For the past month I’ve been collecting little party dresses and party coats, so I figured I might as well make a little collection of them. Hope you like it! For the occasion my friend Grace was nice enough to model. She’s the always adorably-dressed, ukulele-playing lead singer of the Atlanta band Lille (you can listen to some of their songs here!)–and I feel lucky to have her model because I know that she and her band are on to big things.
All these things are in the Etsy store now. I’ll be around all day Thursday to ship things out to make sure they get there by New Year’s. Otherwise I’ll be home from North Carolina on Monday and will be around to ship all week long.
1. Black and Silver Shimmer Mini Dress . . . . . . . 2. 1970s Black Velvet Draped Maxi Dress . . . . . . . . . . 3. 1960s Black Crepe Beaded Cocktail Dress . . . . . . . . . 4. Green Velvet Skater Dress.
5. Purple Plum Velvet Mini Dress . . . . . . . . 6. Black Lace Pleated Dress . . . . . . . 7. Grey Tweed Cropped Coat . . . . . . . 8. 1960s Sheer Blouse and Navy Velvet Dot Jumper.
9. Black Velvet Top and Cream Shimmer Mini Skirt . . . . . . 10. 1960s Black Fur Trimmed Coat . . . . . . . . 11. 1960s Pale Blue Ruffle Dress . . . . . . .. 12. Black Sweetheart Mini Dress.
Sorry it’s been a little quiet! It’s been crazy around here, getting ready for Christmas and finishing up last minute work things. I’m just about to bake cookies with my friend Jamie. Last night I made up a batch of my very favorite, Georgia Street Slices. My great-grandma Nowlin started making them ages ago; I’m guessing she found the recipe in a magazine in the ’50s or ’60s, because last year when I searched for the recipe online I couldn’t find it and had to ask my mom for it. So here they are! No photos of it (I don’t have my camera here at the moment)–instead here are some pictures from last Christmas. (Rufus didn’t get any cookies but he sure tried) These things are amazing, and not even that hard to make. Basically they’re no-bake chocolate bars with vanilla in the middle, almost like candy and super addicting. I’m trying to spread the recipe around the world!
Georgia Street Slices
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
5 tbs cocoa
1 egg
2 cups chopped up vanilla wafers
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbs vanilla pudding mix
1/2 tsp vanila
1 can condensed milk
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Bottom later: Melt over hot water (double boiler): 1/2 cup butter + 1 1/4 cups sugar + 5 tbs cocoa, mix well. Take off heat and add one well beaten egg, mix well. Next add 2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs, mix. Spread into the bottom of an ungreased 13 x 9 inch pan and chill.
Middle layer: Mix together 2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tbs dry vanilla pudding mix, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup soft butter, 1/4 cup condensed milk. Spread over bottom layer and chill.
Top layer: Mix over double boiler: 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 cup condensed milk. Mix well and spread over middle layer. Chill.
Hope you like them!
I’ve been wearing lots of black lately. Tonight at dinner my brother-in-law Danny Smith asked me if I’m going goth, and I said no. But I do like wearing black–black tights, black coats, black dresses . . . It may be boring and awfully safe, but it’s what I usually gravitate towards this time of year. That’s why Minna Hepburn‘s all black/grey/white collection appeals to me so much. The collection has been out for a while (almost a year) and covered already on blogs I love (hello, Mademoiselle Robot!) but aren’t these little grey-black dresses perfect party dresses? Pretty, and with just enough details to make them interesting.
I like the video for it too–it was shot in an old ballet school and the film is all flickering and romantic.
Photos by Drew
Dress: Magic Happens Black Velvet Dress, c/o Lulus
Tights and boots: Madewell
Bag and belt: thrift stores
Necklace: Corvus Noir
Coat: Anthropologie (last year’s birthday gift from Drew)
I wasn’t planning on going to Rock City this weekend. Yesterday we spent the whole day getting our Christmas shopping done, and then today we went up to Chattanooga for the day to have lunch with my parents. This year we’re spending Christmas in North Carolina with Drew’s family so it was really great to see my mom and dad before the holidays. We ate fish sandwiches and talked and told family stories. After that Drew said, what should we do now, and I said . . . . . Rock City? Ever since last week I’ve been jokingly saying that I want to get married at Rock City. Only it’s not completely a joke. Whenever I go there I get instantly happy. It’s touristy and creepy (black light neon gnomes!) but it’s also kind of pretty and 1930s (there’s the nicest stone ’30s cottage at the top) and I love it.
Maybe it’s best at Christmas. The place is practically Christmas-themed as it is, so all the little gnomes and crazy moving lights inside the cavern make so much more sense when there’s Christmas music playing over the loud speakers. It also helped me get more into the Christmas spirit. Yesterday’s trip to the mall sort of drained a lot of it out of me, but then we got home and I started my Christmas baking and made gingerbread cookies. And today I took advantage of the season to wear black velvet and sparkly tights. The holidays are wonderful.
• Staying at the Ace Hotel, drinking Stumptown coffee and eating weird fancy and amazing sandwiches from their sub shop.
• Walking and taking the subway everywhere. We didn’t take a single taxi and didn’t even get that lost!
• Korean barbeque dinner, grilling fish at our table and eating kimchi.
• One celebrity sighting! Weirdly enough it was the only celebrity I’ve seen in Atlanta, the lead singer of Deerhunter. This was the 4th time we’ve accidentally run into him, and I’m scared he might think we’re stalking him (we’re not!). He was in our hotel.
• Walking all over the city in flat, sensible shoes. (Thank you, Drew and Madewell oxfords).
• Wholesome touristy things surrounded by non-intimidating people. I loved the Empire State Building for its lobby and its good ’30s history. I also liked the corny dads and photo-taking familes at the top. They seemed nice.
• Shopping in Soho. We went to Topshop, Opening Ceremony, A.P.C., Madewell, J. Crew, and Steven Alan. I didn’t buy anything but it always gives me a rush of inspiration to see good things in person. Also Drew bought a pair of jeans at A.P.C., and the people working there were nice! (I’m usually scared as anything to walk into those places)
• Seeking out historic bits of the city. I’m currently obsessed with reading every single page on the great big site Forgotten NY because it’s so random and full of the tiniest historic details, so when I was in the city I kept looking at things like street signs and cemeteries and subway plaques and wondering when they were from.
• Finding Lula! It was completely an accident. Actually I think we got off at the wrong subway stop, walked up the stairs to transfer to another, and ended up right by a magazine/convenience store on the corner that had just about every international magazine I could think of.
• Seeing New York at Christmastime.
• Plenty of time hanging out with Drew. Making jokes, talking, wiling away airplane hours laughing at Sky Mall and making up games.
