Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Business Casual

Hello, my lovely readers!

Last week I flew out to Kansas for a quick one day trip to meet with a client.  Normally I can wear jeans to work, but we had to wear business casual for this meeting.  I realize that many of my readers probably have to wear business casual to work, so I will try to show more looks in the future with dress pants, which are in my opinion harder to style than jeans.  Many times I wear skirts rather than pants when I need a dressier look since they seem easier to style, but I wore pants for comfort on this trip.

I stuck with a cardigan to pull the look together rather than a blazer to keep the look a little more casual.  These pants are a new brand that recently launched called Wear Eponymous and I heard about them through a Twitter Party.  They have some great looking stuff.  I picked out these pants because I love the black stripe on the side and I don't have anything like them.





What I'm Wearing
Top ~ Limited
Cardigan ~ WHBM
Pants ~ Wear Eponymous
Bag ~ Limited
Shoes ~ WHBM (similar)
Necklace ~ Limited (similar)
Earrings ~ ILY Couture (similar)
Bracelet ~ WHBM (similar)

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Thursday, April 24, 2014

Thrift Style Thursday: Boho Chic


This week's theme is Boho Chic!  That is one style that I don't really wear much to be honest (ok, more like almost never).  It always makes me think of music festivals. :)  Don't get me wrong, I think that style is beautiful, it's just never been what I would consider my type of style.  Take this dress, for example, it's absolutely gorgeous and I love the way it makes me feel when I wear it, but I'm not sure it's something I would have picked out for myself.  I love that TST gets me out of my comfort zone!  Anyways, I borrowed this dress from a friend.  That's almost like thrifting, right...?  She recently had a baby and is letting me borrow some clothes I was lusting after while she works on getting back to her pre-baby size.  (Isn't she the best?!)





Let's see how all the other ladies styled their happy hippie/boho chic looks!

Snippets With Alex
Spoolish

Do you want to have a say in the upcoming themes for Thrift Style Thursday?  Head over here to vote for your favorite one!  We will announce the May themes soon ~ you can participate if you want!  We would love to see your thrifty style!  :)

On a side note, I just bought a ticket for ACL (AMAZING lineup this year) and I think this post has inspired me to find a boho chic look to wear for at least one of the days.

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Monday, April 21, 2014

Easter Outfit

Good morning!  I hope you all had a great Easter!  We had a fun time celebrating with my husband's family.  The bluebonnets were still looking gorgeous this weekend when we went up to their land out in the country, so we used them as a background again. :)

I love this floral bodice top from WHBM, but I was hesitant to wear it work because it was sleeveless.  I didn't like how it looked with a cardigan since it covered up the floral pattern.  Then I realized I could wear a long sleeve shirt underneath it!  Perfect solution.  I mentioned this bag in my last Style Swoons post (which you should check out if you haven't, especially the Shirk Report link) and since it was on sale for 50% off (I think it still is, check out the link at the end of the post), I decided to go ahead and get it.  It's a little bigger than the usual bag I carry, but I just love the lace detail on the front of it.








These guys love going up to the country property where they can run around and play all they want!


What I'm Wearing
Long Sleeve Top ~ Limited
Sleeveless Bodice ~ WHBM, similar
Skirt ~ Limited, similar
Purse ~ Limited
Shoes ~ Bongo, similar
Earrings ~ Express, similar
Sunglasses ~ Vera Wang

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Friday, April 18, 2014

Colorful Easter Garland



Hello and Happy almost Easter! I wanted to do something crafty this year to decorate the house for Easter and I came across this fun post from Pinterest that had a DIY Easter Garland. I thought it would look cute hanging on our fireplace mantle and it seemed easy enough to make.





Supplies
Ballons
Colored yarn/string
Flour
Liquid starch

Steps

1. Decide how many eggs you want on your garland, how large you want the eggs to be, and blow the balloons up accordingly. I decided to do about a dozen smaller sized eggs for mine.  

2. Next determine how much liquid starch you will need to coat all the yarn/string you will use and mix 2 parts liquid starch to 1 part flour. I wasn't sure how much I would need so I started out with 1 cup liquid starch and 1/2 cup flour. You can always add more later if needed. I ended up having about a third of it leftover, which worked out great so I wasn't scraping the bowl at the end to coat my string.

3. Coat the string in the starch/flour mixture. I decided to use one color per balloon and it was just about the right amount of string. A *very important* tip is to put the string into the mixture in a circular pattern (see below), being very careful not to twist it around itself. This really helps prevent knots when pulling the string out and around the balloon. Once it's sticky, it's impossible to untangle. Carefully push the string into the mixture if it hasn't sunk in completely already. This step took the longest out of everything.  

4. Wrap the string around the balloon. I didn't want to have too much mixture on the string, so I pulled it between my fingers as I pulled it out of the bowl to get rid of the excess. Then I wrapped the string around and around, trying to cover the open space on the balloon as much as possible. I'm not going to lie, this step was messy. I had to clean my hands in between each string because they would get so sticky and made it impossible to add the next string to the mixture.




5. Place the wrapped balloons on a paper towel to dry. If there is excess mixture on your balloon, I would try to wipe as much of that off first so it doesn't soak through the paper towel too much. I let my balloons sit for about a day, turning them over halfway through so that both sides had a chance to dry.




Most of the eggs turned out pretty well. I had a couple funky ones, like the white one below, that I had to chuckle about because I have no idea how the string got so wavy. I think the balloon may have had a small leak and became smaller as the string was drying.

6. After the string has completely dried, pop the balloon and pull it out from the string. Tweezers are very helpful here if the balloon breaks into pieces. For the most part, once I popped the balloon, the entire thing detached itself from the string and I could pull it out in one piece.


7. String the eggs together. I forgot to get extra string for this step, so I used dental floss and it worked great. :) I found it helpful to hold the egg sideways and drop the floss from the top and use gravity to my advantage to get the floss through to the bottom. Then I made a small knot around the string for each egg so it stayed in place on the line.



These turned out better than I was expecting. It was a fun project despite the occasional frustration of keeping the string untangled and super messy fingers. The eggs could also be placed in a basket or clear vase for decoration.  

Happy Easter!



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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Thrift Style Thursday: Cocktail Dress


Happy Thrift Style Thursday!  This week's theme is the cocktail dress.  I love dressing up and I think a good party dress is one of the most fun things to wear on a night out.

I had the opportunity to help my sister-in-law and her family move a few weeks ago and while she was unpacking her clothes, she decided to purge items she no longer wears.  This dress was one of a couple cute items that I snatched up from her.  I love shopping my friends' closets - they all have great style. :)

Since I almost always have to have some color with what I wear, I added a pink clutch, blue earrings and polka dot shoes.  These shoes are one of my favorite pairs and I recently gave them new life by getting the soles and heels fixed at a shoe hospital.  I highly recommend doing that for nice shoes that may appear to be nearing the end of their life.  I've had these for probably about 6 years now, and I expect to have them for at least another 6 with the new heel bottoms and soles.





Please be sure to check out all the other pretty ladies in their cocktail dresses!

What I'm Wearing
Dress ~ Given to me by my awesome sister-in-law
Necklace ~ Park Lane
Earrings ~ Limited
Shoes  ~ Steve Madden
Clutch ~ WHBM

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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Bluebonnets

Bluebonnet season is in full bloom here in Texas and I decided to take advantage and get some pictures with the gorgeous wildflowers.  They seem to grow everywhere, small patches here and there, along freeways and roads, parks and yards, but out in the hill country you can find entire fields of blue.  It's breathtakingly beautiful.  Bluebonnets are only around for about 6 weeks, with the peak lasting about 2 weeks, so you have to pay attention and be ready to go if you want pictures with lots of them.  It was really neat to learn about bluebonnets when I first moved to Texas almost 8 years ago and it's become an annual tradition to get pictures with the flowers.  Funny story - when I first moved here, I got the flowers mixed up with the ever popular Bluebell ice cream and called them bluebells (seems legit, right?).  My husband still loves to give me a hard time about that. :)





Even the dogs love getting their pictures taken with the flowers.  How sweet are those faces?










I hope you enjoyed seeing a slice of Texas heaven!

By the way, many times people will squat in the flowers when taking pictures, so as not to damage them.  Someone decided to make fun of that pose by adding a little something extra to those pictures... it's hilariously wrong.  Check it out and be prepared to laugh!

What I'm Wearing
Dress ~ Maude (from a local boutique), similar
Belt ~ WHBM
Shoes ~ Steve Madden, similar
Necklace ~ Express, similar
Bracelet ~ Express, pretty option here
Earrings ~ ? (cute pair here for under $6!)

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