Layers of Blue

It was seriously cold in our office today, so good thing I had tons of layers.  I felt a bit lazy so wore my black cords.

I don't wear pants much anymore - most of my "dress" pants need to be shortened so I can wear them without heels and you can see what the non-dress pants look like above.

I wore 3 layers of clothing over a tank but it wasn't enough. My original thought was to wear this sans scarf like so:

But then in the end thought it would look a bit weird, so ended up adding the scarf.

today i wore:

tanktop ... old navy

mock turtle ... ?

keyhole t-shirt ... segments

zip cardigan ... rino rossi

scarf ... ?

cords ... calvin klein jeans

shoes ... docs

Emmys on the Front Porch

Here I am on our new front deck which Big J built just last week.  He's quite the handyman.  It still needs some paint on those things on top of the posts, but now we have a place to sit when we want to watch our fishies swimming or the neighbourhood pass by.

Today I wore:

tank top ... old navy

long sleeve t-shirt ... mexx

butterfly dress ... sears

blue cardi ... ?

black tights ... dollar store

mary janes ... spain

There's only one outfit photo of me because ... today's post of course will be about the wonderful gowns at the 2012 Emmys.

There were lots of bright colourful dresses and some of the gowns were less formal than at the Oscars last year.

Although I would never have anywhere to wear such fancy clothing, like everyone else, I do like to pick out my favourites and imagine.


My favourites were probably the printed ones - they looked fresh and new.  Here are the two I liked best:

I really liked this first one and can imagine wearing it - it's fairly modest, feminine and pretty.  The black dress is also cute - I love the ruffly hem.

Here are some other gowns which I love.  These ones are in fabulous colours.

I love the giant wavy peplum thing on Kaley Cuoco's dress, and I think I like the orange gown because it looks great on Ms Lakshmi.

These next few have that filmy Edwardian look which I love.  I especially like the midi-length one which seems to be something I could actually wear.

And now finally these last three just caught my eye - not sure why.




 Which gown is your favourite?

PS: ==> I got all these pictures from E!online and where there was a photographer's credit - I left it in the crop.

Tie-Dye Maxi Dress

Whenever it's a blazing hot day, I prefer to wear something loose, long and flowy.  So it was a perfect day for my tie-dye maxi dress.  

I got this dress long before maxis became popular and it's a size bigger than I normally wear which is perfect for a hot sticky day.

I used to always wear a tank under it because the buttons would gape open when I sat down.  So ages ago, I did a refashion with a bit of blue lace and made a fake cami underneath.

Here's a closeup:

The dress has that long-body effect which I hate, so I tied a similarly printed scarf around my waist.  It just picks up the purple patches on the dress.

I also wore my blue T-strap Mary Janes from Spain - I think of these as "school shoes" because in the old days, kids used to wear shoes like this to school didn't they?

These shoes come in blue, red and black and I think next time I'm in Spain, I'll get another colour - maybe red.

It turned out the dress was a good choice for today because it was not only hot and sticky, but we had a barbecue at work - so the loose dress was perfect for a burger and potato salad.  No dinner for me tonight.

Polka Dotty Butterflies

Finally a relatively hot day!  I'd actually hauled out thicker clothing the night before, the usual thick black tights, layers and such but woke up to bright sunshine so switched out to something a little cooler.

This dress is yet another Sears outlet item which must have been priced incorrectly when I bought it.  I got it quite a while ago and yet saw one in the outlet for about $5 more just recently. The print almost looks like butterflies ...

It's a bit thick looking in the photo because my slip was too long so I wore it strapless dress style.  I actually tried wearing it normally with the lace showing, but it just looked like the slip was too long - perhaps if it had been pink or orange instead of dark blue ...

The strange thing about this dress is that it has a weird tie on the side.  Really not sure what it's for - definitely not for holding the dress together.  I am considering cutting it.

I threw on a scarf too - I very rarely step outside sans scarf, it's like other women with lipstick.  I wore another dollar store necklace - you never know if it's going to be too hot and you have to remove the scarf.

I hope these dollar store jewellery items are safe - they probably are not, but at least I don't chew on them.

I also wore my blue cardigan again in case it got cold.

Does it look like a cape?

Last winter, I wore this dress with thick black tights - you would think such a minor change would scarcely be noticeable, but it looks 100% better with the white tights. 

All Dotty

I'm trying out the inspiration method of dressing today and am not sure if I carried it out or not.  The inspiration outfit from two birds was Kate Bosworth in a floaty skirt, sweatshirt and runners.  Not exactly what I can wear to work.

So I wore this, substituting a biggish sweater for the sweatshirt and flats for the runners. What do you think?

The floaty skirt I found in the PJs section - it came with a matching tank, but I don't think it is nightwear.  It's that chiffony fabric that wouldn't be very comfortable to sleep in.  There are 2 sizes of dots: big yellow ones and small white ones.

I didn't have a blue tee and black seemed to clash so I decided to go overboard on the dots and wore my dotty black tee with my dotty made-it-myself scarf which has yellow and black dots.

Here's a closeup:

I liked all the dots, and it was comfy, but the whole outfit felt a bit frumpy (or perhaps the lower half) - I think because of the shoes.  Plus the skirt was a bit big so I had to wear it lower down than usual.

I'm linking to these link parties today:

• Visible Monday @ Not Dead Yet Style
  
• Mannequin Monday @ ArtsyGirl Connection
  This is only her 2nd link party, so please have a look!
  
• Mellow Yellow Monday
  
• Inspiration Monday

NWT

For those who know something about Canada, NWT means the Northwest Territories, that cold polar area up north where there are few trees and fewer people.  For thrifty fashionistas on the other hand, NWT means New With Tags and that's exactly what I got for $5 the other day: a NWT blue print tank!

I decided to wear it for the Visible Monday and Monday Mingle link-up:

Here is a closeup of the print, I really like it:

Being a matchy-matchy type of person, I then wore all sorts of other blue clothing. Tights:

and a bracelet got on the same trip for $2:

The only jarringly non-matching piece is my Spain futbol bracelet which I'm wearing for soccer:

Olé!

Blue, Peach and a Tapestry Bag

Today was a jeans day again since it was council meeting day.  I am liking jeans less and less since starting blogging - what looks good in the morning just does not look good in a photo - or it might be that I just haven't found the right style for my shape. Or my shape is just not the right style for jeans!

This combination of blue and peach is not a normal one for me.  Not sure if the scarf ties it all together or not.

But, today's post is really about this nice bag that I found.  Actually Big J found it - he knew I was looking for a bag like this, and brought it to my attention.

It is a big overnighter bag in a blue tapesty print.  It was only $4 in an animal hospital store.  I assume other than overhead, all the profit goes to the animals since there were about 4 or 5 people with "volunteer" name tags.

Here is a closeup of the bag:

The other thing I'm trying out is the watermark - I am always afraid of someone using my pics as an example of what not to wear!  What d'ya think?  Overkill?  Should I transparentize it a bit more? Does it get in the way?  I thought of putting it in a corner, but thought it could be cropped.

Today, I'm linking to Visible Monday, Monday Mingle and Thrifter's Anonymous

Floaty Tunic

Today we are thinking of going down to the states to do some shopping.  Our younger son needs new shoes - his feet are bigger than mine now!  So we thought we would grab some lunch at the buffet (great for the diet) and stop at the mall.
It is a hot day, so I have on a loose sleeveless tunic top over a tank:

I'm not sure where I got it, it was $6 and about 10 years ago, and at first I was hesitant to wear it because it felt a little bit maternity-like.  But now that everyone is wearing tunics and smocks, I've hauled it out from the back of the closet.  I quite like the flowy-ness of the top - it has two layers front and back:

But again, felt a bit bare so I put a scarf over it lol-style.  The scarf is from a Danish furniture store JYSK which is similar to IKEA. They quite often get in items which I think have been liquidated from another store.

The shoes are also quite old.  I got them for 900 pesetas in the old Continente supermarket (yes supermarket) in Spain which has since been bought out by the giant French Carrefour chain.

They are super-comfy and I always regret not buying the tan colour too.

Rainy Blue Tuesday

So much for our sunshine, it's back to rain and grey skies.  Also back to warmer clothing again.

I wore my standby tube-waist skirt, this time in black, with my scratchy turtleneck and a blue cardigan.  The last time I wore this turtleneck with a tube-waist skirt, I looked horribly boxy and thick.  This time, I'm hoping the cardigan softens the lines a bit.

Also wore a necklace by a local designer.  It's a triple-strander:

I'm hoping to be able to wear it with a nice summery dress one day.

Necklace Overload

It is finally getting a touch warmer these days.  I wasn't sure about today's outfit - thinking it might be overly cool temperature wise.

The t-shirt is sleeveless, but has a built-in necklace.  It has a droopy sort of neckline too, which felt a bit bare so I decided to go overboard on the necklaces and added another one.

 
It still felt overly exposed, perhaps because of the long months with turtlenecks and scarves.  Here is a closer look:

The sweater is actually about 4 or 5 years old; it was only $8! from a liquidator (since closed).  I liked it for the knitty, crochet-y-ness and the hoodie:

And of course, the visibleness (for Patti's Visible Monday linkup) are both the stripey tights and the loose hair.  Also linking to Glamamom.