What I Wore: Lemon Zest

The pick for today’s Pantone-inspired spring color challenge is Lemon Zest! I have a few cheery yellow pieces in my closet (such as this skirt), but I chose to create an outfit around my well-loved yellow cardigan. I had outfit deja vu when I was photographing this outfit – I actually had to browse my archives to see if I’d already worn this combo on the blog! Does that ever happen to you?

Top – H&M
Cardigan – H&M
Jeans – thrifted (Refuge)
Boots – Aldo
Hat – Urban Outfitters
Necklace – Aldo
Belt – thrifted
Watch – Betsey Johnson
Nails – OPI, Cajun Shrimp

What I Wore: African Violet

Today’s pick for the Pantone-inspired spring color challenge is African Violet! In middle school, I was obsessed with the color purple. I remember returning from ski club one weekend and my parents were hosting a bible study at their house. I was dressed head to toe in purple – jacket, snow pants, hat, gloves, fleece, leggings, the whole shebang. One of the adults made a comment along the lines of, “Gee, do you like the color purple?” I remember feeling really self-conscious (which was silly, really), and stopped doing the head-to-toe purple thing…until now. Ha!

This challenge was another excuse (not that I need one) to bust out my light purple polka dotted pants. I have more than gotten my money’s worth out of them since buying them for $11 in the fall! I didn’t manage to capture a good photo of it, but the pants have little zippers on the ankles, and I love the way they look with metallic sandals!

Top – Urban Outfitters (old)
Polka Dot Pants – American Eagle
Sandals – garage sale (Isaac Mizrahi for Target)
Necklace – gift (Lia Sophia)
Watch – Kohl’s
Bracelet – H&M
Nails – OPI, Parlez-vous OPI?

What I Wore: Emerald

I’m excited to be linking up with Literate & Stylish and The Modern Austen this week for a Pantone-inspired spring color challenge! Each day has been assigned one of Pantone’s hot colors for spring, which participants will incorporate into an outfit. Today’s theme is Emerald!

I have quite a few shades of green going on in this outfit, between my cardigan, my tights, my necklace, and the floral print on my skirt. I couldn’t decide which piece most closely matched the Emerald swatch, so I piled them all on. Haha!

I am still having a love affair with this floral skirt, though it’s been over a year since I bought it. I am immensely picky about floral prints, but this one has me smitten. I’ve actually found myself searching high and low on eBay for some of it’s counterparts – the cropped pants or blazer with the same print. Pencil skirts aren’t entirely practical for my day to day life, so I’ve been wanting another piece in this print to wear on more casual days.

Chambray Shirt – Old Navy
Cardigan – H&M
Skirt – H&M
Booties – Wanted Shoes
Necklace – The Plaid Barn
Watch – Betsey Johnson
Tights – Target
Nails – OPI, Parlez-vous OPI?

What I Wore: Waitress

I thrifted this skirt about a year ago for a buck or two, and I finally got around to altering it. I’m not so good at shortening/hemming skirts, so I prefer to find a skirt that is the exact length I want, so all I have to do is sew a line down each side to take it in. I’ve done this with a few skirts before (such as this one). It’s so much easier to be able to use the existing zipper and slit!

Wearing a white top with a black skirt gives me flashbacks to my days of waitressing and working for a caterer throughout high school and college. Of course, my “uniform” back then consisted of a white oxford shirt and poorly fitting work pants. To keep things from feeling too waitress-like in this outfit, I played with various textures (white lace and a sublte velvety leopard print on the skirt) and mixed in a few doses of brown with my accessories. I really like the resulting outfit!

Lace Top – Forever 21
Tank (underneath) – thrifted
Skirt – thrifted, altered by me
Shoes – H&M
Necklace – garage sale
Bracelet – self-made
Belt – thrifted

Belt To Bracelet Restyle

I’ve had a few cheap belts bite the dust lately – wearing thin at the most used notch or otherwise falling apart. I knew these belts were too beat up to donate, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away. I decided to repurpose them into bracelets!

To re-size the gold belt, I wrapped it around my wrist twice (starting with the buckle end). I then used a Sharpie to mark where I needed to punch a new hole into the belt so it would fit my wrist, and trimmed the excess. I glued some colorful rhinestones along the bracelet for some extra pizazz. Super simple, and super cute!

I made a second bracelet from some pieces of a busted black faux leather belt. I used the gold belt bracelet (pre-rhinestones) to gauge how long I needed this bracelet to be. I trimmed the buckle and tail ends of the belt to size, and attached a piece of gold chain between them. In order to attach the chain to the belt ends, I carefully used my seam ripper to separate the two layers of pleather that the belt was composed of, just a little at the ends. I attached a split ring on either end of the chain, sandwiched the rings between the split pleather, and glued them into place.

I used clothespins to keep the pleather pinched around the jump rings while the glue dried overnight. In the morning, I had a spiffy new bracelet to wear!

I think I’ve learned my lesson about buying cheap quality belts in the future, but at least it wasn’t a total loss. Since I have pretty small wrists, I don’t often find bracelets that comfortably fit me. That said, I’m quite happy to have two new bracelets to add to my collection, and at practically no cost!