Winterize Your Maxi

Winterizing the maxi.

I love a good black maxi and just because its in the negative degrees outside does not mean we need to keep our maxis hanging in our closets. I love pairing mine with a long sleeved shirt and scarf such as pictured or a warm and cozy long sweater. I dressed mine up a little for class Wednesday, keeping in mind that "Wednesdays we wear pink" (a statement I live by!)

 

Skirt//vanity

Top//american eagle

Scarf// old (old navy)

Shoes//my favorite Toms

 

Fit For a Queen

My boyfriend's birthday is towards the end of the month but I set up an early little surprise for him with some of his friends. Friday night we attended Medieval Times, one of his favorite places. This trip we were seated in the Green Knight section, who happened to be a Thor look-a-like, and I was fortunate enough to catch one of his flowers!

On a recent trip to a local mall I stumbled across a going out of business sale at Aeropastle. Now normally I don't shop there but I thought I'd just look around since everything was 80% off. Glad I did because I scored this cobalt blue dress for only $13. The dress even has pockets, which I normally HATE but with the pleats of this dress, I feel you don't even notice the pockets.

I also scored this necklace for $4 at Cato, these booties for $12 at Target, and this cardigan for $14 at J.C.Penney

So, we are getting ready for some more snow in "our neck of the woods" (as my favorite weather man, Al Roker, would say). How was everyone's weekend? Any exciting Valentine's Day plans?

 

Irish Cooking Day

With the cold temps outside, lately I just want to curl up on the couch with a hot bowl of soup. Canned soups are alright when you don't have time to make soup from scratch. Since I had some extra time I thought I'd make some potato soup the best way possible: the Irish way! And of course some soda bread would be much need to accompany the soup.

One of my favorite parts of being in Ireland is having fresh bread with every meal! Sure, it goes straight to the hips but its not every day that you get to enjoy fresh bread! At least it is very rare for me! I've never attempted to make either potato soup or soda bread from scratch so I did some cook book research and perused around pinterest a little to find these recipes.

3 cups all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup sugar

2tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

4 tbsp butter

1 and 1/2 cup plain yogurt

Mix dry ingredients, cut in butter until pieces are pea size, mix in yogurt. Turn out dough and knead into a disc shape. Cut an X in the loaf and bake 40-50 mins on 350 degrees

Irish soda bread. The yogurt in the bread made it extremely dense and chewy but overall it had good flavor. While mixing my dough I added a few tablespoons of water because the yogurt wasn't quite moist enough for all of the dry ingredients. Be careful with this though because the dough can get too gooey really fast! I also made one disc out of the entire amount of dough and had trouble getting the bread to cook completely through so it might be wiser to try two loaves and keep an eye on them while cooking (maybe 25-30mins)

Soup Recipe

 Making my grocery list for the soup ingredients I must have read the chicken broth part incorrectly. I ended up with approximately half of the required amount. This actually worked out okay. I ended up with a very thick and creamy soup which I found delicious
 The only down side is that it barely rendered two servings which was disappointing because I was hoping for leftovers!

While throwing on clothes in the morning I all that was on my mind was my meal planned for the day and as you can see that dominated my wardrobe selection. I also made the mistake of wearing my favorite socks (official Irish dancing) and was forced into a little jig by my photographer.

What's your favorite cultural cuisine? Thursday I'll be taking a trip down memory lane and recapping my Ireland adventure from a few months back. I'll be discussing the do's and don't's and how to pack for a stylish getaway!

P.S. like my oven mitts? You can find them here!

Back to School

The first day of a new semester is always a great feeling. A fresh start at classes and a new start at your wardrobe. New classmates to inspire and new classmates to inspire your style. Its a nice fresh restart to the school year. I always try to look my best on the first day of the new semester but this year with it being my last semester at this college I cooled down my style a little (literally) and wore a very casual and effortless outfit. That could also be because I had a very long, busy, and late nighted weekend and just wanted to sleep in when Monday rolled around.

 

My new favorite chunky scarf I picked out for my Christmas present from Old Navy! I also sported my new American Eagle sweater that I found on a really great sale recently.

These are some of my favorite boots! I absolutely fell in love with the adorable crochet lace inserts when I eyed them at UOI online recently.


Every semester the school tries to bring fun things into the college to eliminate the back to school blues and this year was by far the best! They brought a portable ice skating rink in. This was my first time EVER ice skating and I must say it was terrifying but great!

 

Sweater// ae

Scarf// old navy

Jeans// hollister

Boots// UOI

 

 

 

Winter Wear

So I recently searched on pinterest for "winter outfits." I wasn't expecting to see layer upon layer with heavy coats on, but I must admit the girls that wear these outfits must live in Florida! These very cute and stylish outfits are a few examples of "winter outfits"

I personally would wear all of these!
The only downside is that I'm from Illinois and with the wind chill today its -50 degrees, yes you read that correctly -50! Needless to say I don't plan on getting dressed up and going anywhere today! I'm spending the day in yoga pants with hot chocolate in my hand!

Layering is my style. No matter the time of year, I am constantly layering (which is a big downfall in the warmer months). Naturally I lean towards the leggings, knee high socks, and boots as a go to outfit. This winter I've especially taken up a love for chunky knit scarves as displayed in all of these pictures :) Check back Friday for examples of how I style my chunky scarves!

What is your go to outfit on cold weather days?
Stay warm and stay safe in this crazy weather!

Hello, 2014.

Wow it's already 2014, can you believe it? I planned on blogging a New Years Eve outfit and whole do up but unfortunately I had to work and didn't get to wear my NYE outfit, so this picture will have to suffice for my NYE ootd:

In honor of the new year I want to take a look back at some of the outfit I've worn over the past few months (since I haven't blogged an entire year yet!)

I always seem to come up with crazy resolutions but this year I really haven't made any. My boyfriend and I are trying to eliminate as many carbs as possible from our diets but that really isn't a true resolution. Give me some ideas! What are your resolutions (more frequent and regular blog posts? haha)

Sweater Leggings and Sparkles

The worst part of Christmas is always trying to find places to put my new presents! My drawers are packed to the max with all of my new clothes including this new hunter green sweater from Old Navy (thanks mom!) With the weather warming up a tiny bit I thought I'd shed some layers today and stick to my new sweater and my new sweater leggings!

The "Twelve Days Of Christmas" sales that stores were sporting this year was kind to me! I scored these sweater leggings from BB Styled and only paid shipping. I'm always a little unsure on buying leggings online, you never know how they'll fit or if they'll be see-through or too short but so far I can't complain about these leggings! These are meant to be hand washed and I hate hand washing so I'll admit I threw these in the machine and they turned out fine!

 

 

Sweater // Old Navy

Leggings // BB Styled

Necklace // Cato