Pics from the Bday Party!

The bday party went really well; every body had a great time and I had a blast. I will remember this evening all my life.
I ended up wearing only a crystal bracelet that gave the outfit a little bit of sparkle and no necklace at all. I tried the pink pearl one but it gave the outfit a little bit of a "retro" look that I wasn't looking for, so I went for semplicity, and it worked really well, thanks to your precious advice.

Here is a pic that I took before the guests arrived. I was dancing (or pretending that I was dancing for the picture), so I'm blurred (which is good because I didn't even had to retouch the picture for the blog) but I wanted to show you the table arrangement:



I have to say that I was really impressed with how the room and the table looked (it was the first time that we organized something like this at home and we didn't know what to expect). We rented everything (chairs and tables and silver lining) and the guys from the restaurant that we had hired came early to prepare everything. I had nothing to do!
BTW, the catering that we had initially hired cancelled on us three days before the party (supposedly they had received an order from some high-society personality and they couldn't do both, sorry for you guys). It must have been the week, after the babysitter the evening of my real bday. So we had to find a backup plan and we called one of our favourite restaurants to see if they could do the catering. And we weren't disappointed. The food was delicious and the two servers very professional.

And this is me just before opening the dance floor (you can see the bracelet in this one):


The bday cake was my favorite (French) dessert, a "fresier" (a strawberry cake) and it was DELICIOUS (I had ordered a bigger size compared to the size of the party but my guests didn't leave a single crumble for our breakfast the day after). I didn't think of taking a pic of the cake itself, but I cropped one of the moment when they brought the cake to the table, just before blowing the candles. By the way, I have no idea of how many candles they had put on. I had asked my husband for four, as the cake couldn't take 40 (that's how old I am) but none of us had the time to supervise them. Luckely, there were 4 big strawberries on the cake, each representing ten years of life (in case one day someone comes across the picture and tries to figure out what birthday was that):



At the beginning I was a little bit worried about having the party at home instead of renting a venue (is much more work), but in the end I think that it was really special being at home with all my friends (they are my substiture family here, as all my family is in Europe) in such a beautiful setting. And my daughter was with us for the cocktail at the beginning, so that was an added bonus of being at home.
Now I'm looking forward to my 50th Bday!

Have a nice week!

Some Changes to This Blog

After reading yet another nasty/inappropriate comment on my previous post, I made the decision to allow comments only to the followers of this blog, at least temporarly. I do this as a distracion from my routine of stay-at-home mom, and I'm not interested in hosting debates that keep me up at night, otherwise I would have a different kind of blog. So this is a measure that I have decided to take instead of shutting down the blog completely. I accept criticism but I want to know where it comes from, otherwise I think it's not fair and I don't want to be in the situation of the last days. The thing that upset me most is seeing readers attacking each others, especially anons attacking my regular followers for coming in my defense.

I apologize to all the anons and other non-followers who regularly read this blog and make constructive comments. Please keep reading and if you want to be able to make comments, create a Blogger account and become a regular follower. I'm sorry but I don't see any other solution at the moment. If you decide not to, I will miss you but I will understand.

Thank you

The Crystal Symphony Necklace (Help me do decide)

OK, so after the uproar caused by my previous post, I think I deserve a chance to reedem myself. Let's make a deal: I'm going to show you the pics of the Crystal Symphony necklace with the dress that I have planned to wear tomorrow night for my bday dinner and you will help me to decide if it's worth it to wear it tomorrow and keep it or not. If you think that it really improves the outfit and makes a big difference, I will wear it and keep it (I swear, I got you, OK?). Otherwise, I will return it and wear something else, go in peace.
I hope that all the anons who criticized me in the previous post will read this one and comment, but I will outright delete any comment that I find offensive.

I would like to stress the fact that I don't have anyone to impress, it's just me, my husband and my closest friends (who are more into books and arts than into clothes), so it's all about my personal pleasure to make the occasion and the outfit special to remember.

Having said that, this is the dress that I'm going to wear:



I bought it at Intermix on Madison a few weeks ago and it's by a brand that I've never heard of (Marley, like the dog) but being sold at Intermix it must certainly be a very hype brand worn by I don't know who in Hollywood. The original price was $325 but I got it for around $100. This color and a few other ones were on sale, while the black and the electric blue (my first choice) were not. I tried the blue one but I didn't like it for $325 (and anyway I wasn't going to pay that much), so I got this color instead. I think it's very delicate and chic but it needs something to spice it up for the evening and that's where the necklace can help.

First, I tried it with the dangling pearls one, so you can see the difference:



Granted, it's not the ideal necklace to wear to spice the dress up but I don't have that many necklaces options (I have a "statement" necklace very similar to the Libretto one but it's too of a heavy one for this dress).

And now the Crystal Symphony. First, I didn't remember that the ribbon was this long:



But because of the ribbon, the lenght can be customized, so I would wear it this way:



And this is the effect of the whole outfit (sorry, I just noticed that I cut the shoes in the pic but as you can see in the first pic, taken at a different moment when I first tried it on, they have faux rhinestones that match the color of the crystals. They are very cheap shoes that I bought at Loehmann's for $25 but they look like $1000 Giuseppe Zanotti IMO):


So, what do you think? As I said in the previous post I don't have any other occasion to wear it any time soon but it's a beautiful necklace in itself that I would love to own (but I'm still bothered by the price).

The Cashmere Croquet Cardigan

I had planned to write a post on the Crystal Symphony Necklace today to wrap up the jewelry subject, as I ordered it last week to wear with my b-day party dress this coming Saturday, but when the UPS package arrived yesterday I had another (bad) surprise: there was no trace of my necklace in the envelope and I received a white Jackie cardigan instead! I was beyond upset: it's the second time this week that something goes wrong with my order (first the defective palm-leaf necklace and now this) and to be honest with you I ordered the Crystal Symphony necklace only to wear it on Saturday night (actually I bought the dress AFTER seeing the necklace IRL, kind of to showcase it) but I'm not sure that I'm going to keep it, unless I damage it in any way (and I don't think that I'm going to sweat on it as it is a seated dinner and we have simply no room to dance). At least, this is the plan because when I tried it on in the store I really "loved" it (I just don't "need" it as I have a very similar one from many years ago but the color is a little bit off compared the color of the dress).
I called Jcrew CS this morning and the SA offered to send me another one by overnight shipping (at no extra charge, of course) but when she was about to place the order she noticed that at the shipping departement they had already found out about the mistake and they had already shipped another one, scheduled to arrive today. So, in the end it will be here in time, but the post will have to wait.

Instead, I'm going to write a quick review of the Cashmere Croquet cardigan that, if you have read my previous post, I bought last week with the $25 off $125 card.
This cardigan has been sitting in my cart for a long time, waiting to go on sale. When it came out I thought that it was terribly cute but 1) the price ($188) was way too high for 2) a winter-heavy 12-gauge cashmere cardigan in summery, sorbet colors that I wasn't sure when (I mean, what time of the year) to wear exactly.
Actually I was eyeing the melon color, as I think that the melon is more for warm and the lavender is more for cold skin-eyes-hair tones.
When it finally went on sale for $129, I couldn't pull the trigger as it was marked as final sale and I wasn't going to spend that much on something that I had never tried on. Plus, I would have paid the sale tax on it (which in the NY state applies only to clothes and shoes that have a selling price above $110) and I HATE that, even if it's only 4.37% (while it's 8.7% on all jewelry and bags, with no minimum below). So I decided to wait, at least for a % off promo.

When I was looking for the jewelry at the Fifth Avenue store last Friday I spotted one on a table and it was a XS, but in the ametysth color. I tried it on and it fitted me very nicely, so when I found out about the "new" price of two necklaces I decided to buy it with the $25 off card (take that, sale tax!), even if I wasn't sure about the color.
(At the register I faced a crewless manager who just couldn't understand the sale tax thing. I wanted to buy the necklaces and the cardigan separately in two transactions, so the $25 would be taken off the cardigan price only and the new price would be below $110. I mean, you live/work in NY, you MUST KNOW THAT. Anyway, he couldn't believe it until he saw it on the ticket but he didn't give me the satisfaction of admitting that I was right and he was wrong. He just shrugged and went on to take care of another customer.)

I just couldn't pull myself to try it on this weekend as it was so hot, but when the 20% off promo started on the website I made an effort to try it on properly to make sure that I liked color, as the melon was still available on the website and I could have ordered it instead.
I styled it with the navy mica mini and the glass and pearl necklace (sorry, I was wearing my slippers, so I tried to hide my feet):




As you can see the XS fits me perfectly. I like that it has a jacket feeling and I also like that I'm wearing a short-sleeve tee (Petit Bateau) underneath but it doesn't show in the sleeves. I'm totally won over this color, I think it's uber-chic and will make a better transition to fall than the melon. Just to be sure that I have enough options to wear it with, I ordered a perfect tee in the amethyst and the corsage tee in lavender with the $20 off (will see if I can wear it unbottoned with it, depending on where the flowers are positioned).
This will be perfect for my upcoming trip to Europe to visit the family (at the end of August, we just booked the flights). We'll stay a week in Paris and I'm sure that I will have the occasion to wear it while I'm there (hopefully it will still be too warm in Milan where I will be next).

Is this cardigan on your wish list? Do you own it? When do you plan to wear it if you own it?

Happy Birthday to Me (with Jcrew Jewelry) - Part 2

As you might have noticed, I have been doing a little bit of shopping therapy lately as a reaction to the dreaded 40th birthday milestone. I have to say that in italian the 40th birthday marks the entrance in what we call the "ANTA" years (the forties, fifties, sixies, seventhies, etc all end in ANTA - as in quaranta - in italian) from which there is no return (unless one makes it to his/her hundredth birthday) and it's a little bit scary. On the other side it's better to be forty now than when parents where my age, as, as everybody knows, forty is the new thirty (I'm just hoping that by the time I'm fifty, being fifty is also going to be re-evalued).

Anyway, I bought a lot of stuff in the last month with the excuse that it was going to be my birthday (it happens every year, as, as you must know by now, I love summer clothes more than winter clothes and I just go crazy with the summer sales), but on the top of that I really wanted to treat myself with some new jewelry. I mean that this is a little (cheap) present that I wanted to buy myself, but my husband got me a big birthday present (I would lie if I told you that he surprised me with a diamond band hidden in my bday cake, because I actually bought it myself. But he was on the phone. And negociated the price).

So, a few weeks ago I was at the Soho store (the one with the "new" accessory-dedicated space) and I tried on two necklaces. One is the Dangling gold-disc necklace that is also sold through the website for $65 (style # 17774); and the other one is a very similar necklace that has dangling pearls instead of the discs. It'a retail-only item and the price was $58. I tried them together and they looked FANTASTIC. But I didn't want to spend that much that day and my birthday was still far away so I decided to wait.
In the meanwhile I got the $25 off $125 card in the July catalog and I spent it on the safary denim jacket that was waitlisted on the website until november and the orange gateau skirt (that I got for a mere $24).

Last week a blog follower who wants to remain anonymous, kindly asked me if I needed her card as she had received one and she wasn't planning to spend it in store. The two necklaces were still on my shopping list so I answered her that I would do a good usage of the card if she really wanted to part from it. Which she did. I received it last Thursday, so as the long 4h of July weekend started I went on a hunt for the two necklaces (as they were both sold-out at the Madison Avenue Collection store).

Sometimes I have a sixth sense, a little voice that tells me where to go to find what I'm looking for. So of all the stores in the city, I went to the Fifth Avenue store, one of my favorite and also one where the PS knows me from the days when I used to work in the neighborhood and I would spend my lunch breaks there (technically I didn't work exactly in the neighborhood but what are 15 blocks for us JCAs? My lunch breaks were unusually long though but I had a work that allowed me to manage my schedule most of the times).
To make a long story short, they had both necklaces and when I went to the register I found out that they were both on sale for $19.99 (the gold-disc one) and $29.99 (the pearls one)!!!
So I decided not to use the card on them but on the croquet cashmere cardigan that was also on my shopping list but I wouldn't have bought had I spent the amount of money that I originally planned to spend on the necklaces (I got the ametysth one, it was the only one in the store, and with the card I paid $104 for it).

I guess that after this river of words, you need some pictures.
I took the pics yesterday morning, the dress is a strapless Ralph Lauren dress that I bought on super-sale last year and I had completely forgot about. It fits me so much better than the Jcrew one, I'm so happy that I have returned that one.
Here I left the dangling pearls one down so you can see the lenght (it's the same than the dangling gold-disc one):




Here is the gold-disc one alone and wrapped three times around the neck:



And here is a combination of the two of them (but the combinations seem to be endless):


For the day, I ended up wearing the pearl one alone, like this (I got tons of compliments):



For the evening my husband and I had a reservation in a fancy restaurant that opened a few weeks ago and really wanted to try (Table 8). I wore a simple BR silk dress and the gold-disc necklace:



When we were ready to leave, literally waiting in my heels at the door, I got a message from the babysitter. The babysitter canceled on me. On my 40th birthday romantic dinner! I was more shocked than mad. I tried to call someone else but it was too late. So we ended up going to a neighborhood pizzeria with our daughter (who was already in bed but not asleep yet). So I changed my heels for my Tory thongs. Here is the outfit that I ended up wearing:



Actually, I was happy to spend the evening with my daughter, she's such a joy and I was feeling for her because she hates being with the babysitter (even if it's bedtime). She had a blast at the pizzeria and eat dinner again! As I said at the beginning of these posts, there isn't much more important in life than being able to spend time with your loved ones.
And anyway, we're going to have a party with friends next Saturday at home so it's not like I won't have the occasion to celebrate properly.
I will show you soon my party dress and, yes, there will be another Jcrew necklace!

Happy Birthday to Me (with Jcrew Jewelry) - Part 1

As you probably know, this weekend was a very special 4th of July weekend for me as yesterday I celebrated my 40est birthday! I don't know what to expect from myself (I was half expecting to burst in tears or be completely numb or very irritable or sad at the best) but we spent such a nice and full day that there was literally no time to be in a bad mood (nor to blog), only precious moments to enjoy with my wonderful family. I would say that my family is my greatest life achievement so far (maybe one day I will also realize my other dreams). Too often we forget how lucky we are and I'm grateful to my husband for reminding me where real happiness is (in his own words: "in me and your daughter, not in Jcrew").

Having said that Jcrew also contributed to make this day special as I finally got my hands on some coveted pieces of jewelry that I had been eyeing for a long time.
Firs, last week I ordered the Palm-leaf necklace that went finally on sale for $99. It was a final sale item but I had seen it many times at the Madison Avenue Collection store (even if I had never tried it on) and I knew what to expect, or at least so I thought.
Along with it I also ordered the Chandelier necklace, on sale for $49.99. I wasn't sure about this one but it wasn't marked FS and I needed a filler to reach the $150 free shipping minimum, so I ordered as well.
The package arrived yesterday afternoon, just in time for my birthday. Inside the postage box, I found two nicely wrapped boxes:

I half expected to find a Happy Birthday note from Mickey (maybe I had given this information when I setup the account?), but apparently this is just the regular packaging for this kind of expensive jewelry. Nice touch Jcrew!
Inside one of the boxes, the palm-leaf necklace in metallic rose:

But once unfastened from the wrapping, I had a first disappointment. The necklace is lighter than I expected it to be. On one hand it makes it more weareable; on the other hand, it feels a little bit cheap and not as "luxurious" as you would think it to be for this price.
The second (and major disappointment) is that it is a defective item. As you can see in the picture below, one chain link is missing:

Now, to be honest with you, I think it would be very easy to fix (the only think that I would have to do is to buy the missing link), but I'm also questionning the necklace itself. I'm not sure that I LOVE it. It's one of those pieces like the BR Darion Luncheon Necklace (see my first post), that is a little bit overwhelming. Because it's defective, I think that I won't have any problem to return it in store, even if it's FS (worst-case scenario I will get a store credit). What do you think?

As per the Chandelier necklace, it's not for me (I plain don't like it). I took a pic just for the sake of the blog, but this is going back:


I should be upset that none of them works but actually I'm not because of two great finds that I bought on Friday. I will show you in the next post, stay tuned!

Outfit of the Day and a Quick Review of the Scout Chinos

I have to admit it: I had totally overlooked the lattice Medallion-print blouse until I saw it in one recent post by the always-fabulous FFM (sorry FFM, my computer still doesn't support links in Blogger). I think that when it came out I was still in a winter state of mind and my brain just skipped it because this print is so summery. Of course when FFM posted about it, it was completely sold-out online and in stores but I was lucky enough and got it from a JCA through the Great Weekly Exchange without having to go on a Crewsade.

It arrived last week but my daily routine lately has been pretty much the following (after the wake-up-at-6-stalk-the-Jcrew-website-for-popups-get-myself-and-my-daughter-ready-to go-outside routine): quick stop for a cappuccino (and cookies for my daughter - I have to bribe her if I want to drink my cappuccino in peace) at one of my neighborhood favorite italian cafes, ViaQuadronno or Sant Ambreous, then straight to the playground where my daughter would alternatively cover herself (and myself) in sand or go directly under the water (there is a concrete water fountain at the playground, to the dismay of many mommies) or both. Then we go home, I give her a quick bath (note: normally I don't have time to take a shower myself), we have lunch (where half of the pasta ends up on my pants), my daughter takes her nap and I blog or read blogs and then when she wakes up we do all over again. Which doesn't leave much room for wearing nice clothes (the last time that I did, I spent the morning preying that my dress wouldn't get stained), not to mention nice shoes (I gave up on wearing nice shoes and I wear Havaianas, or at least carry one pair in the stroller for a quick change of shoes at the playground).

So today it was the first day that I had the occasion to wear it, as the weather wasn't very nice and we had errands to do, including a stop at the Jcrew store to return a pair of shoes. No playground = nice clothes for mommy.
I wore it belted with white jeans:



Not the wisest idea to wear white jeans today because it was threatening to rain and in fact we were caught in a shower. I had to roll them up (but it was too late and they got rain drop stains on the bottom):



I was wearing a different pair of shoes this morning (the vineyard flip-flops). Probably I wouldn't have stained them on the bottom if I had worn the platforms of the pic. They are a pair of Banana Republic that you have also seen on recent FFM posts and I was eyeing myself. I finally got them yesterday for $55 (BR is running a 30% off sales in stores. Not sure for how long though). I was just trying them to see if I like them with my clothes. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep them, I have to decide between these and the gold Tory Burch pair that I ordered at Neiman Marcus and should arrive soon. I haven't walked in them but they look confortable though. Here is a close-up:



While I was at the Jcrew store to return the Marjorie suede flat (I love them but I should have ordered my size instead of sizing down), I saw that they had received the new broken-in "Scout" chinos. I need a new pair of chinos as the last one that I bought (a Gap pair that I LOVED) date from my post-pregnancy summer and is now too big. I was curious to try them on since the July catalog came out (OK, I was intrigued by the description "our sexiest chino ever"). Since they are a new not-much-reviewed-yet item, I thought that I would offer a quick review in case some of you is debating about ordering them.

As the website says, they are definitively fitted through the hip and thigh. I tried a 0 as usual and for the first time this year I wondered if I should hae sized up, but the SA said that they are supposed to look like that. Of course she said that they looked very cute on me:



Actually they fitted me nicely in the weist and hip area (by they way, I'm going to get that belt!):



The problem is in the cropped cut. The leg tightens down pretty sharply and they are cropped just at end of the calf's muscle (at least on me). I tried the "rolled-up look" of the catalog and let me tell you that it's virtually impossible to wear them that way, there isn't enough room between the leg and the fabric to roll them unless you have the skinniest calves ever (the model must be wearing a bigger size and having them pinned in the back). All I could do was this tiny thing:



They are supersoft though and more feminine than your regular chino (not sure about the "sexiest" part).
I think that it's a style that won't fit many and I would reccomend to stay away from these if you have a muscled or large calf. Personally, I like them but I'm going to think about it and probably not buy FP.

I'm overindulging myself these days as my birthday is coming up in (Gosh!) 4 days and it's a BIG one! I bought a lot of new stuff with the excuse that it's my birthday (I feel a little bit guilty but then I think about what Jill of NYRHO got for her birthday and it wasn't even a special one!) and I have a lot to post about but it will probably wait until next week as the long 4th of July weekend has already started for my family (my husband is already at home from work, yahoo).

HAVE A FANTASTIC (AND DRY IF YOU LIVE IN THE NORTHEAST) 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND!