School Spirit

I'm back with another Karina Dresses piece! As I mentioned last time, I'm obsessed with this brand and how seriously comfortably these dresses are. Karina Dresses just released their new Style Academy collection, and I had such a hard time choosing which dress I wanted. I'm happy that I ended up getting the Ruby in Pep Rally though. As I've talked about before, I have a few of the Ruby sleeveless dresses, which are my absolute favorites. I wanted to try something with sleeves this time, and I loved that this one is the same flattering shape as the sleeveless one, but more suited for fall. 

Granted, it's still 90 degrees in SoCal, but you better believe that I'll be throwing this on all the time once it starts cooling down. Luckily, the fabric is still lightweight and breathable so it's not too much of stretch to wear it in the meantime. As with last time, I sized down from my usual size large and got this dress in a S/M. It's super stretchy so sizing down works great for me. 

Other than trying to survive in the heat I've been...well, that's really what I've doing for the most part. Jon and I have been trying to stay cool as much as possible, which mostly involves sitting by the fan and watching TV (typical). More importantly, though, if you missed it, I launched a new site! Goddess Directory is a directory of women-owned independent shops, which I created as a resource for people to find as many as possible in one place. The site also has a blog, and I've been sharing interviews with some of my favorite women-owned shops. I'm adding new shops and brands to it constantly, and I can't wait to grow it. I hope you'll check it out and follow along!

Brimfield with Karina Dresses

Have you ever found a dress you love so much that you have in not one, not two, but three different prints?

...just me?

Karina Dresses just launched their new Brimfield collection today, and oh man, it's all so cute. I've worn this Ruby faux wrap dress in two different prints prior to this, but I just couldn't resist adding the new Meadow print to my collection. I sincerely love supporting Karina Dresses because, for starters, their dresses are some of the most comfortable I've ever owned (plus they don't wrinkle). But more importantly, it's a small, woman-run business that makes all items in the US. I've been fortunate enough to work with them a few times now, and every time I wear one of their dresses, I just want more. 

Now, let's talk sizing. I'm typically a size large or size 10, and admittedly I've started buying some things in an XL/12 lately (no shame in that - the best wedding diet is the one that doesn't exist). Most of my Karina Dresses are in a size M/L, but when I got my last dress from them, it was sold out in that size so I decided to try a S/M. Surprisingly, I actually love the fit of the smaller size! I've found that necklines of the faux wrap M/L dresses I have tend to roll and need to be adjusted, but this S/M is actually perfect. All of the dresses are extremely stretchy, so there's some wiggle room with sizing. 

3 Summer Outfits

It's been far too long since I've put together an actual outfit post for this blog, but I took some cute photos today and it gave me the motivation. I'm not naive enough to think that I'll write a separate blog post for each outfit, though, so here are three outfits that I'll be wearing all summer.

Side note: strange as it is to say, last week marked 7 years (!!!) of blogging for me. It really does feel like yesterday that I was dragging my sister-in-law outside to help me take my first set of outfit photos, and I couldn't even imagine the community I'd find through doing this. I usually try to do some sort of giveaway to celebrate, but considering I'm not doing a great job of keeping this up, it didn't feel right to make a big deal out of celebrating. Well, that and I got lazy. But also the other thing.