'Ello

This is the dress I got from LuLu's at the Texas Style Council Swap. I've never been inclined to make a purchase from Lulu's, but after seeing some of their pieces in person, I might be able to look past their terrible website styling and purchase some things. For now though, I will enjoy this adorable dress. I wore it to work with black flats and a black cardi, but for our evening walk with the pup, it was so lovely that no cardi was needed and Toms were far more comfortable.





Can we talk about this random phone booth for a moment. Its in our neighbors yard, a block down or so from our house. Its real, like I think they might have stole it off the street real, and has a no trespassing sign inside of it. Why they have done this, we have no idea, but it seemed like an appropriate place to take photos.
I went strawberry picking this weekend, so I'm off to prep strawberries for freezing and decide which kind of pie or cobber I'm going to make!


Dress (came with belt): Lulu's
Shoes: Toms
Earrings: Target

TxSC - Saturday

Saturday
Speed Mentor Breakfast, Thrift Adventure, Hunt.Gather.Style, Posh Party

Hook 'Em with my fellow Longhorn, Sara
Photo credit Peter Tung, edited using Instagram by me


Saturday was packed, in the best way possible. The morning started off with the event I was least excited about, the Speed Mentor Breakfast. I'm not a fan of forced conversation, I'd rather let things develop organically, so I had thought about not even signing up, but I'm glad I did. The format was changed last minute and instead of making everyone move from blogger to blogger at the sound of a bell, folks were allowed to talk as long as they liked with whoever. Which is great, but made it hard to interject in conversations. Because of this, the breakfast was the event I got the least out of, which in part is my own fault for not being pushy enough. While I didn't talk with any of the bloggers there, I did talk to John from Snoball and learned some fascinating things about activism and fund raising through social media. I also got to chat with Julie and Sara again, which was super fun.

Julie looking lovely at breakfast

Next up was the Thrift Adventure, sadly because of the rain the South Congress portion of this day was canceled, which ended up being just fine. As we were loading up for the day it was discovered that the bus drivers did not know how to get to the Savers on North Burnet. Luckily this is my home thrift store, like I go there at least twice a month, so I ended up at the front of the bus giving directions. Thankfully, I remembered my left from my right and got us there safely.

Front of the bus

I think everyone was worried, that because there were 70 of us going on this adventure, there might not be enough awesome stuff to go around, but we were all proved wrong. I found 2 great belts, 2 skirts, and a pink blazer. Jentine, Jessie, and Elissa were great guides, and even though I consider myself a thrifter, I certainly got a lot out of the experience. Sometimes its good to get fresh eyes on an old love.

After thrifting, Julie and I ran down to Etcetera, Etc. for the Hunt.Gather.Style. pop up shop. Once again the ladies knocked it out of the park and there were many wonderful pieces to pick from. I walked away with a dress, and two great tops and Julie got this awesome skirt along with some other great items. As soon as we finished at HGS it began to pour, we're talking monsoon type rain. Julie and I thought about trying to give shopping on 2nd Street a go, but once we'd been outside for about 3 minutes, we gave up and went home.

Posh Party outfit:
Dress, Ruche; Tights, Target; Boots, Steve Madden; Necklace, In Pink.

Despite wanting to stay home in my pjs and cuddle the dog, I got myself dressed up and headed out for the Posh Party. I could complain that I got there too early and had to park too far away. But, both of those things lead me to walking past the LOVELY Jesse Williams (you know, Dr. Avery from Grey's Anatomy) I can confirm he is even better looking in person.

In love with this chandelier at the headquarters, trying to find a way to make it work in our living room.

In the end I was really glad I went to the party, not only did I get some great swag, I also go to hang out with some awesome people. Sara and I wondered around and took many photos. I chatted with Haley and Julie. Got to meet he lovely Megan Nielsen, I'm even more certain I want a few of her pieces in my wardrobe, she could not have been sweeter. I even got to talk comics with Kyla, her husband owns a comic book shop and I instantly felt a bond with her. Fan boy wives, unite! I also met the awesome Whitney, she's a Stella & Dot consultant, so watch out Austin friends, I'm hosting a trunk show in the next month or so and cannot wait.

Photoboth fun with Sara

Awesome clutch from Francesca's Collections!

I ended up not staying out crazy late (no one is surprised, I know) but I had a blast and am so glad I made myself go and not loaf around in jammies all night.

Petunia was happy to get her dinner when I got home.

You can see more awesome Posh Party photos here and here, including a few with me!

TxSC - Friday

First, let me say that I am really bad at taking photos in the moment at big events. I want to enjoy, and talk, and soak everything in, which is awesome, but hard when you have a blog. So, please, bare with my few Instagram photos.

Second, I have been working on this post all week, it got crazy long. So I decided to break it up into 3 parts, one for each day. Get ready for lots of TxSC adventures.

Friday Night
Clothing Swap


Things started out a bit rough this evening, I left work a little early to get ready and head down to the swap and maybe a little happy hour beforehand, but thanks to terrible traffic and rain, that didn't happen, which ended up being totally okay, because it took me an hour to get downtown which is normally a 15-20 minute drive.

This night was mostly about people watching and feeling things out, I met up with the lovely Julie who introduced me to Sara. We spent most of the night chatting and discovered we all work in non profits and fund raising. We might even start a meet up group, but for now we will definitely be doing champagne brunches! From the swap I ended up with an awesome skirt from Delightfully Tacky and a great statement necklace that had no tag (if it was yours, let me know!) I also got a very cute dress from Lulu's. I'm excited to style all of them in the coming weeks.

LOVE that the dog lover sticker was a weenie dog, WTG Indiana!

After Julie and Sara left I hung out with Bryan and Kendi and met some other awesome bloggers, including Jentine. I loved My Edit before but now I love it even more. It is so great when people are actually more awesome in real life, and she is seriously awesome.

After a delicious dinner, it was time for sleep, which was only briefly interrupted by a howling puppy not happy about play time being over and creeper cats.

Serious Petunia, is serious, about play time and has a new found love of air mattresses, which she believes are actually bouncy castles.

Next up: Saturday and more rain than Austin has seen all year.

exhausted but excited

Sorry I've been MIA for the last 3 days. I just finished spending those days with over 200 amazing style bloggers from all over the country at Texas Style Council. I had an amazing time and have so many new ideas and thoughts floating around in my head. I'm excited to think on them and flush them out, hopefully some exciting things will be coming soon, so stayed tuned!

This is my favorite photo from the weekend, I'll be blogging this outfit next week!