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.

happy halloween {frocktober, day 28+29+30}

Outfit 1: Dress (remixed 1 / 2 / 3): Modcloth, Lace Top: LOFT

Outfit 2: Dress: gifted, Denim (remixed 1 / 2): Old Navy

Outfit 3: Dress (shop!): Sheinside

A collection of Frocktober days to prepare for the very last!
I just purchased the third dress from an online shop called Sheinside! I ordered some fun things for my birthday, and just received them this week. The clothes are inexpensive and super cute, but they also ship from China and are sometimes not very well represented in the shop photos, details and reviews. It's kind of a gamble! I went ahead and just went for it, hoping the clothes fit! This dress pattern is incredibly vibrant and fun (see it online here), and it actually has 3-quarter length sleeves. It's really comfortable, too. My only qualm with it is that the waist seam is very oddly placed. I'm hoping to wear it again soon and get better photos of it, but the actual seam is about 2 inches below where I belted it. It's not low enough to be intentionally drop-waisted, so it creates a rather strange poof unless you belt it. But all in all I'm excited about playing around with it!

It's Halloween, which means that today is my last day of intentional dress-wearing.
I will be celebrating by wearing another dress to a wedding tomorrow!

I love Halloween. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to love Halloween as an adult, because most of the fun is either of the over-the-top horror variety or from trying to be a kid again by going trick-or-treating, which you always regret because 1.) you look creepy amongst the neighborhood children 2.) all that candy just ends up making your adult body sick and unhappy.

But I actually love Halloween for very real, appropriate reasons.

1. Harry Potter

All Hogwarts holidays are fantastic, but there's something incredibly cheerful, festive, and magical about Hogwarts Halloweens. It's probably second only to a Hogwarts Christmas. They're legitimate witches and wizards, so they obviously have every right and reason to have floating candles, elaborate feasts, black garments, witch hats, and obviously copious amounts of butterbeer and pumpkin juice. When you're in the world of Harry Potter, the holiday ceases to have that foreboding, silly, American style of cheesy Halloweeniness.

2. Dressing up

I still love costumes. I love dressing up with my husband at a harvest festival, working a booth or a trunk for trunk-or-treat. The last two years we have been Disney couples (Carl and Ellie, and Gnomeo and Juliet) and it has been so fun. I'm a big fan of make believe and stories, and having a day where you can be silly and dress up is totally okay with me.
I'm currently wearing a black and white striped sweater, a black beanie, a black mask, and a tote bag filled with books...any guesses? :)

3. Carving pumpkins

I've accidentally carved cat-themed pumpkins for the last two years in a row, which means it should probably just be a solid tradition at this point. We had our pumpkin carving get-together with friends last night, and we deviated a bit from cats and carved ours into Pikachu. Close enough!

4. It's finally Fall

This wasn't true when we lived in Virginia, but I have definite memories as a kid of growing up in Arizona and feeling like Halloween was the first experience with a lovely, chilly fall evening each year. We would be walking around outside with our candy buckets and it would finally be in the upper 60's or 70's, and it would feel so grand. Sometimes we'd even be shivering (we're pretty wimpy about the cold out here). It would usher in November and all of the holiday dreams and festivities, and Arizona would finally begin to cool down!


I'll even confess to enjoying a few scary movies here and there, and liking some of the creepiness that always accompanies Halloween time. I'm the kid that loved weird dark movies like The Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, etc.

But mostly I just enjoy friends and the simple festivities of October's end.

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.

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. :)