Outfit Post, New Hair, and I'm still alive guys! No worries :)

Purple Dress - Belk
A Byer Cardigan
Clogs - Kohls (Apt. 9) 

I don't have the time or energy for a long post today (Mid Terms!) but I wanted to post this outfit and let you guys know I'm still alive and kick'n! Oh yeah and I have red hair now - surprise :)

I will be posting regularly again soon!

I missed yall!

Avon Lipstick Swatches

This post will be short guys but I was flipping through the current Avon catalog and some lipstick caught my eye. If you have ever ordered from Avon before, especially lipstick, then you know what a gamble that is as far as color goes. Their swatches are almost useless, even online and I haven't had much luck finding many swatches on blogs either. So here are swatches if all the Avon lipsticks I own! I hope this helps if you are considering one of these colors. I love these - great colors, quality, and the price is great too!

Enjoy:

Left to Right: BCPL (Beyond Color Plumping Lipstick) Mad for Mauve, Uptown Pink, URCL (Ultra Rich Color Lipstick) Pout, Rose Mauve, Wink, BCPL in Pink Lemonade.

These are showing up just a tad lighter in the picture than in RL and the last one (Pink Lemonade) is the only real "shimmer" lipstick and is, for some reason, showing up darker than in RL - it's actually a very, very light but opaque shimmery pink. Also Pout is very sheer. 

Outfit of the (yester)day 7/24/10

I feel like this is my “suit,” my uniform. Not that I wear this that often but if I had to pick a go-to outfit that’s just “me” this would be it. Distressed jeans, t-shirt, blazer, and flats. All of my favorites are in this outfit ! These jeans are from gap and are new, got them a few weeks ago and wow, I feel like I’m cheating ‘cause they feel like PJ pants, they are the nice broken-in denim and I’m going to try hard not to wear them everyday lol. Also these flats get worn almost EVERYday, for the amount of shoes this girl has it’s ridiculous but hey, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it :) The necklaces are from Forever 21 (the longer one) and Francesca’s Collection (the fleur di lis one). I’m obsessed with fluer de lis’ for many reasons but no, I’m not a saints fan :)

Lorac Private Affair Palette Swatches

Hey guys, lemme tell ya when I first saw this Lorac palette in the Sephora email a week ago - I feel in love! I'm a sucker for the burgundy shadow. I wanted the Regal palette by Smashbox last year that had a similar color in it and have been kicking myself (harder than it sounds, you could sprain an ankle that way!) ever since. I've only used it once since these are kind of "fall" colors but first impression is great! It comes with a small size of their primer and a duel ended brush. The  brush is garbage though, it looked much better on sephora's site but it's crap! So tiny....so useless. Also, you have to hold the palette open to use the shadows, so packaging is a bit awkward. However, the important thing was the shadows and they're amazing! Very pigmented, very soft. The purpose of this post was not a review though, I wanted to get some pictures/swatches up because when I ordered it last week the only swatches I could find were on sephora's site. Most of the shadows looked accurate but the silver shadow looked green to me on sephora's picture so here are mine. I hope this helps if you are thinking of purchasing this palette;

Lorac Private Affairs Palette 

At Sephora.com / $38 

I kind of ran out out "primed skin" on the end shadow lol. Sorry but I have small hands :)

All of the other shadows have the Lorac primer underneath. 

This palette contains such a pretty "taupe" shade!

How I organize my nail polishes!

I got tired of digging through and trying to organize my nail polishes lately so here is what I ended up with;

I bought two-three tier bamboo spice organizers from Walmart (little over $5 each FYI, they aren't on the website though, I checked) and voila...

There are two of them side by side on top of my bookshelf in the picture. Each row holds 7-14 of my polishes. One row holds about 7 polishes and two rows fit on each tier. 

A better view.....

Then I organized polishes by color. The base/top coats etc. are on the other side next to the holder, sorry the pic doesn't show this :(

 I keep this craft organizer close to the bookshelf for all my misc. craft stuff so I just used the top drawer for all the little "nail" extras: konad plates, files, etc.

I highly recommend this manicure saver I got from Sally's Beauty (link here) especially if you use the Konad stamps (I got them from wowsocool.com)!

 It's a lifesaver! (well...manicure saver lol)

This system seems to work really well for me, I like having everything out where I can see it! 

How do you guys organize? Please share!

Yikes! Stripes! OOTD: 6/29/10

I went shopping a couple of weeks ago and when I got home I realized half of what I bought had stripes!! (even underwear lol) Apparently, I love stripes now :)
So expect to see alot of stripes on here!

The flowers I planted finally started to come up ... and not die (for once)! Yay!
Top - Kohls
Jeans - Ann Taylor Loft
Purse & shoes - also Kohls!

Outfit of the day 6/14/10

Shhhhh...I know Victoria's secret!

This little grey cardi has been setting unloved in my rainbow closet for far too long. I bought it while I was in Orlando a while back (first time there - it was an amazing place!) and stumbled upon ( or rather drove to :) ) a Victoria's Secret outlet. I had no idea VS outlets existed! I was happy...to put it mildly.

I got this cardi and the white tank underneath for around $15 if I remember correctly. It's actually "sleepwear" but I don't know who has a need for a PJ carigan that doesn't keep you warm? Strange...

Since I bought it out-of-season I had forgotten about it for a while. When I first saw it I thought it would match more things in my closet than it actually does so...hmmm....will try to do something about that!

The necklace is disney couture/alice in wonderland, I *love* this necklace -and I have the matching ring. I almost didn't get them but I'm so glad I did.

The shoes are what a guy I used to work with called my "I dream of Jeannie" shoes! All sparkle!

6/9/10 Outfit of the day

Black Dress (worn as top) - Old Navy

Blue/Green Multi-Color Skirt - Francesca's Collection

White Gladiator Sandals - Apt. 9/Kohls

Black Belt - from a skirt I got @ JC Pennys (I heart Ronson)

It finally stopped raining and storming long enough to get an outside pic of today's outfit. I don't know what possessed me to get all dolled up today, I was just going to chill at home but...half an hour in this and I knew I had to go somewhere! So I ended up at my favorite thrift store...and came home with nothing! Always the way it goes, when I plan a thrifting trip -I find nothing, when I go unplanned -always a goldmine! You would think I'd learn by now but...no :)

Where do you get your inspiration?

Top - Target

Cardi - New York & Co ~ Thrifted

Jeans - Arizona/JC Penny (new! for $1.97~score!)

Belt - New York & Co (I think!)

Shoes - Don't remember ~ sorry :)

Ok, so I'm kind of cheating today... this outfit is from a week ago when there was a cold spell here. I've been down with a mean stomach bug lately (feeling better now finally! :) ) and my PJs aren't all that stylish so I decided to post this outfit instead. I'm in the process of creating an inspiration calender (I'll post it when I'm done!) so I was curious - where do you guys get your inspiration from? Mine is mostly magazines, blogs, and my own weird imagination :)

Organizing your closet - how I do it!

It's like a rainbow in your closet, only it's just your clothes :)~

My closet can be the bain of my existence sometimes! It gets easily out of order and can be downright uninspiring :(

As someone who loves fashion, I would walk into my closet and just want to look away! I've tried the traditional way of organizing - I bought shelves, I put like things together (t-shirts, dress shirts, pants, etc.) but it just never worked, to me, it's still too complicated.

I was going to print out a color wheel to put in my closet and that's when it hit me- What do I look for when I get dressed? Color! I think about what color I want to wear, not necessarily what type of shirt to wear. Also throw in the fact that many items, especially tops, can be dressed up or down as you want to wear them so the casual/dressy categories always had a thin line in my closet. I still organize tops with tops (all one category), bottoms with bottoms but all with like colors. If you feel uninspired (or even a little scared! lol) by your closet, give this a try :)

This is also a good way to tell how much of one color you have. I always thought I had too much black clothing but I have way too much white! And I apparently only have one sad stitch of brown and its a cami!

Haulage, my friends, lots of Haulage...

So...obviously I've shopping lately! Here is some hauls from the last couple of weeks or so. Enjoy!


I found these beauts at my local Marshalls (an inpromptu visit - aren't those the best ones?). The peach sweater is Talbot's brand, the PJ pants are nautica, and the shell/vest is from I brand I've never heard of. Yes ladies (or guys...whatever!)I got out of that store for $22. Proud moment lol. I bought the black shell to wear as a vest but it looks great alone as well. The peach number looked ok on the hanger but the color was so pretty I had to try it on...so glad I did, it's beautiful on! It's a little longer than 3/4 sleaves and screams laid back spring, let your hair down and go pick flowers! Ok, not literally screamed it, because that would be disterbing :) but you get the picture. And the PJ pants? Well just needed some!



On to some of my thrifting spoils! This skirt is adorable on. It's another one of those...well I might as well try it on items. And it was a dollar -yes $1.00. Awsome. The scarf was cute (and new!) and the tie was purple and floral so, yeah, had to get that too :)
I found the skirt and scarf at an upscale consignment store (always check the clearance racks!!) and the tie at goodwill.




This belt is from Target, Mossimo brand and was under $2. Can't beat that! I wouldn't normaly wear a belt like this but that was the point, if I don't watch myself, I'll end up buy too much of the same style! So when a good deal comes along I try to expand my horizons.



So, no shopping trip would be complete with out visiting TJMaxx. Plus I had a gift card from Christmas that was burning a whole in my pocket :)
The purple sweater is so warm! I think subconciously that's why I bought it, it was freezing that night! The t shirt is Lucky brand (love) and has a fleur de lis on it -jackpot! The blue/black striped top has to be my favorite of the bunch! I love the silver button detailing on the sleeves, also the sleeves are long enough! I have a very petite torso but longer arms so if a top is short enough on me the sleeves are usually WAY too short. Definatly the reason I hate buying winter clothes so much! The black jacket looked a little strange on the hanger but trust me -it's cute on a body! The most expensive thing I hauled there was just $10. Mission Acomplished!



The shirt on the left is from JC Penny's, they were having a good clearance sale this week, not the lowest prices I've ever seen there but still some good deals. I had to have this shirt though...good deal or not (it was an ok deal btw) for two reasons 1) it fit my chest, darts on button up shirts never never never never fit my chest! If it fits in the shoulders then it will be WAY too big in the chest area, I had kind of given up on them! But this one had such great detailing! I had to try, turns out it fit! The sleeves aren't as long as I would want but its still a great shirt.

The white skirt was another great consignment store find. I snagged this one for just $4.99. I've been wanting one for a while but never could find one in a regular retail store. Then I started thrifting - BINGO!

The purple Banana Republic top was found at the same store for the same price! Good shopping day that was :) It's a cashmere/silk blend and its so beautiful!

The striped top (Liz Claiborne) was found at goodwill, I thought it looked a little Audrey Hepburn-ish so I bought it -only to find out when I got home that its also reversable! It has a thicker strip pattern on the inside. Score. And the white top/vest? Tommy Hilfiger, perfect condition, fits great, and it was $1!

Well that was my hauling adventure this month! Hope you guys enjoyed!

I'd like to know -What's the best fashion deal you've ever gotten? Do you shop sales and thrift stores? What's your shopping method?