Valentine’s Day Gifts
What are your Valentine’s Day gift-giving traditions? I like to give my daughters pink t-shirts (or equivalent) rather than candy. What about the rest of you?
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Reverse Dying Black with Bleach
As you may or may not know, I am not a huge fan of wearing black. I am, however, a huge fan of really cheap, natural-fiber clothing that fits fabulously.
Enter Contemporary Dyecraft: Over 50 Tie-dye Projects for Scarves, Dresses, T-shirts and More
This concept has tremendous potential! For those on a budget, black clothing is abundantly available at thrift; for bleaching, who cares if it’s faded-out? If the look were perfect for one’s idiom and lifestyle, indeed, an entire wardrobe could be built around this one look.
Have you ever purposely used bleach to transform a garment?
dye craft books)
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How to Tell Whether Your Outfit Works
Fool-proof sign your outfit does not work:
On first sight, your courteous family member, friend, or acquaintance cannot keep their eyes from straying to an area other than your face. Then they don’t say anything. I generally discover the draw to be a point of greater contrast than that present in my natural coloring.
Never rely on compliments to establish whether a piece or an ensemble is flattering. The reason? For some odd reason, when people notice something that really grabs their attention way they tend to pop off with a compliment, whether they really like it or not. In other words, kind words about your appearance could mean anything from, “I wish I looked that great!” to “What was she thinking?!?”
lol. Merry Christmas!
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Thanks, Birds, and More Dressing Up
Does this look like something Seuss? I hope so! 
Recently our theater group did Seussical the Musical; to celebrate the occasion, I added feather boa to these fur-topped boots and wore them with my jeans tucked in. lol Allow me to point out that the performers got a kick out of the gesture. Not literally. *chuckle*
That’s all, folks! Happy Thanksgiving! We have much to be thankful for, do we not?
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What To Do With Too-long Jeans
Don’t hate me because I’m average.
Three thoughts for when the inseam on your beloved jeans seems super-sized:
- Tuck ‘em into boots.
- From The Pocket Stylist, by Kendall Farr, cut them off and let them fray.
- If you really want to hem them, Dacia Ray has this fabulous old post showing how.
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Following My Own Rules
The main reason I write about all this stuff is to help myself. While sometimes I wish I was one of those people who could just buy and wear what they like, I never have been. So I invent rules for myself. And share them.
One of the”rules”, or perhaps I should say “guidelines” or “proverbs”, I have adopted is this:
If a coordinating piece is available, buy it.
Yesterday I had an opportunity to employ it. With my mind sorta set on bts and another sweatshirt, I stopped at Target and scanned the clearance. I by-passed a pair of workout/weekend shorts at $7, until I found the coordinating jacket at $9. Even if I never wear the set together, I have that option and the same other pieces will coordinate with both. Coincidentally, the one tee-shirt I chose from the rack of $2 tees and tanks turned out to be the exact same color: a tint of tomato red that is almost coral.
The moment I got home, the hoodie pictured back here went in the biffer bag. I just really dislike hoods. For me.
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A New Dress A Day
My aunt sent me the link to this inspirational blog, New Dress A Day. The concept, both creative and frugal, is this:
The thing that makes this girl happiest is scouring flea markets, vintage stores and garage sales for the perfect pieces to add to my wardrobe. I love finding vintage goodies that may not fit me perfectly or translate well with the current state of fashion and then make them work on me. (thank you Tim Gunn – “make it work” has become my mantra) I get out my trusty sewing machine to change hems, cut sleeves and tweak to transform a lowbudge piece that had its’ moment back in 1976 and give it another shot today, decades later. I have to say that whenever I wear my handmade pieces, I always get complimented and the best part is that I get to tell everyone that I bought it for $1 and just shortened it, dyed it or cinched it to make it chic and current.
So, that’s where my ode to no traditional shopping begins. This year, I will be foregoing trips to Bloomies and Nordstrom for brand new gear. Goodbye to H&M purchases and accessory grabbing at Forever 21. And seeing the “must have” French Connection dress in People’s Style Watch will just have to suffice as a cut out on my inspiration board.
Instead, the only shopping that I’ll be able to do is that of pieces that have been used and worn already. So long to mall trips and hello to sifting through piles of vintage pieces at flea markets and at neighborhood garage sales. Each day for the entire year, I’m going to introduce a new piece into my existing wardrobe that I’ve found from these places. On top of this, I’m giving myself a budget of $1 a day.
(excerpted from the blog’s “about” page)
I love these dress makeovers! 
Sadly, while I can come up with lots of cool ideas for making over garments, I’m not so fab with the follow-through. That is, I never actually get around to doing anything. Hence, the racks of garments hanging in my studio. It always seems there is ironing or dishes, blogging or painting, and before you know it, there’ll be homework. Someday.
In the meantime, hopefully this will be inspirational for you!
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Fashion Magazines Make Great Gifts
Just in case you are not finished with your seasonal gift shopping: Shop It To Me holiday friends & family perk — $5 magazine subscriptions! The price of a latte. Choose from Cosmopolitan, Esquire, The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Harper’s Bazaar, Food & Wine and more.
Shop It To Me is a free service that will send you email notifications when your favorite brands go on sale at your favorite online retailers! Subscribe at this link: Shop It To Me.
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Establishing Credibility Visually
Lately I’ve been reading, researching, and meditating on alot of detail concerning appearance and perception. I admit it, alot of these thoughts initiate from comments to me; comments that show that they are unable to see my interior reality. (Perhaps this feeling that nobody gets me is indicative of a mid-life crisis? lol)
At any rate, while there is alot of information here on the blog already, there is still TONS I haven’t figured out. But I’m feeling ambitious, so I’m delving into researching the connection between certain visual elements and specific perceptions. Leave a comment if you have a clue. And I thought I’d begin with something relevant to career women, because I love them too!
Credibility: attitude toward a source of communication held at a particular time by a message receiver. It consists primarily of expertise, trustworthiness, and good will. (Dynamics of Persuasion)
Another source put it slightly differently: Expertise, Trustworthiness, Similarity, and Physical Attractiveness (I suppose the author of a textbook may find physical attractiveness to be too loaded a topic to address it).
Bernie Burson, Image Consultant, in her sidebar on Psychological Dressing, says:
When you receive your personal color palette, you learn that wearing your eye-related color makes you appear sincere and honest and wearing skin tones makes you seem friendly and approachable.
So, if credibility is a three-legged stool consisting of expertise, trustworthiness, and good will; wearing my recommended simple color palette (based on your own coloring) will get you two legs (and physical attractiveness as a bonus). Not enough. Establishing expertise, I suspect, is done through visual cues specific to the industry. Even if the industry is raising children.
What are the visual cues to expertise in your field?
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Do You Need Help Editing Your Wardrobe?
When cleaning out your closet, would you do better with the help of an objective second opinion? Your Myers Briggs code could provide a clue.
If:
- you are by nature or necessity frugal AND
- maybe you are interested more in things other than visual aesthetics AND
- you really don’t want your closet to resemble a thrift store AND
- the last letter of your Myers Briggs code (I took a free online version, but I can’t remember where) is P
The reason this makes sense: Judging or Perceiving (the fourth trait called out in this personality profiling system) describes one’s preferred “structure” of dealing with the outside world. In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided (J) or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options (P)?
In other words, the perceiving person likes options and likes to keep their options open. (Probably this describes everyone to a degree. In our household, it sometimes looks like not getting rid of something that is worn out because it’s still good enough to wear for painting or gardening. And then forgetting and wearing it to church!)
In my wardrobe, problems are nearly always related to not having something I should have, rather than having too much or holding on to stuff I need to let go. I’m a J. How about you, is your challenge not having what you need or having what you don’t need? And could an image consultant or trusted friend help?
