Shopping • Eat, DINK and Be Merry

Night Flight earrings by Ornamental Things

By Amber, on July 27, 2010, at 10:00 pm

Just a little treasure that I picked up in Austin at Parts & Labour. They carry wonderful locally made things. It’s very, very hard to choose just one or two items to take home, but if you blow your budget at least you can feel good about supporting local artists! Click the photo to go to the artist’s site.

Joe buckle cuff by Rocco e Dante

By Amber, on June 10, 2010, at 10:00 pm

Like my Lolë dress, one item that’s been getting a lot of wear lately is this buckled cuff that I picked up from Editors’ Closet:

It looks black, but it’s a very dark purple. It’s by Seattle designer Tara Sauvage. She’s been around awhile, designing accessories for other companies, but now she has her own line. Rocco e Dante is named after her two pugs, who help with the inspiration and modeling.

Her bracelets are fun, with the tough-girl, rock ‘n’ roll styling that I’m a sucker for — I had a hard time choosing between this and the zipper cuff. Maybe next time her line comes to Editors’ Closet I’ll pick up the other!

Charming dress by Lolë

By Amber, on June 8, 2010, at 10:00 pm

I think I have worn this dress almost every weekend since the weather got warm enough:

This is the first piece of clothing I’ve bought from Lolë, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. It wears like a t-shirt, but it has some nice little details like the collar and the tiny zippered pocket at the waist. You could easily fit a chapstick, a small cell phone, or your ID and some cash in there. It dries pretty quickly, so it’s been no problem to decide the night before that I want it for the next day and throw it in the washer.

I wish I had it in every color, but my other dresses might get jealous. Maybe one or two more couldn’t hurt…

When cheap is good

By Amber, on May 30, 2010, at 10:00 pm

With my big vacation for the year fast approaching, I did a little shopping. If you recall, I was in the mood for a stack of gold bangles. These were exactly what I had in mind, but the $100 price tag was not working for me:

Amrita Singh is having a big Memorial Day sale (50% off any order) and I have a sizeable reward credit left over from their winter holiday promotion, but I was pretty sure I could get the look without using $50 of my credit. I headed over to Harwin Street this weekend and paid about $12 for these:

Not bad, eh? Maybe they’re not quite as pretty, but they’re cute enough for me! If any of them get broken or bent during my travels, I won’t be mentally calculating the loss. I love a good deal!

I haven’t resolved the gold flip-flops issue. It seems like all the pairs I like the most have terrible reviews on Zappos. My sister says Havaianas are worth the price, but I’m still thinking. I used to have rubber flip-flops in a rainbow of colors, but hours of Stacy & Clinton convinced me it was time to start wearing real shoes when I’m not at the beach, and I got rid of almost all of them — so now I wear leather flip-flops around town all summer, instead. I like to tell myself they’re slightly more respectable. :)

Care package

By Amber, on May 25, 2010, at 10:00 pm

I can never decide whether it’s more fun to send a care package or receive one, but someone important to me was in the hospital recently so I put together a little pick-me-up for her:

Contents:

Juicy Couture makeup bag
Body Shop lotion in her favorite scent (plus they threw a little sample of something into the bag)
Philosophy’s Purity Made Simple face wash (this is a great gentle wash, similar to Cetaphil but smells much nicer)
MAC lipglass in Nymphette (I recently got a tube of this color for myself on Karen’s recommendation and I love it; it’s one of those rare colors that look great on a lot of different skintones)
Ole Henriksen’s Three Little Wonders minis
Magazines: Victorian Houses, Cooking With Paula Deen (later I thought maybe that’s a little cruel when you’re on hospital food..?), the Mother Earth News Guide to Growing Your Own Food (surprisingly, I found all of these at Target, which I usually regard as having a lackluster magazine section)
Glittery butterfly greeting card

The hardest part was to stop shopping! What would be a must-have if you received a care package? Tops on my list would probably be Swedish Fish, followed by a book of crosswords or sudoku.

Lust list: octopus rings

By Amber, on March 30, 2010, at 10:16 pm

I can’t help but love octopuses. Octopi. Whichever you prefer. It’s hard not to be fascinated by such a strange, smart, tough creature, and it seems a lot of people are fans (check out some of Miss Monster’s popular tentacle stuff!).

Here are a few little octopus baubles that have caught my eye:

available from billyblue22 on etsy

available from OctopusMe on etsy

available from westernmountain on etsy

Finally, one I’ve admired for four or five years:

available from Seawear

Yep, I’m a sucker for octopuses.

French Connection swimsuit cover-up

By Amber, on March 18, 2010, at 9:58 pm

When my sister and I get a really good deal on something, we like to tease our husbands about how much money we saved them. Sort of like when you get such a good coupon that you’d be losing money if you didn’t buy something with it. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.

Mark and I recently planned our big vacation for the year — we are going to Hawaii for a week and a half! I am so excited that I quickly commenced with the fantasy-shopping of swimsuits and such, and came across something at Bluefly that I actually needed — a pretty new cover-up, at an irresistible price:

As soon as I placed my order, I started mentally accessorizing. First order of business, a stack of gold bangles:

Those are actually exactly what I had in mind, but way more than I care to spend. I am thinking more along the lines of Harwin St. prices — I think I’ll need to make a trip over there soon! And then, obviously, I will need some practical but appropriately pretty flip-flops:
I was thinking about a wide-brimmed hat, but I don’t think the kind I like would pack easily, so maybe just a scarf to tame my mane, like so:
I already have my favorite sunglasses ever. I bought them over five years ago and liked them so much that I ordered two spares from Italy. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I am already on one of the spares and love them as much as I ever did. I will buy them again one day if I have to. Sometimes you just know.

Next up, I need the perfect beach playlist for my ipod. Any suggestions?

Double link leather wrap bracelet by Leila Jewelry

By Amber, on March 9, 2010, at 10:00 pm

This photo is brought to you by my near-inability to take a photo of my own right arm:

Just another Billion Dollar Babes find. It was a little bit of an impulse buy, but it is currently one of my favorite bracelets. I don’t typically wear a lot of gold, but I’ll wear it just to go with this. I had a little moment of panic when it first arrived because it seemed a bit short, but I did just a little gentle stretching and now it fits fine.

I really like Leila’s stuff — it’s a little bit girly and a little bit rock ‘n’ roll. You can check it out here, but I’d strongly advise searching for a deal or waiting until it comes back to BDB, because that is way more than I paid.

On knowing one's strengths

By Amber, on February 28, 2010, at 10:00 pm

The end of February in Houston signals the start of rodeo season, which kicks off with a huge barbecue cookoff, a charity 5k/10k to benefit the HLSR Educational Fund, and a parade. This was the second year that I ran the 10k.

I was a rower in high school and college, but despite my athleticism I was never much of a runner. I have tried very hard to like it, but I think I’m just not built for it. So I can’t explain why I would voluntarily do a 10k twice, except that my employer is a major sponsor, it’s a good cause, and the memory of the pain prevents me from registering for something that I’ll hate more. And what’s 10k, if even retirees take up marathoning these days? Surely I can run 6.3 miles.

Last year I trained a lot. This year I trained less often, but at a much faster pace. On race day, my miles averaged two seconds faster than last year — hardly the payoff I was hoping for. Also, I really, really did not enjoy the last half, not even a little. So if I participate next year, I’m moving to the 5k event.

What I do enjoy, however, is strength training. I naturally gravitate toward sloth, so I have to love a sport that involves more rest time than work time. Mark has a long history of powerlifting, so when we moved to Houston we decided that we were going to buy some nice equipment. Our home gym is only about 140 sqft, so of course we bought a power rack that fills a quarter of that space. The rest of the space contains an erg, a cycling trainer, and some kettlebells.

We don’t have a clock down there, so I was always borrowing Mark’s watch to keep track of my rest time and my sets. The heavier I lift, the less capable I am of counting my sets, even when using the kettlebell abacus (my own invention). The watch worked fine except when it wasn’t here, so he got me one of these:

It’s a Gymboss. I love this thing, and Mark uses it too. You can use it as a stopwatch (as I did to time my run this weekend) or as an interval timer. You can set a single interval time, or you can set both work and rest intervals, and you can let it cycle indefinitely or for a specified number of sets. In other words, you can set it and then work so hard that you cannot count your own fingers, and never lose track of what you’ve done. It’s tiny, too:

You can clip it to your shirt or waistband and you’ll never notice it. It runs on a single AAA battery, so you don’t have to worry about finding the right button cell to replace it. Fun fact: that’s why I haven’t worn a watch in about five years — the battery died and Target doesn’t carry the right one. So I just got used to not wearing a watch. Have I mentioned that I’m sort of lazy?

The other thing Mark got me is a weight belt. Once I passed bodyweight on deadlift, it seemed like a good idea. He bought me the same kind that he uses, but since I’m a girl, mine is pretty:

My strength may not be in running, but I can lift heavy things…while accessorizing.

Lust list: vintage scarab bracelet

By Amber, on February 25, 2010, at 10:00 pm

Actually, the website calls it ‘BIZARRE vintage jewel Egyptian SCARAB bracelet’:

The stone is glass, thought to be Czech, and the piece is estimated to be from the 1920s or 1930s. The scarab is a symbol of good luck, though I’m not sure how lucky you are when your occupation is pushing a poo ball across the desert. Regardless, I would rock this one-of-a-kind piece so hard.