2012.02.06 - professional & valentine's day nails

navy jacket - Macy's
black&grey tiered dress - Wet Seal
red camisole - Costco!
white lace camisole - American Eagle
navy tights - mom's closet
black heeled oxfords - consignment store

This outfit is a bit dressier than I usually look because I had a presentation. I'm not one of those people that thinks brown and black or blue and black can't go together. I find that if it looks like you meant to put those colors together, it will look fine. I chose to wear navy and blue this day simply because I wanted to wear this jacket. It hadn't been worn in quite some time and it was just about the level of dressiness that I wanted. To make it look intentional, I wore close to equal parts navy and black. Because my outfit was so dark, I added a small pop of color with my red camisole. It wasn't super noticeable, but made I felt better knowing that I wasn't blue and black from head to toe. As a side note, I swear this dress doesn't look as short in real life as it does in these pictures! It could be because of the camera angle...


Basically I used my presentation as an excuse to wear these heels. It's a little strange to me when girls wear heels to high school without a good reason. I have yet to see a good reason for a girl to wear legitimate pumps to school, but booties and others shoes with a higher vamp (the part on top of the foot) are much better. Really petite girls also seem to be able to pull off wearing heels sometimes because they don't tower over everyone. Now I'm not that tall at a little over 5'5", but with heels I can be about 5'9". 

And I know it's a little late, but these are the nails that I had for Valentine's Day. They were pretty simple and I got the idea from those cute, couple pillows. I don't know if there is a pillow set with this particular design, but I thought it would be quick and easy. It's a boy throwing a paper airplane to a girl. I was going to make the thumb nail a piece of binder paper with the blue lines, but I didn't have the right blue. 

It took me three coats of white polish to get it as opaque as I wanted, which made me a bit impatient for the remainder of my painting. It's pretty evident because you can probably see a number of smudges that I was too lazy to fix. I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out though!

Hope you all are having a good day and stop by soon for a quick thrift haul!

AprilLily

2012.02.01 - mulberry

Sorry I've been away for a while! Just the usual: homework, school, tests, family and friend stuff, and I got sick for a week. 

This outfit is from a couple weeks ago. I haven't even been taking pictures of my outfits for a while because I've been out for 12 hours at a time on most days. When I get home I'm just too tired (and lazy) to spend time taking pictures. I also look pretty ruffled by the time I'm finally home, so it's hardly even worth it to take pictures. 

This day was fairly casual, but I spruced it up a bit with my watches. 

cream cardigan - thrifted

mulberry shirt - ModBod Clothing

black shorts - Levi's (vintage from my closet)

tights - Forever21

black oxfords (not pictured) - Ross

silver Geneva watch - thrifted

rose gold watch (Style&co.) - Macy's

lilac nail polish - Urban Outfitters in Crowded

I wore all solid colors this day, but my cardigan was the focal point because of the pretty ribbon and pearl details on it. Under my cardigan, I wore a basic shirt with elbow-length sleeves. The neckline is supposed to be a rounded V, but it's basically just a high scoop. It's a pretty maroon, mulberry-ish color and surprisingly warm. Next, I wore my black high-waisted Levi's over a plain pair of sheer, black tights. I wanted my outfit to be relatively plain so the details on the cardigan would stand out even though they are all the same creamy color. Also, I wore my black oxfords, but had taken them off at this point. (:


In the second-to-last picture, you might be able to see that my shorts have a bunch of white fluff on them; this cardigan tends to shed. I rolled up the sleeves so I could wear my watches. I also just liked the look of my cardigan better with the sleeves rolled up because they were a bit big. I find that I can buy large and extra-large shirts and cardigans and they will look like they are meant to be over-sized if the sleeves fit. Even though the sleeves on this cardigan showed that I purchased it in a larger size, I made an exception because the ribbons and pearls on it were so pretty. It was in great condition and I couldn't pass it up since it was under $5. It wasn't even missing any pearl beads or buttons!


As for why I'm wearing two watches...I had seen this look a few times before, including from SecretLifeofaBionerd. Look her up on youtube or ThreadBanger if you haven't seen her before! I've seen this come up a couple times, but I don't think it's really an established trend yet. The first time I saw the idea of wearing two watches at once was in the third outfit in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_575643&feature=iv&src_vid=T5M5qx8jHmk&v=rd-ThSINsVk

I'm on mid-winter break this week (thank God), so I'll be trying to make up for my absence. It feels good to be back on my blog! Thanks for checking it out, and come back for new posts soon.
AprilLily

Nail Art - refreshing

I thought I would post something other than an outfit today for a change. With my schedule being filled to the brim, I  haven't really been painting anything interesting on my nails. I do still have some older pictures that I never posted, however. Hopefully I remember to set aside some time this weekend and start up my habit of painting my nails again! But for now, enjoy the pictures.

Graphic palm tree design

Shoddy attempt at bamboo on light silver background

Variation on the usual black lace over pale colors. I must say I prefer to do my
lace nails with any color other than white, but it was still worth trying out. 

Simple, cute panda nails for going to the zoo

Halloween last year. 

Thumb: witch shadow over moon, with autumn leaves surrounding.

Index: tombstone and ghost

Middle: haunted house

Ring: black cat on fence with moon behind

Pinky: RIP tombstone with hand coming out of grave

Ocean scene

These are most of the remaining designs that I found pictures of on my computer. I might check and see if I have any others that were taken on my phone (which explains the poor photo quality). Leave me a question if you want to know what any of these polishes are, or how I created the designs.

I'm thinking about taking pictures throughout the process of my next nail art design, so I can put up a mini tutorial with photos. Let me know what you think!

Also, if you are interested in seeing my previous post with more nail designs, check here: http://lilyinlace.blogspot.com/2011/12/ready-for-new-year.html

Hope everyone is having a wonderful new year so far. I can't believe we're already a month in. Thanks for stopping by, and follow for more nail art!
AprilLily

2012.01.31 - creme

This might be the first time that I actually post an outfit on the day that I wore it. I woke up late and decided to just throw together an outfit using some items of clothing that I wouldn't usually reach for. 

I look a bit startled in this photo! o.o

cream sweater - mom's
grey long sleeve shirt (mostly not visible) - Nordstrom Rack
tube dress worn as skirt - Wet Seal
thick grey tights - H&M
purple necklace - Nordstrom
crochet ankle boots - Nordstrom Rack
nail polish - Crowded by Urban Outfitters

I've had this sweater for as long as I can remember, but I always only wear it at home. For some reason, I have quite a few sweaters that I never wear out of the house. I love the look of sweaters and slouchy tops on others, but I can never seem to find outfits that I don't think look strange on me. The crew neck cut of this sweater makes me wish I had a bold, collar necklace to wear with it. If I had had more time to get dressed this morning, I would have tried on different button-downs underneath it to see which collars would look good peaking out. The preppy look of a button-down under a sweater is currently one of my favorite trends, which I will hopefully be trying out for myself more as the weather warms up a bit. For speediness, I simply put a plain, grey long-sleeve shirt under my sweater and called it good.

The skirt here is actually a tube dress that I used to wear somewhat often. It has a very summery feel, but I thought I could get away with it considering the warming weather is starting to bring the feeling of spring. The top of this dress is smocking and tends to fall down throughout the day. I knew that I wouldn't be able to make sure it stayed up very easily through my shirt and sweater, so I belted it around the waist to hold it up.

Because the rest of my outfit consisted of light, pastel colors, I wanted to ground my outfit with darker-colored tights. I didn't feel that black would match very well, so I went for a softer grey. Also, to break up the large expanse of beige that is my sweater, I wore a long, purple necklace with a large pendant. At the beginning of the day, there was a smaller, purple and turquoise pendant hanging inside the larger pendant. It must have fallen off sometime during school without me noticing, which is a bummer. I have a matching charm bracelet though, and it has two charms that are the same smaller pendant that fell off. If the empty space in the middle of my necklace pendant bothers me enough, I'll replace the center with one of the charms from that bracelet.

I've been experiencing a few very hectic and stressful weeks, but somehow painting my nails made me feel reasonably better. I hadn't painted them in far too long. Even though I only did a solid color, the feeling of having them painted inexplicably makes me feel much happier. This polish is a wonderful consistency and only requires one coat of medium thickness to completely cover my nails. It is extremely opaque and dries to a nice, smooth finish. Its staying power isn't great, but I usually paint my nails every weekend, and it lasts long enough that I don't have to worry about it having noticeable chips before the end of the week.

Well, today was the first day in I don't even know how long, that I haven't taken a nap. I was probably running primarily on adrenaline due to my recent lack of sleep, but hopefully this helps me get my sleeping schedule back to normal. I'll end my post here to sleep and relieve all of you from my endless rambling about clothes.

Thanks for checking in and follow to see upcoming outfit and nail art posts!
AprilLily

Also, if you're looking for more photo inspiration, check out my tumblr.
http://aprillily.tumblr.com/

2012.01.26 - patterns

This past weekend was a bit hectic and I didn't get around to posting my last outfit, but here it is! A few of my friends and I discovered the requirements sheet for our biology project after it was supposed to have been turned in, thanks to our less than satisfactory leader (who had been given the requirements, but somehow neglected to show or tell any of us about it). Fortunately, our teacher was quite understanding and even offered her classroom to us during club/study time so we could catch up. Thanks, Ms. B!

In the winter, it starts getting dark around 4:00 PM, which makes it difficult to get enough sunlight after coming home from school (around 3:30 on most days). Thursdays, however, are the one exception because our funky block schedule lets us out an hour and twenty minutes earlier than usual. This means I can actually get pictures in decent lighting and enjoy a couple hours of sun before retiring to my room for homework.

The weather on this day was a bit nicer for a change, and I decided to go without tights for the first time this year. Of course, I still couldn't quite go bare-legged, so I wore a pair of grey thigh-high socks. They feature a subtle bow print, which is visible but probably unidentifiable in these photos. My blazer has a thin, plaid print and my dress is an abstract, floral. There could be a bit of a clash between all these patterns, but I felt that it worked out alright because of the clear dominance of one print; the floral.

This dress has a couple lines of smocking across the bust, which would normally probably have given it an empire waistline. It was a bit big on me, however, so I belted it around my waist to achieve a more figure-flattering silhouette. I liked the cap sleeves, which I tend to think minimize the broadness of my shoulders.

The hemline was originally cut straight across, but I cut it into these points. It was around four inches longer when I bought it; I prefer mid-thigh length dresses on myself, though. Below the current hemline, there used to be another band of the floral print that covers most of the dress. I was inspired by the bright, red pattern that is now at the bottom of my dress. It reminded me of triangular banners, so instead of cutting it straight, I followed the shape of 'flags', leaving about an inch of solid red. This is a variation on the scallop trend, which I am also loving at the moment. I have been cutting the bottoms of shirts, dresses, shorts, and skirts with scallops and some definitely turn out better than others. There are some materials that simply work better to hold the scallops. Thank goodness this dress worked perfectly well. There has yet to be any fraying on the open edge and the fabric does not curl up at all when stretched horizontally. It has even been through the washer and dryer without any changes!

This is just a close-up of the brown, woven belt I wore over the dress. The loop that the excess belt goes through is not movable, so I used a bobby pin to keep it down. I just stuck it through the weaving and secured it on the belt it was wrapped on top of. I used my medium-brown belt as an excuse to wear my brown oxfords, yet again. I reach for those almost every time I don't want to pick out a different pair. I'm one of those girls that has too many pairs of shoes and items of clothing, but wears the same things over and over. I constantly go to my closet and complain about how I have nothing to wear, but in reality, I still have loads of clothes that haven't even been worn. I simply get in ruts with the clothes I wear. One of my many goals this year is to wear some pieces that have been sitting in my closet, untouched, since I bought them.

floral dress - Ross
plaid blazer - Nordstrom Rack
brown belt-  from mom
grey thigh high socks - Forever21
brown oxfords - Steve Madden from Marshall's

Follow and keep checking back to see how I wear those pieces! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post. I will probably post some nail art pictures tomorrow to take a break from these outfit-of-the-days.
AprilLily

p.s. Check out my tumblr if you want to get to know me a bit better and see some of the things that inspire me!
http://aprillily.tumblr.com/

2012.01.25 - casual stripes

This was one of the laziest weeks I have had in a while. Missing a week of school led to a bunch of work to make up, which led to extremely late nights and tiredness. I like to wear shorts and tights on days that I don't want to spend much time getting ready in the morning because I can basically throw on any pair of tights, shirt, and outerwear. On the days that I wear dresses, I have to find something to wear over them that will work with whatever length the dress is. I usually want my coat or cardigan to be close a couple inches longer or shorter than my dress. With shorts and tights, I can wear the shorter jackets in my closet that don't get much use.

This blue-ish cardigan has one button, which I left undone, and a tie around the waist that I tied in the back. I will try to remember to snap a picture of that the next time I wear it. It was a few inches longer when I first purchased it, but shrank after being washed. It is now just short enough for me to want to wear it with shorts because my shorts will peak out the bottom. With my longer outerwear, I can sometimes get and awkward effect where my jacket will be just long enough to cover my shorts. This usually means it looks like I'm not wearing pants from the back... Looking like I'm wearing a jacket that goes just to the bottom of my butt with a pair of sheer tights is not good.

My striped shirt is a nice basic and I found it a while ago in a drawer full of clothing that, for some reason, had never been worn. It has three small, white buttons on one of the shoulders, which I should also get a picture of next time. These shorts are some Levi's that I also found at the bottom of a drawer that I never use. They were the strange early-90's length, but I just had to roll them up to have a more modern pair of high-waisted shorts. They are quite big for me around the waist, so I did not tuck in my shirt, which I normally would have done. These tights have small vertical stripes on them, which you might be able to see in the picture above. Lastly, I wore these two-tone oxfords.

This necklace pendant came from a necklace that I found at my thrift store. I wear the chain that it came on separately. I wore this larger pendant with this outfit to break up the simplicity. These shoes are mostly dark brown faux leather with accents of cream. The cream areas are a slightly fuzzy material, but thankfully they have not been getting dirty, which I expected them to. I like that these oxfords have thicker, ribbon-like laces, which sets them apart from the other pairs I have. I do, however, generally prefer the tradition, round laces.

blue cardigan - Aslan's Thrift
red&white striped shirt - found at home
necklace - Helping Hands Thrift Store
Levi's - found at home
black thin stripe tights - mom's closet
two-tone oxfords - Nordstrom Rack

I still have a lot of homework to catch up on this weekend and am trying to sneak in a few blog posts in my free time. I will probably get another post up tonight. It will either be the last outfit from this week or I will think of a different idea.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and thanks for checking out my outfit!
AprilLily

2012.01.24 - romantic

Tuesday was another chilly day, so I started out my outfit by choosing this long, mottled sweater. I found this dress on sale at NordstromRack and bought it in two colors. I hardly realize that they are the same dress anymore because they have different prints, which give them completely different feels. I wear both of them a bit too often. I love flowy, chiffon-like materials, so when I'm having lazy days, and don't feel like spending the time to find a more creative outfit, I throw on one of these dresses and go. 

b&w sweater - Nordstrom Rack

pink floral dress - Nordstrom Rack

cream camisole (not visible) - American Eagle

black knit tights - from mom's closet

maroon knee socks - daiso

brown oxfords - Steven Madden from Marshall's

This is just a quick post to get an outfit picture up. It was really cloudy and grey this day, so the lighting was terrible. I tried a different location in my house with the self-timer on my camera. The focus was a bit off, with the only clear bit being around my stomach, but I was too tired to hunt for a better location. School from 7:10 AM to 3:00 PM is killer. 

Thanks for checking out my blog.

AprilLily

P.S. Check out my tumblr if you want to see some of the things that inspire me and my taste in clothing.

http://aprillily.tumblr.com/