Of hats

If you’ve liked my page on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that on Saturday I got to meet my first blogger ever. It seems like most of the blogger meet ups I ever see are… not in Washington, and I tend to be pretty shy about talking about my blog to most people. So I’ve never met a fellow blogger. (Well, okay, I have a cousin and a niece who have blogs, but they’re family and that’s different.)

But ever since I started up the Washington Bloggers page, I’ve realized that 1. there are so many awesome Washingtonian bloggers around, and 2. I totally need to meet the ones that I can! And you guys! I was so excited, because LOOK who I got to meet:

If you don’t know who Marlen from Messages on a Napkin is, then seriously… something is wrong with you. Haha! Okay, not really, but you definitely should check out her blog because it is another one of my favorites! Marlen is originally from Chicago, but she and her boyfriend Marc moved up here recently. As soon as I read that she’d moved this way, I knew I had to set up a meeting, but it DID take me a while. Hey, I’m timid sometimes, okay? Luckily for me she was open to coming over the water on a few ferries (I live across the water from Seattle) to meet me, since my pregnant self cannot handle a lot of walking up and down hills, and when you’re in Seattle there are always hills.

So she came to my side, and we spent the afternoon chatting over coffee, wandering my favorite antique store (where I bought a gorgeous hat to add to my collection, and which I wrote on Sunday), and raiding my two favorite thrift stores for some good scores. It was SO much fun; I felt like we were more two friends who had known each other forever than basically strangers. Marlen is even prettier, friendlier, and funnier in real life than she is on her blog– and that’s a feat! I only wish I had taken more pictures while we were adventuring. I am SO bad at documenting real life, you guys. I am pretty sure that’ll change when I have a little munchkin to photograph and overload you guys with, but right now I totally forget I even have the camera with me when we go out!

While we were out shopping, we came across a TON of vintage hats, all of which I wanted. I bought one, and when I got home I realized that I have this tendency to buy pretty hats, admire them a ton for the first day of ownership, and then stick them on the shelf with all my other hats and never wear them again.

That has to stop! From now on, it’s my goal to style at least one hat a week in an everyday way, because seriously: I have all of these, and I’ve only ever worn two (now three, yay!) of them in public. And one of them is my wedding veil, so it doesn’t even count.

I love vintage hats; I have an enormous weakness for hats with veils and flowers on them, or the head-clinging ones like this one that unobtrusively add a beautiful detail to your hair (seriously, plop a hat like this on, and you barely have to do ANYTHING to your head!) I’ve determined that the next time I have a good chunk of spending money, I’m going back for more. My favorite antique store has scores of hats priced as low as six dollars, and it’s so easy to find affordable vintage hats there!

Plus, fall is the perfect time to start wearing them! People don’t look at you as funny as they might if you wore this type of hat in the summer; I think since I’ve started now, by the time we get to next year it’ll be normal to people and nobody will even question the things on my head.

Also, I want to wear more floral headbands, and I plan to make some fall-colored ones very soon!

Meeting Marlen and just chatting with her about blogging made me realize that I really, really want to work on only posting photos I’m happy with and generally improving the blog photographically, organizationally, and content-wise. I’ve been feeling obligated to post just for the sake of posting lately, and I really don’t want to do that any more!

Of course, this means putting more effort into getting dressed, and doing a variety of different things — things other than just sharing outfits. I finally got around to editing that DIY post I mentioned a billion years ago, and I have two or three makeup looks I really want to share, plus I’d love to finally do an easy flower headband tutorial now that I’ve got another supply of flowers to make headbands with.

Blogging is my daily life diary, but it’s also a creative outlet and I just want to make it… better.

Basically, I like to create and display pretty things, and I want to be less lazy (aka, taking photos in more places than just my driveway) in the future so that I’m not publishing posts just because I haven’t posted anything in a while.

But enough of that! I cannot get over this hat. I’m so in love with it. SO in love. It’s this gorgeous black velvet with those pretty little rhinestones, and I am so glad I got it! Why have I not worn more hats? I really need to.

Do any of you wear vintage hats? Or have you ever wanted to, but you just don’t know how to style them? I’m determined to integrate headwear in general as a daily thing. I think the biggest challenge for me isn’t so much figuring out what to wear a hat with so much as how to do my hair to wear the hat. Although this one’s pretty easy, but I have a top hat (and I admit, that one is more daunting to just style) and I have no idea what to do with my hair. I wore it once a long, long time ago for a blog post, but I’ve never worn it in public!

(old) Target jacket and tights | Vintage hat | Thrifted heels and shoes

Whew. I feel like I just covered a ton in this post. I’m going to have nothing to talk about later! Haha!

I’ll admit, after deliberating I deleted the outfit post I had scheduled for today because I realized I wasn’t happy with the pictures — I took outfit pictures in terrible lighting just because it was the outfit I wore to meet Marlen — and I’m so much more satisfied with this post than I was with the other one!

And I know we all do that. Thankfully.

By the way, if you are in the Seattle area, Marlen and I talked about setting up a Seattle blogger meet-up, maybe somewhere around Pike’s Place, because it would be SO fun to meet more of you! So let me know if you’d like to and we’ll figure something out!

I hope you have a beautiful Monday!

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