Inspiration: Krochet Kids intl.

Earlier this summer, I became acquainted with an incredible company that many of you have hopefully already heard of. A friend reached out to me about this company, Krochet Kids intl., sharing their vision with me and highlighting the wonderful work they've been doing. Before long, I was waiting anxiously for my new Dreamer Box Tee to arrive and planning this blog post in my mind.

I have been an online shopper for several years now. I've been a lover of boutiques like Ruche and a supporter of small shops on Etsy, as well as a proponent of challenging the way you view your closet by utilizing what you already have in fresh and exciting new ways. Now, I hope to share the ways in which I have been newly inspired by the mission of Krochet Kids intl. and their unique model of using apparel and shopping to revolutionize the lives of women.

Dreamer Box Tee (shop!): Krochet Kids intl.
Skirt (remixed 1, 2): Ruche, Collared Blouse (similar): borrowed

Krochet Kids intl. is a non-profit organization that began with 3 young high school guys and their crocheting hobby. Crazy, right? These guys took something personal and simple and turned it into a world-changing vision. In present day, their far-reaching company works with vulnerable women in poverty stricken regions of the world, providing them with the resources and skills to rise above poverty...forever. Their focus is to empower these women to radically change their family's current and future lives, and to continue to impact and revitalize their communities in the process.

KKi provides training, employment, education, and mentoring for these hard-working ladies so they can go forward with a sustainable plan for permanent change and independence. I'd highly encourage you to check out their website to read more about what they do.

Some of my favorite things on their site are this leather-shouldered slouch tee, this "let's go anywhere" tee, this backpack, the Arizona headband, all of their baby beanies...and a million other things.

This year, KKi has been presenting the world with their #KnowWhoMadeIt campaign. Every single item in their shop is hand-signed by the person who made it. They have a section of their website to "Meet the Ladies" behind every product. Their movement asks the question, what makes a product valuable? And what is the true value and impact of knowing the person behind the product? My Dreamers Box Tee was made by the lovely Rosemary Cruz. Holding a garment in my hands that she made, and being able to see her face and write her a thank you note, is such a beautiful thing. It bridges the gap between worlds and reminds me that everything I purchase started somewhere, with someone, and was touched by them in some way. 

It's easy to forget that. When we're sitting in a restaurant and eating dinner and preoccupied with life, it's easy to forget that there's a real person back there who carefully prepared our meal in the kitchen. Or when we're ecstatic over a new decoration for our home, we don't often pause to think: who designed this? Who made it? Where did it come from?

#KnowWhoMadeIt from Krochet Kids intl. on Vimeo.

I'm not saying that I'm never going to buy anything from chain stores again or that I don't currently have a Starbucks in my hand, but what I am saying is that it does wonders to feel connected to and invested in something that you're bringing into your life and into your home. It's good for the soul. It's why family heirlooms and handmade gifts from dear friends are so uniquely special. They're items that represent a connection with people, relationships and memories that supersede the simple Target run.

I was especially drawn to the Dreamer Tee because its simple message resonated with me in a profound way. Now that I'm preparing to be a mom, I feel like the bubbles of thought around my heart and mind are all made purely of dreams. I dream of my son, of being a mom, of our future home, of the world as he'll see it in his brand new eyes. I feel a kinship with these women around the world who are working toward a better future for them and their precious families. We are all dreamers of dreams. I'd love to be a part of making some of those come true.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored in part by Krochet Kids intl., but all thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you so much for reading and supporting my blog!

A Ruche Lookbook: Class Act

I'm always elated when I get an e-mail about a new lookbook from Ruche. While I've been attempting to curb my shopping habits while we work on the new house and prepare for our baby to arrive at the end of the year, I still love to be inspired. That's why I love Ruche so much. Their collections inspire me with their beautiful clothes and thoughtful details and sets. We're getting close to my favorite time of year, which is also my favorite time of lookbooks: the fall and winter. I love all of the plaid, stripes, loafers, booties, textures, lace, gorgeous scarves, creative layering, and glitter and bling that comes along with these seasons.

Take a look and be inspired by their Back to School lookbook, Class Act. 
These are my favorite ensembles! You can see these and more in their New Arrivals this week.

ruche: spring sneak peek!

Happy Friday, friends!

Ruche has provided me with exclusive sneak peek images of their brand new Spring lookbook, which launches this coming Monday! March 9th. Capture the Moment is sure to be as lovely and inspiring as all of their lookbooks, but I'm especially excited for this one because their photo shoot location was Balboa Park in San Diego, CA. Dustin and I had our engagement photos taken there (and at Disneyland), and it will always have a special place in my heart! 

I really love that first photo above, because we have pictures in front of that same little pond. In fact, I set my engagement ring on a lily pad there for a particularly frightening photo op. A gigantic coy fish was definitely approaching to swallow it whole as our photographer was snapping away. I was squealing the whole time I leaned forward over the water to carefully retrieve my treasure. It was a race between the coy fish and I, and luckily I managed not to send my ring to its watery death. It still makes my heart beat frantically just thinking about it. I was glad our photographer was one of our best friends (and incredibly talented - check out Mike Villa Visuals online, he's still based in California!). And that fishy endeavor turned out to be totally worth it.  

And BONUS: Ruche has generously offered my blog followers a special treat in honor of the upcoming lookbook launch! Use the code SPRING15 for 15% off sitewide. Perhaps you can finally buy that novel dress you've been wanting. :)

Enjoy the remaining images and check back with Ruche on Monday to Capture the Moment.

my funny valentine

One of my favorite things to do is shop around the internet for the best possible gifts for people. I love haunting Etsy and trolling around online boutiques, adding things to my wishlists for later use. Sometimes the things end up being on my personal wishlist, but I'm equally excited to find superb presents for my favorite people in life.

I recently went down that rabbit hole of window-shopping, as it were, and decided to share a few of my finds with you in honor of Valentine's Day coming up! The less conventional the better, in my opinion. I adore thoughtful, quirky presents that supersede the norm. Flowers and chocolates are always welcome, of course, but if you're looking to really find something unique and special this February to celebrate the month of love, I'd start here:

Matchboxes // Harry Potter Sweatshirt // Embroidered Bouquet Necklace
Lunar Phase Necklace // Heart Clip // Irresistible Card // Swedish Magnets
Cameo Pendant // Molasses Print // Old Book Candle // Floral Dress
Fantastic Mr. Fox Card // Bee Knuckle Ring // Cat Lady Tattoos // Heart Dress

I shop for clothes way too often, but it always takes me pleasantly by surprise when someone buys clothes for me. I love being fashionally thought of, so if someone were to give me a Valentine gift bag that included a colorful Harry Potter sweatshirt, I'd basically be bonded to them for life.

Adorable magnets, sweet prints, funny cards, temporary cat tattoos, heart-related accessories...you just can't go wrong with those things.

Perhaps my favorite things on this entire list are:

1. The "Old Books" scented candle because yes, please. This Etsy shop, Frostbeard, has some of the best candles I've ever seen in my life (including scents like Sherlock's Study, Cliffs of Insanity, The Shire...).   
2. Book Cover Matchboxes. Forget just Valentine's Day, friends, this is the perfect gift for any occasion. Think bridesmaid gifts, book club favors, birthdays...the event opportunities are endless, and Matchmakers has the matches for them all. 
3. The Lunar Phase Necklace. Lorena of the Etsy shop Gemagenta has a gorgeous collection of fine jewelry, but her Lunar Phase collection is (quite literally) out of this world. You tell her a specific date (your date of birth? your wedding anniversary?) and she looks up the lunar phase on that exact date in time and crafts the moon from that day for you to wear. Necklace, ring, bracelet...your choice! They're gorgeous. 

It's hard to believe that January is already coming to a close, but February is tapping on the door and has me thinking of bright bouquets and pretty trinkets. What are your favorite places to find special gifts for the people you love? What are your favorite entries above?

Happy Friday!

Xoxo

friday pick-me-ups

Feeling the weekend calling your name?
Get started a little early with some online shopping! I know it always cheers me up. It's double the fun, because you get to shop and pick things out, and then you get mail! It's a party that lasts for days.

Ruche is hosting a fabulous Style Steal today, featuring 100 dresses on sale for over 50% off!

Here are some of my personal favorites:

I'm such a sucker for florals. 

I'm daydreaming of fall layering, pairing these lovelies with tights and boots and cozy knit sweaters. I'm really liking the way things are coming together in my head. Too bad that crisp fall weather is still quite elusive here! I'd like to break up with 90 degrees, please. 

I'll just have to keep shopping and daydreaming until that weather drops. 

What are your favorites??

ace of patterns

This week I was shamelessly envious of an outfit I saw that featured the above-left skirt. It was worn by the lovely Rebecca of The Clothes Horse. 

I love her blog for many reasons. She loves foxes, she's an artist, she met and is now engaged to an Irishman (which means incredible Ireland posts), she has tried every possible hairstyle (including the pixie cut, and coloring it red, blue, blonde, pink...), she is wonderful at remixing, and she is brave. I don't think she would ever worry over the question, what would people think of this outfit? She has a style very true to herself and I always love being surprised by the things she loves. In one post she'll be clad in a denim jacket and knee-high gladiator sandals, the next in a renaissance painting skirt with pink hair and milkmaid braids. She's fascinating and I find myself wishing I could borrow her clothes. 

Thanks to that post, I am now daydreaming about similar items from Chicwish. They know how to do patterns! I was practically drooling yesterday. Their clothes are so fun and unique. I'm putting every single one of these items on my birthday/life wishlist. 

Update: just found a few of these items for even cheaper over at another Clothes Horse inspired discovery, Sheinside! They have the painting skirt and the amazing dress below, as well as a stupid number of swoonworthy $20 dresses like this and this. You're welcome. 

But mostly this dress: 

It's gorgeous. So gorgeous. I could have my own Reign-themed party. And I can just imagine the Fall leaves swirling around me. Even though I live in Arizona. Which is how inspiring this dress is!

But take a gander at the rest of these beauties. 

Which one is your favorite? I absolutely love the London-inspired skirts. I love anything London, really. They're a bit long for my taste, I usually like knee-length skirts a bit better than midi-length. But their wanderlust hems are delightful. They remind me a little of a dress I tried on in Anthropology once - one of those true non-buyers remorse situations.
The floral/galaxy dress above the London skirts reminds me heartily of Guardians of the Galaxy, which I'm totally fine with! I could go on and on. Needless to say, my Chicwish (and Sheinside!) wishlist is steadily filling up.
I think I feel the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Ruche Sale: for the love of birthdays!

Come one, come all!

Today is the last day to take advantage of the Ruche Birthday Sale!
By now you all know that I love birthdays. 
As one of my all-time favorite online boutiques (I'll be honest, I'm wearing one of their dresses as we speak), Ruche has the unique quality of always surprising and delighting me with their selection and artistic features. Their website is always brimming with beautiful displays and pairings, and their blog is a great go-to for a pick-me-up of fresh inspiration.

Don't hesitate to check out their New Arrivals which are constantly being updated, and go take advantage of that sale!! I'm personally ecstatic to celebrate their birthday, because I'm very very happy that Ruche was born.

xoxo
Cait

winter wishes

Jacket (shop on sale!): Ruche, Top (shop!): LOFT, Dress (shop!): Modcloth, 
Earrings (shop!): Francesca's, Booties (shop!): Urbanog

Winter sales have me dreaming about what I could be wearing on this chilly day.

As I left my apartment this morning, it was 10 degrees. I realized and spoke aloud with foggy breath that it was a terrible choice to wear flats. 

I'm about to run downstairs to get another mug full of coffee, but before I do so, I am sharing my favorite things from Ruche's Winter Sale!

I love the jacket above. It's funky and cool. I love the pairing of navy and black, like it just doesn't care. 

The leather sleeves give it a bit of an edge, and as I was looking at it I realized I'd probably pair it with something a bit more feminine underneath. A pale dress, pink maybe, with an interesting top to layer beneath it, some sparkly earrings, and some tights and booties.

Of course, it would also go great with skinny jeans and boots. It's a do-watcha-want jacket.

Sweater (shop on sale!): Ruche, Dress (shop!): Modcloth

I also adore this bedazzled sweater. It's the perfect bit of sparkle! Just enough to flirt around with the feeling that you're wearing rhinestones (you know the feeling -- it's the same one you got when you bought that bedazzler in middle school and started stapling studs and sparkly things to all of your jeans), but still classic and refined.

But because I love wild prints, I'd definitely pair it with a crazy dress or skirt underneath it. And, of course, because it's 10 degrees and I can't imagine not doing so, I'd add tights (or maybe double tights) and boots.

Just for good measure, here is an ensemble of some more of my favorite Ruche Winter Sale finds!

What are some of yours?

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7

Happy Shopping!

style gallery

If you've just arrived here at Voguish, I'll let you in on a little (widely known) secret.
I really like online shopping. I love boutiques, most notably Ruche, which I have become a loyal patron of.
(You can check out my style features on their blog here. My "not just a romper" outfit was featured this morning!)
They're also having a ridiculous Labor Day Sale until Monday, so seriously, get on that train.

Currently on my wishlist:

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 // 11 // 12 // 13 // 14

It all started when we moved to Lynchburg, Virginia and discovered that this is the town where shopping comes to die.
People must just thrive on thrift stores and garage sales, because the mall is disgraceful and Target is the #1 recommendation for shopping of any kind.
I mean, there used to be a Forever 21 but it closed down. In a big college town. That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. It's like some kind of shopping twilight zone.

There is some good news though -- Francesca's and LOFT have finally opened in a shopping center a little ways away, so perhaps that's the beginning of our road to redemption.

All of that being said, I've finally discovered Modcloth's "Style Gallery". It's so much fun. 
There's such an assortment of styles, sizes, and types of women that post their personal style on there! I spent way too much time scrolling through it yesterday, and picking out my favorites.
I went a little crazy and started developing my own Style Gallery page! (See it here).

It's such an encouraging little space. No comments, just hearts! People scroll through and can heart your outfits - it's all about the love, ya'll. All about the love.

What's on your Ruche wishlist? Do you have a Style Gallery page on Modcloth? I'd love to know!

I hope you all have an amazing 3-day-weekend. Do something crazy fun. :)

creative layering: back bows

Early last month, I won $100 gift card to a local boutique called Gladiola Girls.
It's super cute and I fell in love when I happened upon it while walking downtown, so I was overjoyed to get the gift card from a Facebook 4th of July outfit contest!

It's a store I'd most likely have drooled over often, but never actually purchased from, except for a few perfumes and accessories - they carry higher-end clothing brands and most of them are out of my price range (I spent almost the whole gift card on this dress!).

Spending the gift card was a similar experience to my first Anthropologie purchase.
Freshman year of college I was introduced to the joy that is Anthro window shopping, and received a 15% off coupon for my birthday. I was so excited. I waltzed right in, grabbed the cutest mug I could find, and saved a whole $1.50 with my coupon.
The sales lady was completely baffled, maybe even a little irritated.
"Um...you know this is 15% off, and you can only use it once. You should probably save it for a more worthwhile purchase."
I stuck to my guns, "Oh, trust me. This is worthwhile."
That mug is still my absolute favorite, for being my first Anthropologie item and for being a special treat on my birthday as a poor college student.

My time in Gladiola Girls was no different. "Um...you're getting a $100 dress for free. And you're not buying anything else?"
Sorry, Girls, for being the worst customer ever and ruining the whole point of these kinds of giveaways...

I took these photos shortly after I got it:

...but didn't actually end up wearing it, so I left the photos unblogged. I always try and blog things that I actually wear for a full day or for a specific event, and this outfit wasn't quite right yet.
I was trying to scheme a way to wear it in cooler weather, because we've been having so many rainstorms and it feels like Fall is trying to sneak up on us a little earlier this year. While it's an adorable summer dress and has this great back bow, that makes it really tricky to wear during any other season.

I was determined to find a way to successfully layer it, even with the tricky back bow, before I posted the outfit.

So, voila! Thanks to some advice from Rebecca of The Clothes Horse (who also owns this dress in another color), and some searching around online and within my own closet, I managed to put something together.

Dress: Dear Creatures (shop, shop), Blouse: Ruche (similar), Cardigan: J. Crew

I honestly love this outfit.
It's completely different from anything I've worn before, and makes me love this pink bow blouse even more for its endless versatility!

I felt a little overdressed for work (especially when corduroy pants are my coworker's go-to clothing item), but didn't care too much because I was covered in bows and completely comfortable.

I even grabbed a cardigan to help with my occasionally freezing office, and just let the bow peek out the top (which, in case you didn't follow the link earlier, is how Rebecca styled it).

What do you think?

Sound off in the comments below!