With the Summer coming to an end and my family visiting, I decided to take a break from work and the blog to enjoy some downtime.

We've been having a lot of fun exploring the city and over the weekend we took my niece to have tea at Ladurée in SoHo. She was super excited and enjoyed every moment of it. Everything was delicious and the hot chocolate was so rich it tasted like we were drinking melted chocolate.

I'm sitting here thinking about what I could possibly write to go with today's post and came up with a few ideas but the song How Far I'll Go from the Disney movie Moana keeps playing in my head.The little girl in me enjoys a good Disney movie but to tell the truth, I wasn't privy to Moana until my 4-year-old niece made me aware and subsequently fall in love with the movie. She loves Moana and I can definitely see why.

In a nutshell, Moana is a young girl who is chosen to lead her people on their Island but is drawn to the sea and has to choose between staying comfortable in the role assigned to her by her family or following the voice from within that calls her to be what she was created to be.

Last year I rocked these vintage pinafores for pre-Fall and it has been one of my very favorite looks so far. I wanted to re-create a summer version to that look so when I came across this beautiful ruffled pinafore in a fruit and floral print, I just had to have it!

Prior to spotting these pinafores in store, I came across this off the shoulder top and tiered ruffled dress in the same print that mixes lilies, bananas, leaves and lemons but wasn't compelled to purchase even though I adore anything with lemons (see here & here). I figured I had similar styles hanging out in my closet so there was no need to get another piece.

My position quickly changed once I locked eyes with this beauty and the rest is history. Well the rest is here on the blog :)

It's 2002, I'm 15, my lipgloss is poppin' and my glitter-game is on point. Okay not quite but back in my teen and early adult years I loved me some lipgloss & shimmer. I had the roller-ball gloss, ones that tasted like "fruit" and I felt extra fancy when I got ahold of the Victoria Secret ones with gold shimmer in them. I mean who couldn't resist a shiny pout? I would slather it on but being careful not to look like I ate greasy chowmein as we say in Guyana. There was an art to wearing gloss and glitter or at least I liked to think that as a teen.

Oh how I love a good shimmer. My most prized glitter was one I received as part of a perfume set. It was called Fetish (very suitable for an early teenager, don't you think?) and was a sort of golden body glitter. I would rub it on my collar bones aka decolletage and arms when going out and you couldn't tell me anything! I had glitter gel for my hair as well and even sneaked my sister's shimmer powder (she still gives me the side-eye about it) because I was all about that JLO glow! 

When this dress arrived, I was excited to try it on. I was a bit skeptical about the size because it looked tiny when I pulled it out the bag. Nevertheless, I tried it on and it fit! I adored the mixing of  my favorite banana-leaf print with garden roses and butterflies but then I realized something about the dress that made me second-guess keeping it.

Continue reading to find out why I almost returned this dress and get the look too! 

The long 4th of July Holiday weekend is almost here and I'm looking forward to some much needed rest & relaxation. Work has been pretty intense these past couple of weeks and so it will be much needed for me.

The city usually starts clearing out mid-week and by the time the weekend rolls around, it practically ghost town. This makes it the perfect opportunity (in my opinion) to have a sweet picnic in the park.  

I'm sharing some picnic essentials & a retro-fab 4th of July look after the jump so be sure to click through!