Tag Archives: Fashion Friday

This week I have the awesome opportunity to have my beautiful friend, Cheryl as a guest blogger on Fashion Friday. Cheryl has an amazing style and definitely doesn’t mind spending more money on her clothes. I like to live vicariously through her Anthropologie purchases. 😉 She has a totally different approach to shopping than me, but her outfits are always adorable.

Don’t forget to leave her some comment love and thank her for sharing her advice.

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Hi. My name is Cheryl and I get to fill in for Rena this week.

In many ways, I am the complete opposite of Rena. Shopping is not my favorite pastime. I do not find extra joy from getting an item at a crazy discount…but I love fashion, and like Rena, it took me a while to develop my own sense of style. I have now embraced my own way of enhancing my wardrobe.

Rena (and several other of our friends) enhance their wardrobe by searching for treasures. They hunt high and low for items that they like and that are inexpensive. Sometimes I forget that this is how they shop and I make the poor decision of joining them on their hunt thinking it will be a fun time.

It is not fun for me.

They spend hours looking through items that range from mediocre to hideous in order to find one or two gems that they can incorporate into their wardrobe. They rejoice in the fact that they have found a couple of things after hours and hours of hunting.

I do not like the search. I don’t want to hunt. I want to walk into a store and be presented with all my options so I can skim over those things that I am not interested in and focus all my time and attention on things that are pretty. I also do not want to wade through mediocrity to find something I like. I want to be surrounded by things that are beautiful and chose those items that are my very favorite.

This is one reason I love Anthropologie. It’s like walking into art, sometimes literally. It’s not a shopping trip, it’s an aesthetic experience. It makes me want to spend all my money. But I can’t spend all kinds of money so I sacrifice quantity for quality. Granted I usually choose things that are on sale, but I certainly do not get the deals that Rena finds.

In order to manage having more a more expensive wardrobe on a non-expensive budget. Here are my tricks…

1. Spread out shopping trips. If I don’t see it, I don’t know how much I want it.
2. Choose items that you really love. If its just okay, you probably don’t need to spend $60 on it.
3. Choose items that you can wear for a long time. The things I spend money on I wear for years and years and I still get compliments on them.
4. Don’t forget that its okay to buy more expensive items. You just have to buy less of them, especially if you don’t have enough money to buy new things every week.

This week we had Kids Games at our church. I volunteered in the 2 and 3 year old class, so that my boys could participate. We had SO much fun! The only drawback was the shirt we were required to wear everyday.

To jazz it up a bit, I decided to change the shape, cutting off the sleeves and collar to make the neckline a little lower. I just went through my scraps and found colors that complimented the orange shirt. Then I added the lace ribbon as a “collar” and made three fabric yo-yo’s.

Believe me when I say, I am NO seamstress and everything I did was with a needle and thread (no machine involved!), so it possible for anyone to do it. (If you are a visual learner, like myself, click here to watch a video on a Yo-Yo how-to.)

 I am excited about the changes I made and satisfied enough to wear it in public. Now if only I could change the color… 😉

Happy Friday! 🙂

How To Be Trendy, But Not Look Like A Teenager

I have tried to sell to Plato’s Closet a couple of times and every time I ended up leaving with all the the items that I brought in. They hand the bag back to me, saying that my items are “outdated/not trendy, worn or in poor condition”. Each time I have left and immediately gone through all stages of grief, spending most my time on anger.

“How dare they tell me my clothes are outdated or not trendy?! I am a fashionable person!! These are clothes that I would STILL wear!!!”

Well, I recently went in to sell stuff (after a five year hiatus), and was once again turned away with all of my items. This time I put my chin up and asked the sales girl why this decision was made.

Instead of running through their standard rejection list, she stated to me…
“Honestly, a lot of the clothes you brought in are a bit too professional for our target demographic.”

Okay, now there is something that makes sense and made me go away not wanting to punch someone. 😉

So, I’m left with, how am I still trendy (and buy 75% of my wardrobe from Plato’s Closet), but I don’t resemble their target demographic (14-21 years old)?

Well, here’s what I think:

–Dress modestly (although I feel like this advice applies to all ages).-short shorts and mini skirts might be all the rage, but find a nice middle ground without exposing your butt cheeks to the world (especially if you have a “mom butt” like me…ha!)

–Avoid some trends like rompers-these only look cute if you are pencil thin or under the age of 16

–Wear pumps or sandals instead of super tall “hooker” shoes (you know the ones I talking about)

–Avoid too much “bling”-don’t get me wrong, I love shiny things, but too much of it is well…too much. Sequins are nice in an understated manner.

–Avoid too much neon-I know that for some reason this early 90’s trend decided to rear it’s evil head up again, but stick to small pops of neon instead of all over your outfit.

–Dress to your body type-Realize and honestly admit what your body type is and what does and doesn’t work for you. There are some things that I haven’t worn since having kids (insert sad weeping here) because my belly will just never be the same.

I don’t think this means you have to avoid young trendy stores, like Plato’s Closet or Forever 21, which have great stuff, just use discretion when putting pieces together. I would suggest looking in magazines such as InStyle or Real Simple for age-appropriate fashion inspiration.

What kinds of things do you do or avoid doing to be trendy and not resemble a teenager?

Happy Friday! 🙂