically as much as possible - supporting local/handmade, choosing natural/orga materials, snapping up secondhands. Problem: it can be expensive and the options are limited. And I'm prone to last-minute panic shopping.

My veg-dyed green Roots purse is still amazing and I've had it for 4 years. Same with my Canadian-made Jeanne Lottie purse. Also leather. I buy a lot of rubber/canvas shoes in the summer, but nothing beats the real deal for boots & bags. I went the matt+nat route for a while but the peeling and cracking led to too many replacements. That said, it's probably one of the best vegan accessories companies (and Canadian to boot) if you can live with the negative aspects of faux-leather.

The PVC graveyard:

[ RIP old girls...and Nataraj, too :( ]

(Ahhhh. I forget to breathe when I'm rambling defensively.)

Does it make me a very good vegetarian? No. But it's a compromise that I can live with. I can sleep at night (mostly). Do I REALLY need to sacrifice my beliefs in the name of fashion, though. Even if my solution IS (somewhat) eco-conscious?

Well, no.

I admit that I can be smarter about my choices. Here are three no-compromise-necessary style picks that appease both of my starkly different selves. Peace is restored in the galaxy!

1. OlsenHaus Faux leather, in my mind, has become unfairly synonymous with poor quality. This is not at all the case with vegan brand OlsenHaus. I've loved their quirky styles in the past, and I am equally smitten with this season's line-up:

2. Ashley Watson 'Flicker' bag. An even better compromise: recycled leather! Smart design-types are hooking up with manufacturers to turn industrial scrap from say, furniture making, into accessories, etc. Win-win. (In my old bag-making days, I'd do the same with leather from thrift-store skirts.)

3. Etsy, of course. The handmade aspect has a feel-good-ness about it that kinda overrides guilt about pesticide-heavy cotton and animal hides. But there's also a ton of great eco-fashion here too. And totally non-granola. I love this skirt by Toronto-based Simone's Rose (yay, local) - it's organic and super adorbs.

 

It's been three blogs since my last confession.

Or not.

It's Christmas WEEK. We're not sending cards or buying gifts for friends this year, because we simply can't afford it. We're doing some baking, buying little things for our siblings, and we've capped spending on each other to $40. So, it means I'm not holiday shopping, on top of already being (self-) banned from rest-of-the-year shopping. It sucks. 

But, I did desperately need a camera bag. And I finally found one - this baby cost me $29 on ebay. I love that it doesn't look like a camera bag. It's a perfect fit (I hope) and I'll just line it with some neoprene or foam for protection.  Whew - I just narrowly avoided a nasty case of ugly camera bag!

 [ Vintage Dooney and Burke crossbody bag, $29, ebay ]

OK, more confessions. I bought some tights at Winners. Three bucks each, though. Less than a take-out soy latte, right? A snagged a pair of Coral tights by Hue and a metallic damask pair by Emilio Cavallini.

 

I'm not done. While on the way to the cash, I spotted these. They were $30:

A steal, but yeah, just a little more than a coffee. Arg. I just need to steer clear of retail, and I'll be fine. Alex called me a hypocrite because I forced him to buy frozen concentrated orange juice that same day because "we're on a budget". I promise, I'm done. 

To make my life hell, I agreed to take on the gift guide for blogTO. OK, I really love the assignment, but yeah, let's put an alcoholic in a bar, shall we?

Now I'm off to do some appropriate shopping - baking ingredients! We're making matcha cookies, homemade Irish cream, peppermint meringues, biscotti and truffles this week. Just a tad ambitious, maybe?  That's the way I roll. It wouldn't be the holidays without self-created impossible deadlines and stress, right?

 [ photos via ebay.com, asos.com, annetaintor.com, Emilio Cavallini ]

 

Doorbells and Sleigh Bells and Schnitzel With Noodles.

These are a few of my favourite things.

-The Sound of Music

(Let's just get real sad-like and talk about all of the things I can't afford, shall we? Sigh.)


ONE • 
I intended this post to have a cold weather theme, but then I saw these Jeffrey Campbell peep-toe platform wedges and I really just had to talk about them NOW. (Yeah, peep-toes aren't quite so practical this time of year.) I pretty much love wedges forever, and will continue to wear them even if they go horribly out of style. It hasn't happened yet, luckily. This year they've gone all platform on me though, adding yet more unnecessary inches to my hulking 5'10 frame. Whatever. My Mister is secure enough in his manhood to have me on his arm anyway, even when I'm towering over him. (ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN!!! rawr.) Also, the cutest-of-the-cute singer from San Sebastian has an adorable GF who has a good head on him, I'm sure. 


Anyway, the second pair in this series could be doable in December, as long as I'm not dog walking or tobogganing. Loooooove.

TWO••

A technicolour dreamcoat! I did a stupid thing. I fell in love with a light grey Soia & Kyo winter pea coat two years ago and bought it, forgetting that my super-warm TNA parka was also grey. In terms of outerwear this season, I'm stuck with D-R-A-B. All grey against dirty snow? Horribly depressing. I love both coats, but wouldn't it just be so uplifting to walk around in yellow? Or purple? Or cobalt blue? Oh, I miss colour in the winter. I am totally digging this Spanner jacket. I was inspired to find a yellow swing coat after seeing a girl on the subway in a similar version. Too bad I'm stuck with grey, at least for this year.

 Spanner swing coat $400

 

MALENE BIRGER Justinas Jacket $698

 Phase Eight Tweed Swing Coat $220 (OK, yes, it's grey. But just imagine it in ORANGE!)

Allison Wonderland L'Hiver Coat $298

 Soia & Kyo Snood (are colourful accessories my answer?)

Soia & Kyo down jacket $220

THREE•••

Bed. Ahhhh, I loooove our bed. Back when I had money, I bought a wicked-expensive pillow-top mattress and boxspring. Then, mom bought us a memory foam topper and we picked up memory foam pillows with wedding money. Add a duvet, a coverlet, a mess of throw pillows, two dogs and a fuzzy man and my bed is perfection. It's really hard to ever leave. We redeco'd our entire apartment on a dime and our bedroom is almost finished. The one missing piece is a quilted headboard. I'm fairly crafty and I know I could make one, but right now we're getting by on "essential purchases", and it's tough to justify the $60-or-so that it would cost for some plywood and foam.


In the meantime, I'll just dream. Zzzzz.

(bed images via: esquire.com, SquintLimited.com, homesav.com, decorpad.com, shabbiness2fabulous.com)