at last

i finally, finally fixed this dress into something i like. i splurged on this months ago and have worn it less than a handful of times since; i'd decided i would diy it into something i would actually wear, but i was too chicken to actually cut into it. until today.

it went from this:



to this:



a nice little crop-top for the summer. i sewed the back closed, too, so i can finally wear a bra with it (hooray!)

and to top it all off, the skirt is still functional, and better than ever! i'm sure i'll be posting that soon.

that's all for now. hope you're enjoying your weekend!

xo audrey

*edit* holy shit, i'm pale as can be. the first picture was in the middle of last summer. i need sun, guys. if my transparent skin can take it.

sepia

hello everyone! happy friday! mine has been productive in spite of itself. i slept in until about 10:30 this morning, then a couple of friends joined me for breakfast; i made huevos rancheros with avocado, tomato, roasted peppers and onions, mushrooms, black beans, cojita cheese and sour cream. (i go into such detail because we devoured it too quickly, and i totally forgot to take pictures.) they brought a couple bottles of prosecco and a bottle of orange juice, and i slowly tidied up around them as we caught up on our week. after they left i baked some banana bread and cleaned up the rest of the apartment, and did a little DIY project, which i'll show later this weekend.

i made up this banana bread recipe! i'm pretty proud of myself. it turned out pretty good, but i didn't get quite the rise i wanted; i'd lower the oven temperature and maybe add another pinch of baking soda. . . here's the recipe, with those adjustments:



5 overripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup sour cream
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
1/2-3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
2 t vanilla extract
1/2 cup salted butter, not cold, but not soft
1 cup of pecans, slightly toasted and broken up
4 oz white chocolate/white chocolate chips
1/3 cup toasted coconut
raw sugar for sprinkling

whisk the flours with the baking soda, powder, nutmeg, and cinnamon. set aside.

preheat oven to 350.

cream the butter and the sugars until light and fluffy. add the eggs, one at a time, and mix at medium-low speed until totally combined. add vanilla. add bananas and sour cream. take the flour and spices and fold into the banana/sugar/egg mixture in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of milk. just before everything has been combined, add the pecans, chocolate, and coconut. fold those in, then pour into a loaf pan (standard size, about 9 inches) that's been buttered or pammed. sprinkle the top with raw sugar. bake for 45 minutes to an hour, rotating every 15 minutes or so, until a skewer comes out clean (or slightly crumby.) ta-da!


earlier this week, i made another batch of macaroons - yeah, i'm totally hooked. i have plans for some honey-strawberry flavored ones this weekend as well. these ones are coconut-white chocolate, and i topped them with these ridiculous edible gold stars i picked up earlier in the week. they are *so* soft they literally melt in your mouth - i think the shells completely absorbed the pastry cream, which made them extra soft. so good.




yesterday i came home to a wealth of deliveries, pretty amazing considering the pounding of snow brooklyn got yesterday. thigh highs and tights from cynthia rowley on gilt, and this gorgeous hat from hats in the belfry. i was contacted by a gentleman there a couple months again, who offered me a hat if i would review it; i hesitated at first, as i've gotten some similar offers in the past that have mostly fallen through. i requested this one, which reminded me of a hat in this post
that i'd wanted but missed out on. i LOVE it. looks a lot like a vintage hat, but it actually fits me for a change - i love vintage hats and have acquired quite the collection over the years but almost all of them are a tiny bit too small.



hat: hats in the belfry
shirt: geren ford for urban outfitters dress
skirt: thrifted
thigh highs: cynthia rowley (from gilt)
shoes: gift from seychelles
purse: thrifted

okay, i'm off! have a lovely friday night!

xo audrey

spades

hello! i hope everyone had a lovely weekend, mine was possibly more tiring than the week preceding it. let me try a little catch up here.

thursday night, my friday, i had a couple of friends from class that i hadn't seen in ages over and we had a good, old-fashioned sleepover. i made spaghetti and meatballs and we drank. . . well, pretty much whatever we could get our hands on (it was my friday!!) and talked and talked until the wee hours of the morning (or like midnight, maybe) and then went to bed and slept in. met up with a couple of friends for brunch in williamsburg and then a jaunt around the neighborhood for a bit before racing home to clean up and make potato spinach curry.

saturday my dad was in town, so sam and i headed up to midtown to see him speak about rock and roll. (my dad is the coolest.) we grabbed drinks and dinner after, then sam and i snuck to one more bar (a belgian beer place) before heading home to meet another friend, whose birthday it was, for one final nightcap. sunday morning i had to work, brutal as usual, but then came home and took a nice long nap before baking a completely french meal for some friends who came over (one who is french and therefore provided an excuse for me to cook everything with lots of butter.) i made a leek, mushroom and goat cheese galette; swiss and spinach soufflés; and strawberry napoleons with coconut-white chocolate pastry cream.



this is what i wore to my dad's talk/dinner after; it reminded me of kate spade's clothing line, which i LOVE but will never be able to afford.

dress: boutique in greenpoint
sweater: thrifted
thigh highs: american apparel
shoes: pour la victoire!

and now the food!








recipes to come. hope everyone had a great [fashion[ week, more from me soon!

xo audrey

one mo' fo' the sto'

hiyo! just a quick, single-item etsy update for the moment; hopefully a full post later tonight.


perhaps the most amazing sweater of all time.


xo audrey

dress daydreaming

i'm having some trouble deciding what sort of dress i want for my wedding. i'm 99% set on vintage, but it's so hard to find one that i love that's also the right size. i also can't decide between long and short. i guess deciding on what i want the wedding to be like would go a long way to helping me decide on a dress style, but even that's tough - do i want something more traditional, or just something fun, something that feels like me and sam? there's definitely a part of me that wants to wear a short, fun, vintage dress, maybe not even a white one, and walk down the aisle to a kinks song or something. but i don't know. there is a little, girly part of me that just wants a nice long dress that makes me feel beautiful, and a veil over my face, and a string quartet. anyway, here are some that have caught my eye.






all above are from all over etsy; i've lost track.


this one from sarah seven. she has such beautiful dresses, but i think most of them are too short for my family. . .


this one from posh girl vintage (obviously.)

**edit: and then part of me REALLY wants to say f it and do something like this:



hey, it's something blue, right?

to answer a couple questions i neglected in the last post: hi lizzie! i haven't chopped the dress apart yet - the only alteration so far has been to remove the ribbon thingie from the front. i honestly don't know what i'm doing with that dress. i hate how it looks on me but i so love how it looks on a hanger. still puzzling over that one.

robin: i used this baguette recipe. if you're going to use it for sandwiches, like i did, i'd spray it with water lightly rather than paint it on - mine was delicious but a bit too crusty for a banh mi. this is a handy recipe, though, because most baguettes take at least 24 hours to make, and these ones were ready within an afternoon.


more soon-

xo audrey

ma[ca]rooned

hello everyone! hope you're enjoying your weekend. i've spent my day sequestered inside my warm apartment, sorting through clothes and whipping up eats when i get hungry. i think i've gotten something like 30 hours of sleep since thursday; the early mornings at work don't seem to be getting easier, and i make up for all my lost sleep on thursday and friday nights. today i rolled out of bed at about noon and, upon surveying the refrigerator, decided to make crepes to use up some fruit i had rapidly ripening in there. i think i ate about 5 of them.






vanilla bean crepes:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 T sugar
1/2 t vanilla bean paste (or 1/2 t vanilla extract, or 1/2 vanilla bean)
1 t melted butter
~1 cup milk (i used 2, but any will work)

combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together, then make a little well in the center of the bowl. add the vanilla, melted butter, and milk to the well and then whisk very close to the middle of the bowl, mixing only the wet ingredients together at first; the dry ingredients should start to come into the mixture as you mix. slowly expand the radius of your whisk until you've thoroughly incorporated the dry ingredients to the wet. check the batter; you don't want it to be gloopy like pancake batter, but pretty runny so that it will create a thin crepe. add a bit more milk at a time if needed. put it in the refrigerator and let chill for about a half hour.

in the meantime, melt some butter. it helps if it's clarified butter, which you can make ahead of time by melting a pot of butter and skimming all the fat off the top until you have a clear, yellow liquid; but just plain butter is fine too. take a paper towel and roll a corner to make a little paintbrush of sorts. use this to put butter on the pan, so you don't get too much at a time and can spread it over the entire pan.

you cut up fruit or get your nutella or whatever you want to put inside ready to go, then heat up a small-ish non-stick pan on medium high heat. get the batter out of the fridge. i use a small ladle to spoon out a bit of batter onto the prepped pan, then quickly swirl it around to cover the entire pan. once the edges start to turn brown, use a small offset spatula to flip it. cook for a few more seconds, then flip off onto a plate. voila! really quite easy and very light and delicious.

also wrapped up those macarons i mentioned last time. i stuck them in the freezer to let them soften a bit; a full report when they are ready, but until then:







they are filled with a vanilla-honey buttercream. yum.

anyway! i do have a few things to add to my etsy shop this week; i'll post the first 3 tomorrow, but here's a preview for you guys. if you are interested in anything, or curious about the price, post a comment or drop me an email; i'm happy to reserve anything for anyone before it gets posted on etsy.


vintage embroidered mexican top (SOLD); vintage polka dot blouse; vintage jersey striped dress.

have a lovely sunday! i hope you all get to have a delicious brunch tomorrow morning. it's one thing i miss most now that i have to work early on sundays.

xo audrey

oh when the saints

okay, i'm not a big saints fan, but as a (very passive and ill-informed) bears fan, i am definitely in full support of watching the colts lose. so, today's outfit is in honor of the saints; here's to your on-side kick, to your interception, to your family-man quarterback and his adorable baby. cheers.


top: stevej & yonip, somewhat modified
skirt: american apparel
tights: bebaroque
shoes: thrifted, j crew

i can't believe i haven't worn these tights yet this winter. i think i forgot i have them. they are embroidered with rope and absolutely gorgeous.

let's see. food update. friday night we had some friends over for tacos; i'd intended to fry up some red snapper to make 'em proper, but i sliced my finger way open in the process, so we had to improvise. made some red cabbage slaw, mexican corn, and cut up all the veggies i had in the fridge, and i don't think the fish was missed.





saturday morning i woke up at a semi-reasonable hour and made almond french toast with blueberry maple syrup and vanilla creme anglaise.


eating so much that's so bad for you so early in the morning really does not inspire on to get on with your day, so i decided to just keep baking and made a baguette so we could have some fresh banh mi sandwiches for dinner. much lighter and absolutely delicious.





tonight i'm working on some honey-vanilla bean french macarons. photos tomorrow, pending them turning out properly.

oh! and a couple of new things on etsy. hopefully i'll have more this weekend.



cropped rhinestone jacket



pink bow sweater

so much to post, but i'll save some for soon.

xo audrey

etsy shop update

hello everyone! happy saturday! at long last i am posting some things on etsy. many more to come, but i wanted to get some things up and running. i'm posting photos of what'll be up here first, so if you see something you are interested in, leave me a comment or send an email and i'll gladly reserve it for you. once i've posted things on etsy i'll edit this post to make the links active. in the meantime, they are just a preview of what's to come.



left to right: vintage llama sweater (on hold for elizabeth,) vintage 60's gold embossed dress, vintage 80's dolce & gabbana jacket



left to right: vintage 70's pleated skirt dress [update: sold], vintage handmade housecoat/dress, vintage diane von furstenberg blouse [update: sold]

hope everyone is enjoying their saturday! more soon to come.

xo audrey

hippie audrey

hello! happy friday! it's my first of two days off, and i have been enjoying it to the fullest - i slept until noon, made a very decadent breakfast, and have spent the rest of the day cleaning and baking. tonight it's homemade banh mi sandwiches, so i've got baguettes rising as we speak and thought i'd take the time to do a quick post.

starting wednesday: work, then i did my best to re-create my favorite dish from a sushi restaurant in chicago where i used to work. their carrot-king crab soup is absolutely delectable, and one of the best things i've ever eaten, but i don't live in chicago anymore, and the restaurant is actually not open anymore, and regardless, even when it was, they served it in a tiny espresso cup and it was never enough to satiate my hunger for it. so i made sam and i big old bowls of it, along with some scallion pancakes that we cut open and stuffed them with fake chicken, cilantro, and carrots. we ate the scallion pancakes too fast for photos, but the carrot soup: (recipe soon to come. it wasn't a perfect replica, but pretty damn good.)





next, thursday. i have a pretty constant ramen craving. ippudo, near NYU campus, is delicious, but a little pricey and the wait is always insane; so sam made us drinks and i made us some ramen, cheating a little by using some pre-made noodles, but i added mushrooms, bok choy, corn, cabbage, soft boiled eggs, and fake steak. it was DELICIOUS. definitely a make-again.









and that brings us to today. the decadent breakfast. eggs on a motorcycle, chive-asiago cream, skillet fried potatoes, and fake canadian bacon. for the record, i am not a vegetarian but seem to have been tricked into almost becoming one.





i compensate by cooking everything in lots of butter. tomorrow i have big plans for french toast with homemade blackberry syrup, fresh strawberries, and creme anglais.

anyway! lots of home improvement to return to, and as i do so, i wear:



tunic: thrifted
slip: thrifted
headband: tiny fabric store in south brooklyn
necklace: blue beri
pants: anthropologie
shoes: 80%20

i am absolutely in love with this tunic. i never get to wear white, since i cook so much and i'm a pretty messy/clumsy person by nature, but if i'm being honest with you guys i've worn this thing after coming home from work for the last three days. i feel ethereal in it. i feel like it gives me the illusion of a less pale person. i love it.

with that, i'll leave you to your weekend. i will be bake with an etsy update and all that jazz tomorrow. be well!

xo audrey