Rhinestone Religion has moved!

Click here for Rhinestone Religion's new home!

After a long semester and a lot of work, I've finally moved Rhinestone Religion to Wordpress! Some feeds should have updated automatically, but go ahead and check out RhinestoneReligion.com and make sure you're subscribed through your preferred service to keep getting updates, especially now that Google Reader is shut down.

I'm looking forward to seeing you all at my blog's new home!

Lexi

Changing Things Up

Hello, lovelies. I need to touch base with you as there are a few announcements I've been meaning to make for a while, so let's hop to it!

Temporary Semi-Hiatus
So, it's getting to be crunch time for the semester for me. The good news I have like, one final exam. The bad news is that in place of those final exams I have; a 10 page research paper, a ginormous project which involves having to interview city officials, a literary analysis, directing and rehearsing a 10-minute play and creating a prompt script for said play among a few other tiny assignments all due in the next two weeks. Between all that jazz and filming the The Look, I'm a very busy bee and just don't have enough time to dedicate to blogging  at the moment.

More good news though: I really, really love blogging and being away from it bums me out big time. School is going to be my priority for the the next few weeks, but I'll try to squeeze in a post here and there if I find the time, just understand class is my priority at the moment. Once all that is cleared out of the way though, it's smooooth sailing.

I'm moving to a new apartment! 
This is only sorta kinda blog relevant but I'm super duper excited because my new place is a lot bigger, nicer (I get a balcony, woo) and I have space for an office. The process of moving will also bite into my bloggy time as well, but this will be going down during the time I'm taking a break anyway.  Plus, having a dedicated space to "work" tends to help get my creative juices flowing freely, so I'm excited for what I'll come up with when I'm in a nicer space.

Moving to Wordpress and Possible Name Change
When I first began planning to even start a blog, I faced a decision virtually every newbie blogger these days faces: Blogspot or Wordpress? I really, truly wanted to start with Wordpress right from the get-go but I ended up using Blogspot because I had dabbled in it before and because of the prominence of Google Friend Connect, which is not available on Wordpress blogs. I'll admit I'm not entirely sure how the closing of Google Reader will affect subscribers on Google Friend Connect, but I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to have to start changing strategies anyway I may as well move to a more professional platform in the process. So, in the near future I will be moving to a self-hosted Wordpress format. 

Which brings me to a second point. Moving platforms is an ideal time to set into motion another tweak (albeit a major one) I've been tossing around in my brain for a while now. I'm not entirely happy with the name Rhinestone Religion. Initially, it was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek but now I'm finding myself wanting to distance my blog from anything even remotely related to the concept of religion. I just don't like the undertone it gives off; it feels unprofessional and maybe even potentially offensive, especially as a decidedly secular individual.

My goals with the name change is to retain as much of what I've established under the current name as possible. So far the best candidate is "Rhinestone Roses;" I get to keep my weird obsession with alliteration involved, I can keep the RR logo/watermark, I have a penchant for florals and I should be able to maintain some level of brand recognition with it, though I'm exploring other possibilities.

Summary, TL;DR, etc.
♥ I'm taking a two week break from blogging regularly to focus on my hectic end of the semester work
♥ I'm moving to a new apartment, which is not entirely blog related but I'm excited!
♥ Rhinestone Religion may be undergoing a name change...
♥ ... but will definitely be moved to Wordpress in the near future
♥  Everything else like content and style will remain the same -- or if anything, be new and improved!

Thank so much for sticking with  me, I appreciate everyone who has taken an interesting my blog more than I can possibly express. I know I have a great community of readers, many of whom are fellow bloggers and many of you can relate to the constant desire to bring your blog to the next level, so I ask for your understanding. Sometimes life gets in the way.

 Also, if you've had any experience moving platforms or changing names, I'd love to hear any advice you have to give.

21st Birthday

Hey everyone! Today was my 21st birthday. I just thought I'd make a quick post to share some of the highlights.

I can hardly believe what my boyfriend got me -- these gorgeous Prada baroque sunglasses that I've been lusting over since the first time I saw them in a magazine spread. I saw a girl wearing them when we were in Puerto Rico and that was the first time it actually struck me that people could actually buy them. I mean, it's not like I didn't know that, I'm just so used to flipping through magazines and seeing a barrage of designer items that I'd never be able to actually own that I start to gloss over the more reasonably priced pieces after a while.

I didn't have time to do it myself, so I asked the boyfriend to snap a quick picture of my outfit before we met some friends for dinner. He's not very good at photography (despite my insistence that all the best style bloggers have photographer boyfriends) and seemed to think that the picture was more about showing off his car than my clothes... My shoes aren't that exciting anyway, black leather pumps. Just use your imagination! 

Kinda sucks that my 21st was on a Monday (and I had an exam in the morning) but I'm not too big on partying most of the time anyway so I don't mind waiting until the weekend to celebrate a bit more.

Thanks for reading! 

Sunday Link Love 04.21.13

♥ 10 Reasons Skirts Are Better Than Pants

♥ Great piece which expresses the nuances of wearing makeup.  

♥Super helpful advice for giving your blog a DIY makeover for my fellow bloggers

♥Fashion Philosophy: Coco Chanel 

♥I want to make a fancy friendship bracelet. 

♥This list of untranslatable words from other languages is soo cool! 

New Pretty Spring Dresses

I'm so excited that the snow has finally melted (even though we did get a few flurries last week...) and I thought I'd share with you guys a few of the dresses I've recently bought in preparation for Spring weather.

This gorgeous yellow eyelet lace dress I purchased at The Limited. I was immediately drawn to the cheery, bright color and the 50s-esque silhouette when I spotted it on the rack. I held it up to my shoulders and excitedly asked my boyfriend what he thought of it.

He said it looked like cheese.

Though I suffered a crushing moment where I feared I would never be able to unsee the cheesiness, I resolved not to let his offhand comment bother me.

 I fell in love with the dress after trying it on. I'm on the bustier side, so I have a problem with button-gaping when it comes to off the rack pieces but this lace dress is incredibly flattering. Instead of buttoning all the way up, it comes to a V-neck midway across the chest, which is quite becoming on well endowed ladies. I can button it all the way up with zero worries about showing more skin than intended. This is a perfect dress for women with large chests who like a vintage look.

I forgot to mention: not to be discouraged by my skeptical boyfriend, I have henceforth referred to it as "the cheese dress." Put me next to Lady Gaga and we could be a walking meat and cheese platter.

This blue floral sundress is from Tommy Hilfiger. It struck me while I was shopping that 13 year old me would be so weirded out by the prospect of shopping there because, y'know, that's a prep store. I was super non-conformist and exclusively bought clothes at Hot Topic because it like, expressed how different I was. Or something. I don't know.

I just self-cringed a little. That was a dark time in my life, let us not speak of it further.

Anyway, I think this dress would look gorgeous with the big white straw sunhat I bought for Puerto Rico (but never ended up wearing because of the wind, boo.) Can't wait for the rain to let up so I can give it a whirl!

I'm ashamed to admit it, but as much as I adore vintage and retro styles I rarely ever go thrifting. It's a combination of feeling overwhelmed by the generally disorganized racks and feeling discouraged because of the aforementioned bust issue.

 When I decided on a whim to go to Atomic Katz, a local vintage store my discouragement was only reaffirmed as I zipped up gorgeous dresses with ease... right up until mid-ribcage when it became apparent there would be no closing them up without taking some very drastic measures.

This mint dress was the only one I had zero issue with, and strangely enough it's another with buttons. Since this is one of the first vintage missions I've come back from successfully, I'm itching to search for more shops around my area and hopefully expand my vintage wardrobe.

What have you bought for Spring? Tell me in the comments!