Wrapping Up Summer

This week is the last week of my summer "vacation" which really wasn't a vacation, at least not like summer vacation was when I was a kid.  Long gone are the days of endless summer, not knowing what day it was or how late it was.  When I was little it seemed like summer just went on forever.  No sense of time.  How lovely it was to wake up every day and do the same thing: play.  Anyway, like a real adult, my summer consisted of work and school.  Next week starts the beginning of my last semester ever! Yay!  But we'll save that for a future post...

This past Saturday I went out to a fancy dinner with two of my good friends.  Dinner was for my friend Claire's last day in Royal Oak, where we live, before she moved back to school for the year.  Sad!  But we took it as an opportunity to dress up, eat Italian food, and drink wine!

Since I wasn't originally thinking this would be an outfit post, I didn't really get good photos of my outfit.  The picture above was the only one we took that was of just me.  So I've included a picture of Claire and me together, so you get to see both of our outfits!

 

On me:

dress: Target

shirt: Forever21

shoes: Mix No. 6

necklace: gift

On Claire:

dress: Pitaya

shoes: Target

Well I'm off to go read my book.  I'm trying to get in all of the fun reading I can before I start reading school books next week!

Until next time!

The Delicate Polka Dot(s)

These photos were taken on a rainy morning.  It was kinda chilly so I took that as a reason to wear this beautiful polka-dotted top with 3/4 length sleeves.  As much as I'm super excited to start wearing autumn attire, I try to make the most of the tank tops and shorts while I still can.  So when I got an excuse to wear something slightly more fall-ish for this shoot, I was excited.  I snatched this top up on clearance from Urban Outfitters, so I've been waiting to wear it for a while since I bought it out-of-season.  I'm sure it will show up in a future autumn post as well!  I love the vintage-feel it has to it.  I'm not even sure why I think of it like that.  It just feels so delicate and beauteous to me.

Pair the vintage-feeling shirt with a real vintage necklace and voila!  The fake pearls are mine, but the medallion necklace was my grandma's.  It's missing some of the green stones but I still think it's gorgeous.

shirt: Urban Outfitters

shorts: Forever21

shoes: Ralph Lauren

hat: borrowed
"pearl" necklace: unknown
medallion necklace: vintage

Until next time...

P.S.

Can you tell that I couldn't think of a good title for this post?  I'm so not creative when it comes to my post titles, so, I apologize!  The Delicate Polka Dot will just have to do.  And when I say it out loud it kind of sounds like the title of a children's book.  Hah.

We'll have some tea, please

As promised, I have photos from last weekend's meet up with Samantha!  For those who don't know, Samantha co-founded Cup of Tea with me.  She's got loads of class, she's a constant style inspiration to me, and she's the best best-friend a girl could ask for!  We go back pretty far, friends since the days of marching band in high school when we both played clarinet and life was simple.  Samantha now lives in Pennsylvania and I'm still in Michigan so we don't really get to see each other that much.   Work schedules, school schedules, and just life in general seems to keep us apart for months at a time.  But that just makes our reuniting even better!

Last week, Samantha, Samantha's bf Ryan, and our mutual friend Jamie (also from the high school days!) all met up for breakfast in our hometown of Royal Oak, MI.  It was pretty rainy and cold that day but we still had fun walking around downtown and taking some outfit shots!  Of course, we had to get the railroad track picture.  At some point in fashion photography, it just has to happen.  Plus the tracks run right through downtown so it's a pretty convenient photo op.

We photographed on a rainy Sunday morning, so the streets were pretty much deserted.  But don't let that fool you.  Royal Oak gets so crazy busy at night during the summer because it has a great night life.  I feel so lucky that it's my hometown.

And yes, we're holding Starbucks cups in that picture above.  Not because we think it's cool, but because they contain hot tea and we love hot tea.  Our blog name is Cup of Tea, so why not pose with the tea?  So delicious.

On Samantha:

dress: H&M

scarf: from a hotel giftshop

purse: gift

sandals: Target

watch:Target

On Julia:

dress: Xhilaration (Target)

jean jacket: American Eagle

necklace: gift

shoes: Payless

watch: Target

Jamie was a great photographer for us!  It was fun to catch up, be silly, and enjoy the fact that even though all three of us have gone and done different things since the high school days, we're still able to remain such good friends.  I should mention that we have a fourth member of our high school days group, Clarissa.  We all love her too and was sad she wasn't able to join us that morning!

Do you still keep in touch with your old friends?  Are any of you still as close as we've managed to stay?

To all the best sets of girlfriends out there, happy Sunday!

"I Don't Want To Be Worshipped, I Want To Be Loved"

I'm back again today.  This time because I have extra time on my hands because I'm sick!  What else can I do besides mindlessly watch movies and parooze the internet from my nest on the couch?  I hate being sick, and being sick in the summer is the worst.  It's sunny and warm outside, and I can't really enjoy it.

The only perk about being sick, and I stress the word only, is having the opportunity to watch multiple movies during the day and still have time to do something else too.  Today I've completed The Pixar Story, The Philadelphia Story, and Exit Through The Gift Shop.  I was particularly inspired by The Pixar Story in terms of my graphic design interest.  And as far as my fashion interest goes, The Philadelphia Story caught my eye as well.  I'm a big fan of old movies.  This one has three of the great - Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart.

I was particularly drawn to these two outfits in the movie.  They both are very "goddess" inspired, which I thought was clever since that was a theme in the movie (and hence the title of this post).  The rich black and white of the film is particularly great because of Katharine Hepburn's white dress and James Stewart's black suit.  Ahh.

Alright.  That's all for today.  I'm off to go force myself to get better (I'm not really sure how to do that though).

Ta ta!

P.S.  Katharine Hepburn was also a natural redhead, which makes me like her even more :)

Marbled Impatience

It seems like I've seen the marbled nail tutorial everywhere lately.  I recently came across this version and decided to finally try it.

This is what I started with (that's water in that shot glass)

This is what I ended with!

Obviously, there's a lot of room for improvement.  And, admittedly, I only did one hand.  After finishing my left hand I started making a mess and my interest level crashed rapidly.  It was kinda messy and the whole time I was concerned about either a) spilling the polish (it almost happened twice) and b) staining the shot glass.  In the end I managed to avoid both.

I would definitely recommend this DIY for those who are patient and like painting their nails.  I was not patient, and tend to avoid painting my nails (It always chips the next day!  Why spend the time doing it?)  So clearly this DIY is not for me.  But I urge you to TRY IT!  The tutorial I used was well written.

May you have better luck!

P.S. Samantha/Julia pictures coming soon!

Luna Saturdays

How convenient is it that my favorite dance club is right down the street from my house?  I love going out to dance at Luna with my friend Rachel on Saturday nights.  It really wipes me out though so I usually only go every couple months, but when I do go it's always a blast!  Seriously... two of my toes are still numb from dancing!

And a closer detail shot of the tank + skirt:

tank: Express

skirt: Pitaya

blazer: Target

shoes: vintage

clutch: vintage

necklace: Bittersweet Nostalgia

I didn't actually wear those shoes out dancing, that would have made the toe situation even worse.  But I love those shoes and used this photo shoot as an opportunity to wear them.  They actually belong to my mom, but she has passed them down to me!

I'm still waiting for my picture to show up on PictureThisCity.com. I wish I were patient enough to wait for them to post it so I could include it in this post!  But I'm not, and I haven't posted an outfit in a while, so I'm not waiting.  Maybe I'll post it in a few days when it's finally posted on the site.

In other news, this evening I went to go pick up my shipment from Payless that included the snazzy oxfords from my last post and was lucky to stumble upon the Buy One Get One Half Off deal.  Now, I'm usually not a sucker for the deals.  I don't like to buy things just for the sake of buying things, because that's dumb and a waste of money.  That being said, I did cave and pick up a cheap pair of sparkly flats for $8.  Perhaps I will wear those to Luna next time and have happier toes afterwards.

yay!

Coming soon are pictures from yesterday's meet up with Cup of Tea's other leading lady, Samantha!  It was a super fun morning, but way too short :(

Until next time...

shoes boots boots

It's Friday!  Hurrah!  I'm in the process of editing new outfit shots to share soon, but in the meantime I'll share the excitement of new shoes (or shoes boots boots in this case)!

These are the latest additions to my closet:

oxfords: Payless

cowboy:  Alloy

brown leather: Alloy

Take that!  (Now I need to find appropriate clothing to go with the boots... step two!)

Happy Friday!

What's Cute, and Floppy, and Black all over?

I've decided to post twice today.  During the week I hardly have time to make posts, so it always feels like I'm having to pick and choose what to post on the weekend.  Lately I've had my eye on a black floppy hat for fall.  I love the floppy hat.  I have three floppy hats for summer, but they're woven and belong on the beach.  For fall I'm wanting something more sophisticated and black.

That is what I want.  I think.  Unless I find a similar version elsewhere that I like more.  As much as I LOVE summer, I'm getting a little burned out on the hot hot days (no pun intended).  I find myself thinking about boots, and leather jackets, and fall hats, and long sleeves lately.  Must.  Stop.  Now.
 I wait all year for hot weather in Michigan.  But I guess one of the only good things about summer ending is fall starting.

Okay, enough of this fall talk.

I leave you, today, with Audrey in a black hat.  Sophisticated, yes?  Yes.

 

Tea time!

A few weeks ago I was invited to attend tea at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, MI to benefit The Nature Conservancy.  I'd never been to "tea time" before so it was fun to get dressed up and eat little desserts and sip tea.

 

dress: LC Lauren Conrad

blazer: Delia's

shoes: Mix No. 6

necklace: gift

Each guest left with a little bag of treats to take home.  I, of course, had to photograph them before eating anything because they were all so pretty!

 

Speaking of tea, Cup of Tea's other leading lady, Samantha, is coming into town one week from today!  So excited!  I'm sure we'll end up drinking tea.  Yum.

 

Cheerio!

Featured Creative: Bittersweet Nostalgia

It's here!  The first Featured Creative post!  I decided to start with my friend Paris of Bittersweet Nostalgia.  She recently started a small jewelry business that has really been taking off in the past few months.

Paris modeling her own creations!

The Girl Behind The Feathers: Paris from Bittersweet Nostalgia

In business since: June 2011

Based out of: Royal Oak, Michigan

 

I did a quick mini-interview with Paris about her new business:

Me: What inspired you to make your own jewelry?

Paris: When I was looking in stores for feather earrings I couldn't find any that I liked, so I created a pair of my own.  I started getting compliments on them so I decided to start designing more and selling it.

Me: What kind of jewelry do you make?

Paris: Feather and clay earrings and necklaces.

Me: Where did the name Bittersweet Nostalgia come from?

Paris: I've always liked the word nostalgia, the sound and the meaning... but, in a way, nostalgia is bittersweet.  So I put the two together and that became Bittersweet Nostalgia, simple!

Me: What's next for Bittersweet Nostalgia?

Paris: I've got a craft show in November scheduled.  In the meantime I'm going to continue creating! (I've got to get a lot stocked up for the craft show!)

I swiped some photos from her site to show you a few of her creations:

And, of course, the necklace she made for me since I don't have pierced ears:

that's me in my necklace from Bittersweet Nostalgia

I wear this necklace all the time, seriously.  The leaf is handmade out of clay with love from Paris :)

If you want to see more of her creations, check out her Bittersweet Nostalgia Facebook Page!  All jewelry is handmade in Michigan.  I love supporting independent artists, and you should too!

Stay tuned for more Featured Creative posts.  If you or someone you know does something fun and creative (run a small creative business, design your own clothes, or just have great style!) let Cup of Tea know by emailing us at cupofteastyle@gmail.com

We'd love to feature you too!

Until next time...

Paper Crown!

I have none of my outfits to share today, but I do have exciting news!  Paper Crown launches in the United States today and I'm already in love with a few of the outfits from the fall look book.  The two I've posted below are my favorites.

 

I'm  not sure I could pull off the leather shorts look, but the blazer and blouse are incredible.  Especially the blazer.  :)

I'm loving the casual feel to this outfit.  The shoes definitely dress it up though.  I could wear that outfit on the weekend or to work.  Love love love to both outfits.  Now I just need to hop on over to Nordstrom to see what these things actually cost....

For those who don't know, Paper Crown is the designer brand from Lauren Conrad.  I already own an embarrassing amount of LC Lauren Conrad clothes from Kohls.  Now I've got to check out Paper Crown!

Here's to hoping that they're not outrageously priced!  Fingers crossed.

Hopping and skipping to Nordstrom!

P.S.
Happy August!