Why So Fancy?

What I Wore:

Dress: H&M

Tights: H&M

Shoes: Spring

Belt: Xcetera

Necklace: Convention booth

I realized as I was uploading these images that I wore something with heart prints on Wednesday too. It's a bit weird since I only own two items with that print, and I just wore them (almost) back to back! I just really wanted to wear these tights since I just got them and I usually want to wear new purchases immediately. Oh well, live and learn. This is probably one of my favourite outfits since I started this blog. I can already feel/see my style evolving as the months pass. I have become more adventurous in my choices. I used to feel weird dressing up sometimes, I think that is a product of living in Hamilton. The people are mostly pretty grubby here, and they look at you funny if you are dressed nicely. Even my family does it sometimes, if I am wearing something a little fancy my mum always asks "Are you planning on going somewhere?" I find it really weird actually. Can't a person dress up just for themselves? Just to express themselves? People used to dress nicely all the time. up until the late 60s it was kind of expected of you to be presentable. Then society changed, and there was a more individualized style movement. It was great for a while, but I think somewhere along the way it/we got lost and ended up with people wearing sweatpants and leggings all the time. Don't get me wrong, there are still people out there who have a great sense of style, but they are often few and far between. As of late though I haven't really minded  the comments so much and have started to wear whatever I feel like wearing that day. I feel kind of liberated in a way.

I spent most of this week trying to hunt down some new shoes. I have been dying for a pair of saddle shoes for about a year now. Something like these ones would be perfect.

I also really want some oxford style wedges. 

Apparently both of these things are impossible to find in this city and I might have to turn to the internet to satisfy my desires. I dislike buying clothing and shoes online since I can't try them on. My feet are hard to fit, and I wear orthotics (I have terrible feet, guh) so that makes it extra difficult. That's another thing, this city has a really poor selection of thrift stores and it makes me sad. I miss going to Frenchies in Nova Scotia. I might have to go to Toronto once I have some monies to get my thrifting fix. 

A quick bunny update, Luna seems to be doing a bit better and absolutely loves her medicine now so yay! There is really nothing else going on around here. If anyone can suggest some good online shoe places it would be greatly appreciated.   

Hearts Required

What I Wore:

Shirt: Giant Tiger (I think???)

Sweater Vest: Suzy Shier

Pants: Mark's Work Warehouse

Shoes: Clothing Swapped

Ring: Sweet Sixteen gift (family tradition)

Size: 14

Yay it's link up time again! I kind of feel like a dapper 1940s gentleman in this outfit. I feel like I should swagger everywhere and talk like Jimmy Stewart. I think it's the pants that make it, the pleats in the front just scream men's trousers to me, I love it. There is something so classic about men's fashion from that era, I like to try and recreate it now and then. I am a fan of ladies of all sizes wearing "men's" clothes, it always looks classy. I tried to find some images of a range of sizes sporting this look, but unfortunately the internet was not very accommodating. Where are all the dapper ladies at?

This week has been kind of rough. Luna has been experiencing a messy bottom as of late and I was starting to get concerned. We thought it might have been because she was shedding, but it kept happening on and off even after the shedding calmed down so we decided to call in a vet. We had a home visit today, and it sounds like she is going to be okay. I have to give her some medicine in a syringe twice a day, it is meant to replenish the nutrients in her stomach. I attempted to give her some earlier today and she didn't seem to like it much even though the vet assured me rabbits love it because it is strawberry flavoured. I am hoping she was just frazzled from being poked at by a stranger and once she has hopped around a bit tonight she will ease up. It is no fun having a sick pet, it has been a stressful experience. I was happy to hear that otherwise she is healthy so fingers crossed that the medicine works and things go back to normal soon. 

Kind of a depressing post, but I felt the need to share what has been going on around here lately. Some (hopefully) good news will be coming next week, so stay tuned for that. 

Leopard Printed No-No

What I Wore:

Shirt: Suzy Shier

Vest: Thrifted

Skirt: Smart Set

Shoes: Blowfish

25 Things Fat People Shouldn't Do is an unabashed middle finger to the preposterous idea that any human who weighs more than the status quo does not deserve to live a full and well rounded (ahem) life. The list of 25 is composed word for word from direct lists of sheer assholery found on the internet. These range from the absurd to the profoundly shameful, and I will be disproving this offensive notion with style. Feel free to join in on the fun, and if you do, link at the bottom so I can share. May the Chub Club live long and prosper!

I am participating in 25 Things Fat People Shouldn't Do again this week. I totally forgot to post the "mission statement" last time, so I have included it above. The link up (and the words) are brought to you buy the amazing Jes over at The Militant Baker. This weeks challenge was to wear an animal print, because apparently that is one of the worst offences a fat person could make. This seems absolutely ridiculous to me. I am not a huge fan of animal print (except zebra stripes, I love that), but I think people should be able to wear whatever the hell print they want. It's just like when people say fat people shouldn't wear horizontal stripes. Screw that! I love horizontal stripes and wear them all the time (actually, I had to stop buying them because there are way too many in my closet, but that's another problem entirely).

I wore this outfit with pride today to visit my friend in St. Catherines. We had a delicious lunch and poked around the mall and Toys R Us. I was actually wearing some tights too, but there was an unfortunate incident where I stepped in some dog barf when I got home, yuck! I washed them out, but they were taking forever to dry and I wanted to take these pictures and get this post up so they will not make an appearance today.

As always I encourage everyone to check out Jes' blog, she is not afraid to speak her mind and she always has something interesting to say.

Birthday Bites

What I Wore:

Shirt: New Look (London)

Skirt: Smart Set

Sweater: Smart Set

Shoes: Burlington Mall

Necklace: Zellers

Cat Accessory: Wesley 

I absolutely love this shirt. I didn't wear it at all over the summer since a) it is a little heavy for summer and b)  I left it here in Ontario. I got it in London, England when my family and I went on vacation there a few years ago. I didn't find much occasion to wear it before, but as I have mentioned before I am trying to branch out a bit in my clothing choices so I think it is going to make more regular appearances now. It is hard to tell in the pictures, but it actually has panels at the side made from a lighter cotton than the front and back panels. I love geometric clothes. It's all about the small details for me, even if someone else is never going to see/notice it, I will know it's there and that's pretty awesome. For example, I have these pants where the pockets are lined with striped fabric, and the waistband has been finished with the same stuff. No one else will ever see it, but knowing that it's there makes those pants that much more special. 

It's my birthday! I have made it to the ripe old age of 24. I wore this outfit yesterday to go out for sushi with my family. I am technically a pescetarian. I rarely eat fish, but I love sushi and it is my one weakness. I also don't drink milk, but that is mostly because it does not sit well with me (and never really has). I haven't eaten meat for almost 8 years now, and I cannot foresee myself ever going back. Long ramble aside, here are a few pictures from our night out.

The awesome mug my mum got me.

Colin being Colin.

So apparently we didn't take as many pictures as I thought, but there you go. There isn't much going on today (my actual birthday), but tomorrow Colin and I are going to visit one of my close friends for some food and fun, so that should be good. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend!  

  

New 'Do

What I Wore: 

Shirt: Suzy Shier

Pants: Zellers

Shoes: Burlington Mall

Necklace: Clothing Swapped

Size: 14

Yay, new hair! I mentioned before that I was waiting to get a hair cut until I got home because I usually go to that same hairdresser. I ended up going to a different place, and I am still pretty pleased with how it turned out. I brought in a picture just to be sure that the person cut it exactly how I wanted them to. She made my bangs a little shorter than I wanted, but they will grow out quickly enough so I am not too worried about that. The problem areas are usually the under section and back of my hair and both look pretty good so I am pleased. Here are some close up shots:

It is also I Am Proud Of My Size link up time again. Looking at these pictures I must say my self esteem has really improved since joining this. Before I probably would have been picking myself apart, but I look at these pictures and think "I am happy with how I look for the first time in a looong time." Obviously I still have some bad days, but where they used to occur about once a week (or more) they now occur maybe once a month or less. Reading about the body image struggles of other women, and how they overcame them has really helped me work through my own issues. Sometimes you just need to know that there are other people out there with the same problems as you. Supporting them somehow helps you get better too. I'm not sure how much sense I am making, I am having trouble expressing my thoughts today, but that's how I feel.  

Today I finally started cleaning my room up. It has been in a state of disarray since we moved into this house, which I am ashamed to admit was just over two years ago. The problem is I haven't lived here for more than a few months at a time since then. The day my parents moved from my childhood home was the day that Colin and I were coming back from Halifax. For anyone who doesn't know, we both went to school there, but moved back to Hamilton in the spring of 2011 when we were done. I then proceeded to move to Peterborough for  a year of school, and then we lived in Halifax again this summer. All of the boxes from the apartment we lived in in Halifax during school, and from my apartment in Peterborough, just kind of accumulated in my room and it has been a bit disastrous. It feels really good to have time to clean it up. I have no excuses not to since we will probably be living here for a while until we save up enough to get an apartment (which might take forever, sometimes it feels like it will). 

That's a snippet of my life today, nothing else to report today. See you all on Friday!  

The Big Reveal

What I Wore: 

Dress: My handy work (Simplicty pattern 2403, Project Runway styling)

Belt: Fairweather

Shoes: The Bay

Sunnies: Metro

For those of you who read this regularly I gave a sneak peek of a project I was working on a few posts ago. Well today is the big reveal, I finally finished my dress! It actually didn't take that long once I knuckled down and worked on it, but I started it last summer and then left it when I moved for school so it seems like it took ages. I am so happy I finished it for today because I am joining in on a new link up and I think it works perfectly for the photoshoot that I did. Thanks to my lovely photographer aka Colin, the pictures turned out great! Back to business, the link up is called 25 Things Fat People Shouldn't Do and was started by the lovely Jes over at The Militant Baker. The task for today was to take pictures of yourself on a swing because apparently the internet has deemed this an activity that fat people shouldn't do. To learn more about the link up feel free to check out the links above. It was super fun to take these photos and I think I am going to strive to take more outdoor pictures for outfit posts in the future. This is also a really great link up and I am excited to participate in this in the future! Without further ado, here are some of the pictures from the shoot.

   

I thought it would be fun to take some more pictures around the park, so here are some of me on the slide as well.

Afterwards I decided it was time for my wild mane to get cut, haha mane, there are horses on my dress, haha. I'm awesome. I found a great haircut last week and kept coming back to it so I decided it was the one. Pictures to come on Wednesday. That's all for now folks, go and check out Jes' blog!

Supercrawl!

What I Wore:

Shirt: Fairweather

Tank: Suzy Shier

Vest: Smart Set

Pants: Smart Set

Shoes: Spring

Necklace: Gift from a friend

Size: 14

I have lots to share with you all today. First of all it is link up time again so I encourage you all to trundle over to The Nearsighted Owl and give Rachele a visit. Lots of lovely people are still participating in it and it seems like there are new faces almost every week. I am so lucky to have started blogging just as this was beginning. I have met some great bloggers through this link up and have more confidence in myself and my own blog.

Next I must put in a plug for a project that I helped (a tiny bit) with during my internship over the summer. Yesterday was the official launch of NovaMuse, an online collections website featuring the collections of 51 museum and archives from Nova Scotia! The Association of Nova Scotia Museums launched the site at their annual conference which was held yesterday and today. I interned with them over the summer photographing textile pieces from the member museums. Sadly I could not be there for the launch, but I have been giving them my support. If anyone in interested in checking out some of the work that I did over the summer them click on the link above > go to Browse > select Categories (it might take a minute to load) > select the arrow beside Personal Artifact > and then click on Clothing. There are a lot of records in this section so if you want to get more specific you can choose one of the sub-categories. Most of the pieces are photographed are in the Main Garment section. Almost all of the pictures of items on mannequins were things that I photographed over the summer. I am excited to see this come to fruition and I really hope that people understand how much work went into the creation of this site. It is going to be such an amazing resource! I encourage you to check out Karin's blog for more information about the Association.

Last but not least today Colin and I headed down to James St. N. for Supercrawl. The second Friday of every month the galleries on James open to the public and people wander up and down the street checking out the displays. There are usually some vendors and buskers as well. That is the regular Art Crawl. Every September they have a two day event that is extra special with tons of vendors, live performances, and gallery shows.

We grabbed some delicious falafels at Vida La Pita and headed down to check out one of our favourite performers Wax Mannequin. We ran into some old friends that we haven't seen in a while, and they joined us for the performance. As usual Wax put on a great show.

Just in case you were wondering, yes that is a candle on his head. He is probably best known for his song The Price which actually had a fair amount of play time on Much Music a few years ago. He's an amazing musician and a great Hamilton gem. We plan on heading back tomorrow afternoon to check out B.A. Johnston, another Hamiltonian. He has a very different style, but is very amusing. My favourite song of his is probably You Will Miss Me When The Zombies Come. 

It was nice to have a busy day after a few weeks of being pretty sedate. I like to feel like I have accomplished something with my day, and I definitely felt like that today. One last shameless plug, check out NovaMuse! 

Hammer Time

What I Wore:

Shirt: Me mum's

Skirt: Smart Set

Belt: Fairweather

Shoes: Spring

Sunnies: Metro 

Purse: Spring

I absolutely adore this shirt. It was my mum's, and I finally beat her down enough for her to give it to me. She steals my clothes all the time so it's only fair really. I only got to wear it once before I spilled some kind of grease on it, I was so sad. I am such a messy eater, most of my white clothes don't survive for very long because I always end up eating spaghetti and getting sauce on them. Luckily my mum worked her stain removing magic on it when I got back from Halifax and voila, it's like new again! 

Today Colin and I took advantage of the lovely almost fall weather and took a walk around the mountain brow. For anyone who is not from Hamilton the city is along the escarpment. We call the part of the city that is on top of the escarpment the mountain. It's kind of silly because it's really just a big hill, but I'm used to it and it just kind of sticks with you. Speaking of silly and Hamilton, my post is called Hammer Time because we Hamiltonians like to call Hamilton the Hammer. Yup, we're awesome.

Jes over at the The Militant Baker has started this really interesting link up called 25 Things Fat People Shouldn't Do. She compiled a list of random things from around the internet that people said fat people shouldn't do and she wants people to join in taking pictures of themselves doing things from the list. It's a really cool idea. This is week three of the project, I wanted to join in but I discovered it over the weekend and couldn't think of something to do for this weeks link up. I will definitely be attempting to join in over the next few weeks though. 

That's about it in my neck of the woods. I plan to have the project that I gave you a sneak peek of last week done soon so more to come on that in the near future. I think I have finally decided what I want to do with my hair so there might be a change coming there soon too.