mix + match

I love how certain color palettes correspond to specific seasons.  When fall rolls around I always find myself drawn to rust, mustard, navy, and wine.  Color that are a little more subdued, but still rich.  Fall has so many of it's own colors that it's hard to not be inspired by my surroundings.  This herringbone skirt is a fall staple.  I almost never wear it during any other time of the year, despite it being one of my favorite pieces.  The warm weather is lingering on, but this outfit with a pair of tights and a cardigan would work just perfectly once the temperatures drop.  
As always, I'm mixing prints.  I have a deplorable lack of leopard print in my closet, especially for a blog called Delightfully Tacky.  I feel like leopard print perfectly walks that line of being delightfully tacky.  It's luxe but also a bit kitschy, which is right up my alley.  Of course, sometimes leopard print can stray into full-on tacky (oh hai, leopard snuggies), but I love when it's deployed well.  Some more discerning people might avoid pairing leopard with other prints, but I'm pretty sure I can't not mix prints, so of course I am.  Next time, though, I think I might pair it with an LBD for a date night.  The bright orange would be a fun punch of color against black.
 
watch + clutch/courtesy of fossil :: top(dress)/courtesy of lace affair :: skirt/target necklace/courtesy of moorea seal :: bracelets/courtesy of musana jewelry + jewelmint shoes/courtesy of blowfish :: glasses/target
I saw Rebecca post a picture on instagram wearing a huge stack of bracelets and I was inspired to create my own "arm party."  I wear so few wrist adornments because most of them are too big and just fall off over my hand.  I had to remove four segments to get this watch to fit, but I'm glad I did because it makes me feel pretty fabulous.  I really love the look of stacked bracelets and watches, so I might start doing it more often!  Elastic bracelets work better than, say, bangles.  I'm pretty sure I could wear most bangles around my upper arm.  Maybe I'll start doing that too.  A little Xena Warrior Princess realness, eh?  
*This post is in partnership with Fossil and Lucky Magazine. Thanks for supporting those companies which help keep Delightfully Tacky alive and kicking!

holding on for autumn

Lately it's been almost too chilly to go out in only a cardigan!  I suppose it's time to dig all my big coats out of storage.  It's kind of exciting, though, to rediscover all the "new" fall/winter clothes.  Boots, sweaters, jackets, coats.  All hidden away since April, dusted off and re-hung.  Dan and I went on a mini coffee date yesterday afternoon before he headed off to work and I enjoyed a Maple Pecan Latte from Metronome.  Usually I'm a black coffee/americano girl, but lattes get all the fun fall flavors so I like to indulge in a few during this season.   You know how people say, "if you haven't worn something in a year, get rid of it"?  While I kind of agree with that, I also disagree.  A lot of items in my closet linger, simply because I only have the desire to wear them during certain times of year.  I haven't worn this top since last fall, but I didn't want to sell it or donate it to a thrift store because I had a feeling once fall rolled around again I'd want to wear it.  Lo and behold here we are!  I actually have been wearing this outfit with my wide legged, high waisted jeans, but I wasn't in the mood to wear giant platforms (they're the only shoes that make me tall enough so the jeans don't drag.  Yes, I'm too lazy to get them hemmed), so skinnies and boots were my substitute.  I like the outfit both ways.  Kendi recently styled an outfit with wide leg, high waisted jeans and I'm excited to emulate something like it!  Well, once I find a suitable top.  

 
top(similar)/courtesy of marshall's :: cardigan + jeans/courtesy of modcloth boots(similar)/courtesy of blowfish :: bag(similar)/courtesy of handbag heaven hat(similar)/courtesy of tittle millinery I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but I'll be heading to St. Louis fashion week next Wednesday and I'm actually really excited!  I haven't been to NYFW in a few years, partly because it's hella expensive, but mostly because it's not really my scene.  But St. Louis fashion week seems more down to earth, with more indie designers, less peacocking and street style photographers, and events that are more my speed.  Plus, I'll get to hang out with some of my favorite old blogger friends and new blogger friends I've yet to meet!  STLFW sounds like it's going to be very blogger friendly and low-key.  Plus I'm stoked to hand out in St. Louis!  I went through St. Louis in 2007 when my family was on a cross country RV trip, but we didn't really spend any time exploring the city, just passed through.  If any of you are in the St. Louis area, you should come to STLFW!  I'll be at Industry Night, the Saks Event, and the Neiman Marcus event, which you can buy tickets for here!

OUR HOME // kitchen before + after

The kitchen was the room I worked on first when we moved in.  For me, the kitchen is where I spend most of my time, simply because it's the hub of activity in our home.  In the morning we hang out and make breakfast and I work on my computer, I work out in the kitchen, Dusty currently spends most of her time in the kitchen (while we housebreak on the linoleum), it's just the room we all gravitate towards.  I hated that our whole house was painted in shades of beige, and was really eager to get something more bold and bright in there.  Since chartreuse is kind of my current color obsession I couldn't resist painting it chartreuse.  And I've always wanted to have a chalkboard wall in my house, so I painted a whole wall in chalkboard too.  It's not a very accessible wall, since the fridge and the cabinet and shelves cover most of it, but the texture and boldness perfectly balance the chartreuse.  I painted the trim white to a make it pop.  I love the trim in old craftsman homes, and it kind of disappeared when it was beige.  Our friend thought we'd put up new trim after we painted it because it looked so different!

I'll start off with some before photos.  These are photos from before we bought it, just taken off the listing.  Super basic and boring, but nice.  The kitchen had clearly been re-done recently with new cabinetry and appliances, which was nice, but since they're new they don't need replacing with prettier, less boring ones.  I really wanted to paint the cabinets bright white, but they have a coating on them that would be hard to strip and paint.  If we end up staying here long enough we have big dreams for knocking down half the wall between the kitchen and living room to open things up, and if we do that I might replace the cabinets.

Because we didn't get a ton of space where we could actually use our chalkboard wall,  I decided to put chalkboard contact paper on the side of our fridge, and I'm so glad I did!  We use it all the time, and it's a great spot for our calendar since we spend most of our time in the kitchen.  Also: love notes.

Above our back door there was a little space that was begging for something fun, so I went to Jo Ann's and got some of those cardboard 3D letters, painted them black with the leftover chalkboard paint and propped them up on the trim above the door.  It was a super quick and easy little project but it's one of my favorite details from the room.

I've become a little obsessed with collecting globes.  I have two in my kitchen, two in my living room and two in my studio.  Anytime I see a cool one at the thrift store I have to get it, especially because they're usually super cheap.  

The black cabinet beneath our shelves was originally going to double as a coffee/liquor cart, but the liquor area took up too much space, so we moved the coffee accoutrements to inside the cabinet instead of on top.  We just do pour-over coffee so it doesn't involve anything more that filters, beans, and a grinder.  The prints in this corner of the room are another favorite detail.  They're made by an amazing local print studio, Slide Sideways, and I got them at a craft fair where they had a booth earlier this year.

A little over a month ago, I was at the Fremont Market with

Julie

when she was in town visiting and I found some vintage food prints, and I love how they sort of match the Slide Sideways prints.  I hung the vintage prints above my stove and they fit perfectly there!

Some of my favorite personal details in my kitchen are the Alaskan infusions.  My grampa made all the little boxes on the counter.  One holds my spoons, some of which he carved by hand, one holds my other kitchen tools, he made the recipe box and my grandma filled it with recipes, and then the wooden plate with the map of Alaska next to my stove is from their house.  My grampa's carvings are some of my most precious items and I love having them out on the counter to enjoy.

Since the cabinets are new and difficult to prep for painting, I opted to just put chalkboard contact paper on them instead of permanently altering them with paint.  I love how it's a really quick and non-committal way to add a bold look to cabinets, plus it matches my other wall, which ties them together nicely.  I can remove the contact paper whenever I want in order to change things up, too!

milk bottle measuring cups

+

floral painted bowls

/

anthropologie

:: fruit prints /

slide sideways

rug/roadside shop in WA :: chalkboard contact paper/amazon 

ampersand

 + sun shine print/courtesy of

modcloth

 :: globes/thrifted

chartreuse paint/Behr "lemongrass"

(if you guys have questions about where anything else came from let me know and I can add it)

homemade tomato pasta sauce

So, our tomato harvest has been pretty crazy.  I planted a ton, and they grew like mad!  Now that they're harvest-ready we've been overrun with tomatoes and trying to make things with them before they all go bad.  I already shared the tomato pesto appetizers that we made, and we just made this ketchup last night (oh my god, so delicious), but we've also made homemade pasta sauce!  Dan bought some old cookbooks from the thrift store a couple months ago, one of them is a cookbook sharing recipes from various regions of France, and the other is an Italian one. I found this pasta sauce recipe in the Italian book and figured if it was a recipe from Italy it had to be pretty good.  I love making things from scratch and it's fun to realize that things you previously only bought pre-made at the store can easily be made at home for a fraction of the cost.

Ingredients:
2 Medium Onions
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 carrot, grated
1 clove garlic, chopped
3-4 sprigs parsley, chopped
2 lbs fresh tomatoes, chopped
1/3 tsp thyme
Several leaves of fresh basil
1/2 tsp salt
pepper + celery salt to taste
1/2 cup meat stock (or veggie if you prefer)

1. In a relatively large pan or pot, cook your sliced onions in the butter and olive oil until they are soft and golden.

2. Add your grated carrot, garlic, and chopped parsley and simmer for 3 minutes.

3. Add the fresh tomatoes, thyme, basil, salt, freshly ground pepper and celery salt to taste and meat stock.  Cover the pan and simmer the sauce for 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours.  When it is fairly thick, force it through a fine sieve.  This recipe makes enough sauce for 1 lb spaghetti.

I grated some parmesan cheese on top of mine, and I also would love to make some meatballs to pair with this sauce!  There are lots of other sauce recipes in the same cookbook, including some meat sauces, so that would be fun to try as well!

back to school

Whew! Crazy full weekend.  Saturday I drove up to Mt. Rainier to shoot a wedding and then on Sunday I took photos of a proposal at a coffee shop!  Lots of love and excitement to capture.  Fall is most certainly here, and it rained most of the weekend, but thankfully it held off for the important parts of the wedding.  The proposal was inside a coffee shop so it didn't matter that it was raining, but holy cow it was a monsoon outside!

The end of summer has left me feeling unorganized.  Summer is so carefree, and then fall comes in and all the conditioning from a couple decades of "back to school" make me feel like organization is nigh and I'll be getting syllabi and assignments and deadlines and a locker where all my things go.  But alas, no such thing exists, just this feeling of wanting all that structure and organization, with no outward framework to bring about such things.  TxSC had that effect, and I'm glad it was near the end of summer, rather than in the spring.  I'm still feeling inspired by TxSC, which is great going into this time of wanting more structure in my life.

Perhaps it's more deeply engrained than just "back to school," though.  When you think about it, with fall's arrival, we realize that food and shelter won't be as easily obtained.  We need to start preparing our lives to make it through the harsh winter months.  We harvest and plan ahead.  We're biologically designed to crave organization and planning at this time of year.

  

dress/via swap :: jacket/modcloth :: scarf/courtesy of earthquake state bag/courtesy of hearts :: tights(similar)/thrifted boots/courtesy of modcloth :: glasses/courtesy of bonlook

For us adults who are no longer privy to the pleasures of fall school induced structure, we have to force ourselves to adopt structure if we want it in our lives.  Since I work from home, it's even harder when working can be done while munching on chips and salsa, or Dusty wants to play (and who can resist that?).  I have a few things I'd like to do in the coming month to get some more structure in my life.  I want to start budgeting again, which is a wagon we fell off of a while ago.  Budgeting is a way to pretty much instantly create some structure in life, at least when it comes to how we're spending our money, which dictates a lot of other things, like what we do and where we go.  I stopped working out on a daily basis in August, mostly because I was burnt out and it was so hot that I was tired of being a sweaty hot mess all the time, but I do like having a regular work out schedule.

I've been climbing quite a few times per week, and it's nice to get back to doing that consistently.  One of my little goals is to compete in the bouldering competition at the end of October.  I haven't ever competed in a comp before, but it looks like a lot of fun, and even though I know there will be 12 year olds kicking my ass, it's still bound to be fun.  The bouldering comp at our gym is right near halloween so they usually have costumes and it's a blacklight comp, which is really fun.  Afterward they typically have a party with beer for 21+ folks, so even if I suck I can at least soothe my wounded pride with beer.

Do you guys have anything you do to organize life during this season?  I seriously miss the school routine.  Getting school supplies, getting ready for class, walking to each building, learning stuff.  I don't miss high school at all (not a morning person, and never understood why I was forced to learn at 8 AM when my brain was still 90% asleep), but I really miss college.  I miss assignments and due dates, walking through crunchy leaves to class, books and book bags, eating at the cafe, studying at coffee shops.  I know I'm idealizing it a bit in my mind, but I feel like I was made for school.  I love learning and college was one of my favorite times.

If I had a million dollars I might just go to school forever.  Of course, with todays tuition I'd probably have to settle with going to school for only a few more years.  The problem with going back to school is that I have no clue what I'd go back to school for!  I would want to do like 5 different programs.  I was an art major in college but I loved sitting in on sociology and other classes.  I took an African Life & Culture class one term and it was so fascinating and enlightening, even though it had almost nothing to do with my major.  I was glad to go to liberal arts college simply because there were so many other classes available than just those in my field.  Being forced to take Gen Ed classes felt annoying at times, but a lot of those classes I had to take for Gen Eds ended up being really interesting and I'm happy, in retrospect, that I got to spend time learning those things.