500 Followers || Free Sponsor Spots

I can't believe this post is here already! Pretty Lovely has reached 500 Bloglovin and GFC followers! Thank you so so much! And a BIG hello to all my new readers! I am so so glad to have you here! To thank ALL off you, ALL of my sponsor spots are FREE. Yep, that includes my large and medium spots. Just use the code "500". Now is the perfect time to sponsor Pretty Lovely at no cost whatsoever. Just a little thank you for being so awesome. In the upcoming weeks and months you can expect to see A LOT of flowers and pretty clothes. Two of my favorites :)

Thank you so so much! 

Roadside Bouquet

Happy Monday! I have been playing with flowers like crazy lately and I kind of love it. All of these ones came from the side of the road. I just couldn't drive on by without picking a few. Do you blame me? This bouquet is made of Lilacs (Syringa vulgaris), Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) and Annual honesty (Lunaria annua). You'll be able to learn more about these flowers later this week :) Hope this brightens up your Monday a little. Flowers are always good, right?

Casual Sunday

Look at that! A sunday post, I kinda like it. The past 2 weeks have been less than normal, not bad in any way, just not my usual routine, so I'm getting back into the swing of things again. This outfit was my running errands outfit. Something comfortable and easy. For these pictures, I literally stopped on the side of the road in a field. Just a super casual, everything on the go day. I then came home and played in the garden. The perfect way to end a day.

Outfit Details

Jacket || Nordstrom

Top || Kohls

Pants || Old Navy

Shoes || Target

Necklace ℅ Ali Oesch 

Flora Focus || Forget-Me-Not & Evergreen Candytuft

Hello there! I've got two flowering ground covers for you today that are in bloom right now! The evergreen candytuft I planted last summer after it had already flowered, so I'm really happy to see it in all its glory this year. The forget-me-nots came to us from our neighbors yard, it decided it wanted to creep underneath the fence and start growing in our yard. I am perfectly ok with that!

Forget-Me-Not
Botanical Name: Myosotis
Flower: Small, 1 cm or less, blue, pink or white flowers with yellow centers. Most have 5 petals.
Leaf: Oblong in shape about 1" to 3" in length and about 3/4" wide. Covered in tiny little hairs, giving it a fuzzy feeling.
Meaning: Memories

Evergreen candytuft
Botanical Name: Iberis sempervirens
Flower: Clusters of small white flowers with 4 petals, 2 of them larger than the others. Clusters a=can be 1 inch wide and cover the whole plant.
Leaf: 1 inch long by 1/4 inch wide, arranged alternately on the long semi woody stem.
Meaning: Indifference

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Im so glad I got to go to the Tulip Festival this year! I have wanted to for so long but have always been at school and not able to make it. The pictures do not do it justice but you can sort of get the idea. Fields and fields of colorful tulips. While going on a sunny day is nice, I want to go back when it is just about to storm. Sounds odd, I know but the pictures would be amazing. A dark and stormy sky and bright tulip fields. Kind of like the photo below. My early outfit photo days :)

Outfit Details

Dress || Ruche

Top || Walmart

Boots || ℅ Joules 

Flora Focus || Tulips

Tulips are popping up everywhere right now! My mom and I went up to to the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon last week and brought back some gorgeous flowers. You can probably see that for yourself though. Ill have the full post on our trip up there on Friday!

Tulip
Botanical Name: Tulipa sp.
Flower: Wide range of colors and combinations. Most have 6 petals. Some have double petals making them look like peonies.
Leaf: Very broad leaves shaped like canoes. Some have reddish markings or margins.
Meaning: Declaration of love

Growth!

Poppies on left, impatiens on right

I have finally got some growth from some of the seeds I planted! So this is just a little update, more for me to have a record of this years garden. The poppies have finally emerged. Its hard to tell from the pictures, but you can see a little green on the left. I am still waiting on the impatiens to make their appearance. They are a little bit more difficult to grow from seed and require a soil temperature of about 75*, a heating mat would come in handy for these. We have had some really nice weather the past couple of days, so I'm hoping that heated up the soil a bit.

I also added some other pictures of flowers just because :)

The Rome Dress

So I kind of started a new collection. A dress collection. And I really hope I get to add to it sometime soon. A couple of years ago, I traveled to Europe with some friends from college. We went to Paris and I just couldn't leave without getting a dress. And as some of you may know, I got to go to Europe again this past December. We went to Rome and I got another dress! Enter my European travels dress collection! Can you see why I hope to add another to the collection sometime soon?

This dress is from Zara, which is in the U.S., but I still bought it in Rome so it counts! I saw this one from across the store and made a beeline towards it. It caught my attention immediately. The detail is little beads and I am completely in  love with it!

Outfit Details

Dress || Zara

Jacket || Nordstrom

Shoes || Shoemint

Bracelet || My mom made in high school 

Wanderlust

Wanderlust: A strong desire to travel. That has been me lately. I just want to pack up and go on a 2-3 month long road trip. A couple days ago my mom, brother and I were even looking on craigslist for old trailers and RVs to renovate. Not that we would have actually gotten one, but it was just fun to look and dream. The same night I also looked through all of the pictures we took in Switzerland and Italy, which I really need to print out. The short necklace I am wearing is of Switzerland. My sister-in-law got those for my mom and me when we were there for the wedding. It was the perfect thing to wear while dreaming of adventure. Im always looking and ready for adventure.

Do you have any adventures coming up?

Outfit Details

Plaid button up || TJ Maxx

Striped top || Target

Pants || Old Navy

Shoes || Top Shop via Nordstrom

Long Necklace || Forever 21

Switzerland Necklace || Gift

Flora Focus || Anemone & Ranunculus

Hi there! Today I am starting a new weekly feature! Although I kind of already started it last week with this post, I didn't realize I wanted it to be a weekly feature until this one! Flora Focus will highlight some of the flowers, shrubs and trees that are in bloom right now! At least in the PNW. I thought this would be a good way for me to get back in the swing of things and relearn about all these gorgeous plants we have here and thought you guys might want to learn the basics too! What do you think? Sound good? I hope so! :)

I thought I would start out with two of my favorite spring flowers. Anemones & Ranunculus.

Anemone
Botanical Name: Anemone spp.
Flower: can be red, pink, white, blue or purple. Some have a very dark, black, center while others of a yellow center. Grows on a long, thin stem above the rest of the plant. Paper like petals. Blooms in spring or summer, depending on the variety.
Leaf: Leaves have serrated edges and are mid to dark green in color.
Uses: Cut flower, these are gorgeous in arrangements. Simply by themselves or with other spring flowers.
Meaning: Forsaken

Ranunculus 
Botanical Name: Ranunculus spp.
Flower: Comes in pink, orange, white, yellow and purple. Whorls, upon whorls of petals create this sometimes large bloom.
Leaf: Serrated leaf with 3 lobes. Mid to dark green.
Uses: This is also often used as a cut flower and is a popular wedding flower.
Meaning: You are radiant with charms

Thanks for reading! I hope that by the end of some of these posts you can start to put names to flowers. Have a great day!

xo

Whats the Big Deal?

I have been LOVING all of the flowers popping up everywhere. Is that a surprise? I have been wanting to get down to the Seattle Japanese Garden for awhile now and figured this time of year would be a good time while all the trees are flowering. I really need to explore Seattle more. The garden was in an area of the city I have never been to and was on the border of a large arboretum. Which I now know I need to take a walk through.

I took these photos in a public place, with other people around. I almost left without getting the pictures taken because of this fact, but just couldn't do that. I drove all the way down there specifically for these pictures and decided to just suck it up and do it. Im extremely glad I did. While I was taking the ones on the bench, I know I had an audience from across the little pond that was there. Ill let them wonder what I was doing. Ill never see them again, right? So whats the big deal?

   

Outfit Details

Top & Bracelet || Kohls

Skirt || Handmade

Shoes || TOMS

Necklace ℅ Ali Oesch Jewelry