Save the Date Book & $100 Gift Card Giveaway!

I'm such a sucker for fun, summery reads. There's nothing like a Saturday at the beach, under an umbrella (I gots to shade my skin!!), with a fun book to take your mind off of things. Growing up on the East Coast and being 10 minutes away from the beach, I always had a Judy Blume (hello, Summer Sisters) or VC Andrews (Flowers in the Attic!!) book in tow. The beach is just as close in LA, so when I have free time on the weekends to meet up with friends, we'll head to Malibu, grab fish tacos on PCH, and then lay out our towels for a day in the sun. I always have three things with me - sunscreen, a cover up, and a book!

New Dress A Day - Beach Bag - Save The Date

To kick off the summer, I received a copy of Save the Date. It was like an invitation to start my summer reads in my solo book club! (Last year, I was in a real book club for a bit, but then it dissolved because of everyone's varying schedules. Sad face.) I'm a total romantic at heart, so I love Bridget Jones Diary, The Devil Wears Prada, Something Borrowed...they're my total dreamy, guilty pleasures, however I do love me some darker fare (totally obsessed with Stieg Larsson), but I'll just reserve that for winter!

This book takes place in Savannah (one of my favorite spots in the US!) and the lead character, Cara, is a florist who works weddings - basically in my dream world, I'd live in the south and floral arrange. So, right off the bat I was in. It's the story of girl works weddings, girl doesn't believe in love, girl comes to the rescue to really figure out if happy endings exist. There's a bit of bridezilla action, an abundance of wedding day dramatics, and even a dog. I mean, who doesn't love a dog to stir up some shenanigans?

Whenever I think of weddings, my first thought is "what do the bridesmaid dresses look like"? To be honest, that's my favorite part - I always love to see what the bride picked out for her maids, be it good or horrendously bad. I found one of those "horrendously bad" dresses on a recent thrift trip and just had to pick it up. I think this dress might have even had a home in Savannah at one point!

New Dress A Day - Beach Bag - Save The Date - Vintage Bridesmaid Dress

Tune in tomorrow to see what I transformed this dress into, however in the interim, RSVP to the giveaway below! (OK, wedding pun...) Enter to win a copy of Save the Date along with a $100 Visa gift card by leaving a comment below mentioning one of your favorite locations of a wedding that you attended! Perhaps a girlfriend got married in wine country, your sister wed in the backyard of your childhood home, or maybe a colleague got married at City Hall. A winner will randomly be chosen on 6/30. Wedding bells will be ringing for one winner, so good luck!

For an excerpt from Save the Date along with fun recipes inspired by the book, head over here!

 

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 6/3-6/30.

Be sure to visit the Save the Date brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!

Remake: Floral Muumuu

Happy Monday, friends!! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend :) I've been in NC for the past few days spending time with the family because my dad just powered through a triple bypass surgery. He's in recovery mode and totally getting better day after day, which is amazing. I've got a few giveaways planned for this week as well as some fun remakes to keep you guys occupied while I spend some QT time with my rad dad. Yep, I'm a rhyming fool.

So, check out this muumuu...

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I must say that I was totally obsessed with the print.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

The big red flowers and green leaves are so my jam.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

The turtleneck, the sleeves,  and the length were less than desirable...

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

...however I knew that this would be my DOTS!! (Dress of the Summer!) Time to get this summer-ized!!

First off, it's hot out there!! That was the first trigger for taking this from two sleeves to no sleeves! Seam ripper out and ready for action!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I did take a little break along the way... It's been pretty hot here in the south, so I snagged a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee (DD IS MY FAVE AND I"M STILL WAITING FOR THEM TO POP UP IN LOS ANGELES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and just threw that muum on my head.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I got back at it and finished off the sleeves.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

One sleeve came off and then I finished the other side to make this completely sleeveless!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I began to pin the raw edges of the armholes underneath to prep for some sewing.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

The top of the muumuu was ready to stitch! Little side note - I was not intending to keep that turtleneck like it was, however I was loving the way that it looked with the sleeves removed. I made a last-minute decision to keep it in place!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I stitched down my arms and took the body in a smidge just to make it a bit more fitted.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

 

I cut a portion of the length off next. This excess fabric will totally come in handy as my new sash!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I cut...

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I sewed...

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

...and I sashed my DOTS!!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

The perfect piece to wear to the strawberry farm with my brother!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

We were on errand duty, in charge of grabbing groceries, so we thought a trip to the Hall Family Farm would be just the place to do our berry purchasing. Why not try our hand at some farming?

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

I loved how the strawberries matched my dress!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

The dress turned out so well and it's beyond comfortable! Airy enough for the heat, cinched enough to show a bit of shape...

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

...and designed boldly enough to actually match the berries that we picked!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

Now I'm not going to lie. It was tricky actually finding berries that were ripe enough!! There were lots of berries that had gone bad, plenty that weren't ripe enough, but I think that everything was just super picked over by the end of the weekend.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

Carrying our cardboard basket, we did our best...

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

...but I think that we succeeded the most in picture-taking!!

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

It was the best venue for a fun day of taking candids. Obviously the next shot is totally cands.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

We came, we jumped...

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

...we left with 6 berries.

New Dress A Day - vintage muumuu

Good thing we still had the grocery store on our errands list... First stop, the produce section!!

Susan's NDAD Creation

Reader Susan is the best! She crafted something totally summer-perfect that is quite easy to make using all of those tank tops that accumulate in your closet. When my nice tanks get spotted or spilled on (I'm always spilling something...), they get put into my "gym pile" to wear when I work out. Here's another genius way to recycle them. Cut off the bottom portion of it and craft that tank into one of these...

I love your blog and love your daily inspiration and wanted to let you know. Thanks for keeping it up! I started noticing the new trend in stores of skirts attached to tanks, which if strategically placed, will cover the erhmmm excess in the middle :) JOY AND YAY!  So I went to goodwill and found a few pieces that I liked for the fabric.

The dress that I found is perfectly OK, but nothing I would even consider wearing on a daily casual basis, which is how I like my dresses. 

New Dress A Day - vintage dress

See how Susan turns this into her perfect, casual dress!

I removed the top portion of the dress and added a tank instead. I also shortened the dress a bit to hit above the knees - voila!!

New Dress A Day - vintage dress

It's very comfy and totally casual for wearing around the house and even to Walmart LOLs =) I will have to turn the top part of this dress into a peplum shirt for the next go!

I love easy, summer dresses like these. Totally comfortable, super cute, and ready for an afternoon BBQ or just a veg day running errands! Rock it out sista!! Love how you're working out your refashioning skills. Keep up the fabulous outfits!

For more on Susan, click HERE!