Burberry Dress for Less

Using the discover tool on Instagram, I came across this dress on a blogger's account. Somebody I follow had liked the image, and I was probably overly excited to find out the blogger has gotten the dress on Shein, a discount site that sells really good replicas. I immediately ordered the dress and am thrilled with it. The sizing is small, which is typical with sites like this, so I ordered a medium. For $36, this is going to be a great staple as the seasons change! 

p.s. you've heard of kevin & zhen, right?

Midi Skirt for Less - Review of Sammy Dress

It's not a huge secret that I prefer skirts and dresses to pants for work. That means I'm thrilled that midi skirts are everywhere right now! After obsessing over Tibi's gorgeous full midis on Atlantic Pacific, I went straight to my new go-to for all things trendy and affordable, Sammy Dress.

You may remember my Sammy Dress cape from a few months ago. The site is super cheap and although you have to really sift through their products to find your personal taste (and wait a few weeks for shipping), they have a lot of adorable clothes...including midi skirts in a few style and color options. After carefully converting centimeters to inches and hemming and hawing over a few options, I decided to go with basic black ($11) in a medium for my test skirt. When the skirt arrived, the fabric was the first thing that made me really happy. It's that great scuba material that is being used by everybody. This also means no wrinkles and great structure. There is a short slip underneath, but it's not necessary for any functional purpose - the skirt is substantial enough on its own, yet not so heavy that it can't be worn year round. The skirt can sit lower, but I prefer it to sit higher on my waist to give it more fullness.

Moving Woes Part III: Kitchen Reno on a Budget

When you're renting on a budget, there are a few things that you know you're going to have to accept. Not only are things in your apartment going to be profoundly ugly, but there is this handy thing called a lease that prevents you from making basic improvements (like painting). For me, those few things I had to accept were all in my kitchen. Let's go over the problems: 

1. Heinous McDonald's red brick tile flooring. Seriously. I know this brownstone was converted to apartments in 1979, but what was the contractor thinking? Impossible to clean, I spent hours in May de-funkifying the floor with Comet and a combination of weapons - toothbrush, sponge, paper towels and a scrubber brush. To complete my effort, I threw two jute throw rugs down and said, "to hell with this." 

Old, rehashed picture. Sorry, y'all.

2. The most horrendous fixtures known to man. Oxidation doesn't lie. In their former life, these fixtures were shiny, smooth and, confusingly, stylish. Merely sharing this before and after with you makes me cringe...

How has nobody done this until now? Because nobody with pride lived here before me. That's the only explanation. Super cheap upgrade (fixture was $1.97 from Lowe's, Scratch Cover tale, below). 

Now, for the larger cabinets, I couldn't find fixtures to match the existing holes. Merely removing the weird decorative fixtures immediately made the room look less sad and offensive, so they remain nude for now. Problems I face in remedying this: the holes from the ugly fixtures are too close together and to fix this, I'm going to have to buy wood putty to fill in the odd holes and buy (and by buy, I do mean probably end up borrowing) a drill to create holes for the super sleek new fixtures that I've yet to buy but will look awesome. Consider this a two-parter. 

Wait, it's not 1999, it's nearly 2014. I'm a realist. 2014? Not yet. Not in this kitchen. 

3. Offensive cabinets. For reference, glance above. Diss-gusting (see what I did there?)! Ugh. For my neighborhood (nice), my perks (Private roof deck! Gigantic closet! Original hardwoods!) and rent (dirt cheap), the cabinets make sense. You make some compromises. Or  eventually, you give in and do something you've been planning on doing for MONTHS - douse those puppies in the Old English miracle product, Scratch Cover. For wizardry buying purposes, look for this at stores:

This product is messy, but simply genius. Again, before and after pictures, people. Amazing!

4. Ugly window. Pretty sure this window may be original to the building. It can't be cleaned, produces its own sweat (it can be a humidity-free, beautiful day and moisture magically appears in/on the glass) and is in general, ugly. To solve this problem, I bought a tension rod from Target (under $4),a tea towel from Ikea ($.79) and prayed the tea towel would look better than kitchen curtains (cows, chickens and other potenial dinner victims - including fruit and veggies - belong nowhere in decor). Voilà! Not horrible!

Believe me, this kitchen has a looooong way to go, but doing just a few things (which, sidenote, took about three hours and required consumption of two Excedrin Migraine caplets to deal with cleaning product/Scratch Cover fumage) made a huge difference! I will post pictures when my renter's renovation is complete! 

Tom Ford Cat Eyes for Less

Months and months ago, I began lusting after Tom Ford's ridiculously exaggerated cat eye frames. They are totally overpriced for my budget and completely over the top. In other words...they screamed my name and I decided they needed to be mine. I bookmarked them on my computer. I would read blogger reviews and dream that I'd wake up and there would miraculously be $360 extra in my checking account for them. Just when I would think my obsession for these frames had died down, somebody I follow would post a blog about their Tom Ford frames and reignite the insanity.

So, why didn't I just buy them? At the heart of my budget is the fact that I am a realist. There would never be an extra $360 in my bank account, and if a miracle like that did occur, I am too disciplined and would wisely pay bills and not blow the money on glasses (especially given the fact that I have three other perfectly good sets of eyes on my nightstand-and two older sets in my car). Early in my discovery of the enigma that is Derek Cardigan (seriously, DC, can we be best friends?), I found his 7006 frames for a cool $88. They are, without a doubt, the best Tom Ford ripoffs. The lenses aren't as big, but they are obviously an exaggerated cat eye. I hemmed and hawed. And bought two other Derek Cardigan glasses in the meantime. Finally, I caved and bought them during one of Coastal.com's sales. Why not?

Do you like how I tried to emulate the model's creepy dead eyes?

I still love the Tom Ford version (really, really love them, in fact). More than my love for Tom is the fact that I didn't break the bank on these AND they are everything I was hoping they'd be - fun, quirky and different! I ordered the brown/tortoise option, and instantly regretted not ordering the black pair. I was especially pleased to find the 7006 frames I received looked very black when looking directly at me, but from the side are obviously the brown/tortoise pair. The best of both worlds. They were meant to be mine!