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/

OOTD 2012.01.09

So I realize I haven't posted in a while and this outfit is a bit overdue. I was having a crazy week with a ton of homework and hopefully that gives me a reasonable excuse for the plainness of my outfits. The weather here has been crazy this week with over a foot of snow, which is almost unheard of in the lowlands in Washington. We usually only get a few inches for a couple days every winter. However, the day that I wore this outfit, we had not yet gotten any snow and it was a relatively warm day. 

I started my outfit with this striped bodycon dress simply because I had not worn it in a while. I layered a kimono-like, chiffon cardigan on top of that and topped it off with my dark grey, plaid boyfriend blazer. Also, excuse the awkward lighting in this picture :)

Here's a quick look at the different layers. I wore knit, navy tights for warmth and black oxfords. My cardigan-like top is a silky chiffon and is covered in a swirly, paisley pattern featuring varying shades of blue and green. It is trimmed all around with white lace and has a drawstring tie around the waist, which I chose to leave undone. I purchased this in a large size, so it is not meant to be worn as slouchy as it is shown here. I most use this top as a layering piece, so I wanted it to be a bit long in order for it to peak out from underneath whatever i wear over the top of it. 

http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/caramelchucky/Triplebowback4.jpg

The dress I wore has this triple bow detailing on the back, except the stripes on mine are vertical on the bows. Also, my tights have a subtle stripe made by different textures in the knit which are not quite visible in the whole outfit pictures. 

So the past two weeks have basically been completely hectic with all the school work, which made me extra thankful that it finally decided to snow here giving us snow days! Unfortunately, I had lost my camera for the better part of a week, which prevented me from uploading these outfit pictures for far too long or taking new pictures. Also, after staying up until 3am almost everyday to finish homework, I wasn't exactly jumping out of bed in the morning to pick out a nice outfit and put on makeup, which explains why all these pictures are sans mascara. D: 

Hope you enjoyed this post and check back for something new soon! I probably won't have any post-worthy outfits until the snow starts melting and school starts again, which is predicted to be Friday or maybe even tomorrow if it rains tonight (hopefully not). 

As always, thanks for reading!

AprilLily

OOTD 01.04.2012

This is the outfit that I wore on Wednesday to school. It was the first day back from winter break and I wanted to wear something because I knew I would be tired after having been able to sleep in all break. Usually when I need an outfit that does not require much planning or thought, I wear shorts with tights because I can wear anything on top.

I wore a bright reddish-coral top and my black, boyfriend blazer on top. The tights I wore were quite a thick, open knit, which meant that they were very warm and insulated, but let the wind through. Again, I took my shoes off when I got home, but I just wore plain brown oxfords. I also wore the watch that I showed in my recent thrift haul.

If you would like to know where any of the things I wore are from or how much they cost, leave a comment below and I will get back to you!

I'll be having many school projects and large homework assignments in the weeks to come so I may not be able to post after school very easily. I will however take pictures of my outfits everyday and catch up with posting them on the weekends. I might end up doing outfits of the week posts instead. I will post the outfit that I wore today later today or possibly tomorrow if I end up sleeping too much today. I have been staying up way too late finishing my homework all this week and will definitely have to make up for the missed sleep over this weekend. Why is it that not a single teacher of mine assigned any homework over the long winter break, but then piled it on with super short turnaround as soon as we got back to school? I would have much rather been able to work on this homework slowly over break when I was actually bored at home, wasting time online. Well, at least this week is over and I can try to get ahead on some of my homework over the weekend.

As always, thanks for reading and check back for more posts soon!
AprilLily