Springfield Shopping Adventures

This past Saturday I had to go to Springfield, MO with my parents for my mom's Gourd Society meeting(she makes beautifully handcrafted gourds!). Since my aunt lives in Springfield, I got to spend the day with her and go on a shopping adventure! As I mentioned in my last post, I've been working on cycling out my wardrobe for one that feels more "me". This includes getting rid of a lot of the graphic t-shirts I used to wear and putting in some more professional pieces, as well as really cute and girly things. Which is exactly what I found on Saturday!

So, we headed to Battlefield Mall and hit up Forever 21 and Macy's. I planned on finding a simple pastel pink sweater for the day, and ended up getting quite a bit more, but it was totally worth it(and I got my birthday & Christmas presents out of the way from my aunt).

At Macy's, we found this simply adorable pink faux-leather jacket by American Rag Cie. I've taken to calling it my second "Pink Ladies" jacket and I'm really excited to wear it on warmer days this spring.

On to Forever 21! If you know me personally, you know I practically live in this store and it makes up probably 75% or more of my wardrobe. My only problem with it is the fact that their shoes sizes only go up to a size 10, but that's a post for another day. Anywho! At first I searched all over for that pink sweater I mentioned before. I found a couple possibilities, but all of them were a size small. I like to get at least a medium for arm length and I also just love oversized sweaters. However, I finally found this adorable pink and white striped sweater that made me pretty happy!

I tried on a couple dresses after that, accepted that I own way too many already, put them back, and then ended up finding this adorable floral top and a cream lace skirt. 

 I think both will be great to wear in the summer, and on especially warm spring days. I'm super excited about the top, it's so adorably girly and the way it drapes is absolutely lovely.

Also! I got a bonus once we went back to my aunt's house. My dad had gone around to the different antique stores in the area while I was with my aunt and he managed to find me something. He knows of my love for Disney and managed to find two Golden Books that fit my fancy.

They're both straight out of the early 1950s from what we could tell, which explains the poor word choice of "Indians"(oh, 1950s, you and your blatant stereotyping), but overall, the books are pretty cool. The art inside of the Cinderella one especially reminds me of the art of Mary Blair, but the listed Illustrator isn't her.

Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good day for shopping! I managed to get some pink hairbows too from Forever 21, which I totally forgot to photograph, so I might include them in a future post at some point. I'm just happy with how my closet is slowly turning into exactly what I want it to be. In truth, my goal is to look like a pretty pink princess, and hopefully I'm getting somewhere with that!

Retro-Inspired Outfits

So, last summer a friend and I got the idea to re-create outfits inspired by certain decades with the clothes we had on hand in our closets. She ended up not doing it, but I did, and I'm actually really pleased with the results. I chose the '40s, '50s, and '60s to model my outfits after, and I also edited each picture to follow the era they were from, to give it more of that "vintage" feel. I ended up doing two outfits per era because I just couldn't help myself, and happened to have enough clothes lying around!

Starting out with the '40s, I'm wearing a Charlotte Russe light pink dress with little black hearts on it. It's absolutely darling and I'm so glad I bought it two summers ago. The next dress is vintage, from the '80s. My mom found it for me at a garage sale a couple years ago and I ended up taking out the shoulder pads. I also pulled up the skirt a bit too, as the dress is normally halfway down my calf otherwise. I think with those adjustments it better captured the essence of the '40s.

Now for the '50s! One of my favorite decades aesthetically, in case you're wondering. At the time, I didn't have much though for clothing, but I made do. In this first outfit, the top is from Forever 21, a mint green tube top with white polka dots. The skirt is from Old Navy, something I picked up years ago and I've used it since. It's such a versatile piece! In the second outfit, I'm wearing one of my favorite jackets, which I like to call my "Pink Ladies" jacket. My aunt bought it for me last summer from Kohl's and I absolutely adore it. The top is a white crop top from Forever 21 and I honestly can't remember for the life of me where the shorts are from!

With the '60s, I tried to get my difficult hair to tease even a little, and really went for the Twiggy eye makeup look. The first dress is one of my current favorites, also from Forever 21(can you see the pattern here?). I wore it this past Christmas with a Santa hat and felt like a doll the whole day. The second dress is from Target, something I got probably about 3 years ago. I've worn it on several occasions, and I felt it gave off that nice Mod vibe so popular back in the '60s.

It's been awhile since I took these photos and did these outfits however. I've bought quite a lot of clothes since then, as I'm in the process of cycling out my wardrobe for a bit more "me" sort of style. I think here soon I might have to do another and try some of my new pieces while incorporating them into different decades. We'll see how it goes! Anywho, thanks for reading, dolls!