accidental knock-offs revisited {three months later} // diy

Remember a couple months back, when I accidentally knocked-off a pair of J-crew flats? 

Read the full post here if you missed it.

(the "inspiration" shoes are Jcrew viv stripe flats)

After the first post went live, I got a lot of questions (comments, emails, fb messages) about how they would hold up. After all, they were just fabric and glue! Now that I've been wearing them for more than three months, I can address it. 

The answer? They've definitely seen better days:  

Forgive the cruddy phone photos (although that's pretty much par for the course on this blog). The fabric's shredding where I drag my feet (BAD Brittany!), peeling away from the soles, and the pointy-toes are getting a little crinkly. All not so great things.

BUT here are the "pros": in those three months they have remained totally water-resistant. They are comfortable and not stiff as a board like I thought they would be. They're still pretty cute. They were almost free.

STILL COUNTS AS A WIN. 

Would you try something like this?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Original source unknown. 

On a note unrelated to anything awkward and awesome, I love typography. 

If I had unlimited space, money, and projects for it, I'd probably own a letterpress. 

I'd emboss all my rent checks or something. 

Awkward

•  I am still peeling from a bad sunburn I got three weeks ago!!! We had gone to the lake, and since it was the first real "summer" outing of the year I was really careful to use sunscreen and stay under the umbrella. I still burned to a crisp. Grr. 
• Getting sung the "Happy Birthday" song. In public. Somehow every. single. birthday husband sneaks one in. Hooooolymoly that's embarrassing, no matter where you are. (Yes, I do think its sweet too, but those two things are not mutually exclusive) 
• The entire area outside my office building carries the distinct odor of formaldehyde? I'm almost 90% sure it wasn't my fault, but still; Yick. It's hot outside and the smell's getting worse. 

 Awesome

• Our house feels like a completely new apartment! We completely rearranged the majority of our furniture and are loving the change. Plus we added some new bits as well :) Before and After pics to come, eventually. Because we still have cardboard everywhere. 
• Hearing these words come out of my sweet husband: "which do you want to watch: The Bachelorette premiere or Desperate Housewives Finale? Either one is fine with me." The way to a woman's heart, man, I tell ya. 
• Getting birthday photo texts from the grandparents-in-law. Never thought I'd say ANY of those things. It was the sweetest little surprise. 

Quick Birthday Weekend Recap

So, my sneaky husband and brother made my 24th birthday one of my favs EVER.

Brother is a student at San Diego State, and we went down to visit! It was a complete surprise. I hadn't been down there in a couple years, so husband decided it would be the perfect place to spend my 24th birthday.

He used AirBnB to rent us this fabulous fourth-floor loft, right smack in the middle of the Gaslight District. Talk about city-living!  Sorry for the awful pictures, I only took pictures at night. Everything was reclaimed wood and cement and steel. Husband was in HEAVEN (except for the parking situation; yikes!)
And as if that wasn't spectacular enough, brother joined us on Saturday as we went to the San Diego Zoo! It was really fun, but super exhausting--we were DONE after maybe three and a half hours. It was hot and crowded and tiring and Toms were NOT made for walking. haha. I LOVED spending time with my two favorite young men :) So much so that we never took ANY pictures. Boo.
One of the highlights for me was cramming all three of us into a tiny photobooth and switching places for each picture... High-larious. UNfortunately they just made us pick one picture rather than have a strip with all 3, but it was great memories. The rest of the day was spent with brother and his lady, exploring Pacific Beach and people watching. College students in the middle of finals can be pretty entertaining ;). We had yummy sushi too.
On the way home, husband and I popped in to Ikea to continue the process of taking rentership. We were able to unpack some of the goods, but the biggest ones took a few days to open up (and completely took over the living room in the meantime!). So excited!!

There were FOUR of these boxes, plus a bunch of smaller ones. What were we thinking? haha

Little Notes

I rescheduled my little notes post to today, because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want. HA!

Dear Mister: Thank you for not judging me as I cried like a baby during the Desperate Housewives series finale. Also, working to put the new couch together so I could watch said finale in our new TV room? You're perfect.
Dear readers: You guys are great! The comments and little email messages you leave me just make my heart smile. Thanks so much :)
  Dear San Diego:  Let's be friends. This weekend was fun. (recap is coming, promise!).

Dear Ikea: I'm in love with you. I'm more than a little bitter that you are so far away from me. After our little shopping spree this past weekend, husband and I are experts at decoding your instruction booklets. Although that couch was a doozy. (also, although we love our new couch, packing it in four gigantic boxes was a little annoying. It made the drive home from San Diego a huge crazy pain).

  Dear Bachelorette Emily: I was surprised about your premiere "meet and greet" episode...You're not as boring as I thought you would be. I'm still not convinced you were the best pick, but oh well. Husband and I have already picked out our favorite contenders.
Dear little under-desk coffee maker: Since husband leaves for work so darn early (that's what you get for selling to the East Coast!), we can't tag-team the morning routines anymore. Oh man that first week was ROUGH. But you, little under-desk coffee maker, let me skip a step in the routine and brew coffee at work. Whoo hoo! Thanks for that. Without you I'd probably be late to work every single day.
Dear self: Life is precious. Look for the beauty in today. It's there, I promise.   Dear Sparkly nails: You make me feel fancy. Thanks for sticking around for longer than 15 seconds.

Shout out

Happy Monday! In lieu of writing lots of little notes (which I tend to do on Mondays), I'm going to do one BIG little note, to my momma. See, she's in Europe with my dad, and it's still Mother's day there. (The tail end of it, anyway)


Dear Momma: You're selflessYou're my friend You made me who I am todayyou loved me in spite of my irrational teenage attitude (that may have carried long past my teenage years).  everyone should have a momma like you.
because its your day (and because I can't make you breakfast in bed while you're exploring Europe),here's to you.I love you, Mommy. Happy Mother's day!