Lions, Tigers, & Bears! Oh My!

Y'all, I am way in love with animal prints right now.  I don't mean the leopard/zebra/snake-type animal prints.  Those I'm not fond of to be honest.  They just seem cheapy.  What I'm talking about is prints that are animals - like birds and horses and such.  I'm totally in love with an animal pattern.  The smaller the print, the better.  The more geometric, the even better. 

Today I share my love of animal prints, or prints of animals rather, with all of you.  Try out one of the options below and bring a fun little critter into your life wardrobe!

United Bamboo, $862.56 *

ASOS, was $62.90, sale $37.74 *

Max C London, was $80.87, sale $46.72 @

A Wear, $44.93*

The Addison Story, $226

Marc by Marc Jacobs, was $298, sale $208.60

Topshop, $85

Topshop, $220

Anthropologie, $158

Zara, $79.90 *

ModCloth, $22.99

ModCloth, $49.99



@Available in more colors

*EWP Fave

My NYC Purchase

Since I know you must be on the edge of your seats waiting for my best and worst dressed at the Emmys post, I thought I'd tide you over with what I bought in NYC this past weekend.

EVERY time I go to NYC I spend ridiculous amounts of money on shopping. It's just so fun and there are so many stores. And the sales tax is way less than Chicago's. Who could resist?

This time around I was much more limited in what stores I could shop in, but I did google for maternity boutiques in NYC and found a few. My fearless shopping guide Alexis trekked through Soho to the one place in all of Soho with maternity clothes, according to Google anyway, only to find out it was no longer there. Undeterred, Alexis did some more googling and led us to the West Village where we did in fact find a maternity store. Phew! There was no way I could leave NYC without even trying on a piece of clothing!

And try on I did, unfortunately, I wasn't too big a fan of what I found. For some reason maternity stores think pregnant women are in mourning and only wear black. Where's the color? Where's a print? Where's the fun?

But I did use the all black options to find a black pencil skirt for work. Not too exciting of an NYC purchase, but at least it was something. If I hadn't bought this, I would have left with NOTHING for myself. And that, my friends, has never ever happened before. And I wasn't about to let it happen this time.

Belly Dance Maternity, $67 @

@ Available in more colors (i.e. gray)

Website Spotlight: Basic Boutique

I have friends who blog, but I've never made friends before from blogging. Until recently that is. Yesterday I had the great delight to meet up for brunch with some blogger buddies. They're a great group of girls and I had a blast.

It just so happens that one of these lovely blogger friends I've made is also the owner of Basic Boutique. You might recognize the name from the shopping links on the side bar or some clothing options I've featured here. For an avid online shopper, it was a pretty fun meet up!

This is the lovely Andrea who created and runs Basic Boutique in addition to working a full time job. She's only 29. Isn't that crazy??

So I thought it made sense to do a little spotlight on Basic Boutique and give you some of my faves from the site. Happy shopping and check out Basic Boutique for yourself!

Vena Cava, $395

Loeffler Randall, $325

Velvet, $152



Velvet, $141

Ulla Johnson, was $275, sale $192.50 *

Myne, was $167, sale $83.50

Laila Azhar, was $385, sale $192.50

* EWP Fave