Shoesday Tuesday- Vacation is over!

Sorry for the long weekend without posts, but I was taking a brief vacation up north in New Hampshire for my birthday. I had a fabulous time shopping, eating and relaxing- the best way to spend a vacation if you ask me! And I got to shop with my three favorite shopping partners- my mom, and my two closest friends Beth and Melanie. And to top it all off, I got to shop with each of them individually, so I really felt like I got quality time with all three of them. It was great. I probably got way too much, but that's the idea. My mom really wanted to spoil me on this trip and I decided to let her. She funded this fabulous new outfit (in its entirety!):

The skirt reminds me classic Chanel, although it's BCBG, as is the silk top ($19 and $9, respectively). The earrings are from Kohls and were only $2.40! (The entire outfit cashes in at less than $60- not bad for nearly all designer duds.) The shoes are fabulous and I'm really excited about them because I've actually posted about some very similar shoes on here repeatedly. You all may remember my obsession with these Kelsi Dagger booties:

And you may also remember that I once found these Steve Madden beauties that were quite similar:

Well, the ones I bought are actually Madden Girl by Steve Madden. (Basically his vegan line.) I'm in love and I believe they are more like the Kelsi Dagger booties than the Steve Maddens I found a while back. And they were only $24.99 at Marshalls! Whoo-hoo! Here's a close-up for you:

Aren't they fabulous? I'm in love. The only concern I have is that the criss-cross straps are not adjustable. I have a high instep and my feet are easily irritated by a too-tight strap. Since this is the vegan line, they are not leather, so I can't count on them stretching out. I'll keep you posted if they turn out to be one of the more crippling shoes in my closet. For now, I'm completely enamoured.

Some other items I purchased over the weekend were some more cute tops, a pair of flat, knee-high boots, lots of accessories and a spectacular spring trench coat that you'll have to wait to see. It's probably my favorite purchase of the weekend, but I'm going to hold off showing you until I can take a nice picture outside. I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do.

Once of the best things about my trip is that I was a couple hundred miles from the spectacular snow storm that hit the Pennsylvania/DC/Maryland area last Friday. Unfortunately for me, there seems to be another one coming tonight. Maybe I'll catch up on blogging while I'm hunkered down for the storm. After all, I have quite a few new pieces to use in future outfits. You may be wondering about my self-imposed shopping ban and how I've clearly broken it over this past weekend. I want to be clear that the shopping was a birthday present from my mom, so I am not counting it. The idea behind my ban was to be more frugal and thus more creative with what I already own. However, a birthday with family and close friends is a great excuse to take a break from my ban. Judge me if you must, but I'm beaming over my new purchases. Not only because they are beautiful and fabulous, but because I got to spend a lot of quality time with my favorite people while I shopped for them.