Refashion sweater & necklace

When it comes to comfort ,jeans and a sweater is my top on the list . but how can I make an outfit like this seem a little more boring? That was the question on my mind today so I looked for inspiration on my files . And this is what I came up with.
I layered my sweater over a long black t shirt and I put on my favorite black necklace. By the way ,there is a story behind this sweater. My mum gave it to my husband last winter but he decided it wasn't his style. So, here I was with a men's sweater that was way too big for me. So, what can a smart smart girl do? Refashion it.
It took me an hour of trial and error on my sewing machine to make it tight to fit my body. 
The end result you see it here and I'm glad I gave life to an otherwise throw away sweater. Have you ever tried to refashion something? Was the end result to your liking?
Visit Patti's Visible Monday series for more beautiful everyday outfits. It's inspiring to see how other women dress for everyday!

Blog therapy

It's been a little or better say a lot crazy these few weeks in my country (Greece) so no much time to blog or better say no mood to blog. Fashion blogging seemed like a luxury but one I still love and indulged today to lift my spirit a little higher .
As you already know I'm once again in my pair down phase that i use what I already have but in a different styling concept.
Do you make sense? Well ...let's see ...I have the wool brown sweater for 5 years now ,the jeans for 3 years and the jacket for 2 years. However ,I've never put those together.
I like the result and enjoyed the outfit except for the sleeves. I shouldn't have rolled them like that.

This is another outfit I worn recently and a new way to present it. I have to admit that cardigans together with scarves just make everyday dressing so much more fun.
If I learnt anything all the time I fashion blog is this one...just have a few basic pieces and play around with accessories. No one will notice even if you wear the same clothes for a week or two (cleaning is allowed).

How to edit your clothes for a versatile wardrobe

This autumn I came to the conclusion that I'm an edit wardrobe maniac if such a thing exists ! How else can I explain the fact that I edit and pair down my entire wardrobe every 3 months.

Well , that's how I paired down my clothes for this winter . As many of you know already I have zero money to spend in new clothes or accessories for the rest of the year and 2012.
This unfortunate fact makes it critical that I rediscover and make the best use of my clothes in the hopes that I enjoy wearing the same clothes.

What you see here is my entire winter collection . I did a lot of recearch on the net and realised that the best dressed women are the ones who spend more time on thinking carefully about and organising their clothes . Fortunately not the ones who shop frequently.
Another information that sort of put everything in place for me is that a versatile wardrobe consists of 40% of classic garments 35% of basics and 25% of more trendy items.

MY CLASSICS

I took the contents of my entire wardrobe out and put back only my classics . What I qualify as classics are the best quality and best tailored clothes I own that I will keep for many years to come :

• A little black dress
• 2 chanel like jackets
• A grey jacket
• A beige greatly tailored jacket
• A white button down 
• A pair of black pants 
• An A line skirt
• A pair of classic levis jeans

Despite the fact that I spent a lot of money on clothes the last couple of years I know now that it wasn't money well spend . My classics are very few and some not as good quality as I deserve . I feel a bit stupid because I have already spent the money but not on the clothes I should buy. The good thing is that now I know better.

MY BASIC SWEATERS

Then I put back my basics . It's the clothes that I wear often and the clothes that bridge the gaps between my classics and are mostly tops . They offer the maximum versatility so I feel that I have more clothes than I really have. I tend to replace them every couple of years. My simple sweater collection is :

• Black cardi
• grey cardi
• beige cardi
• black sweater
• grey sweater
• white sweater

It's nothing fancy but offer the canvas to use my patterned or colored pieces and they mix and match nicely with the classics so that I'm always decently dressed. I would like them to be a bit better quality but from now on , each one I will replace it will be with a new one of great quality and fit.

MY SHIRTS COLLECTION

 Then I put back in the closet my shirts . It came to me as a surprised when I realised that my shirt collection is mostly patterned . I hope they play along nicely with my basic  and classic pieces this winter and many winters to come as they are of good quality and show no signs of wear. It's a versatile collection as I have :

• A stripped grey&light blue stripes
• A stripped grey&black stripes
• Nautical themed
• Red tartan

I was sort of late to adopt shirts into my wardrobe but I assure you that a shirt can make a huge difference as it gives instant class to an outfit. I feel like I have to explore shirts more.

MY STRIPES

These are my favorite basic pieces and I have to admit that it was last year I wore stripes for the first time . I find they give instant class to my outfits and they are oh! so french. I know already I can mix and match them with both my classics and basics. As you can see I own:

• A white/red stripes
• A blue/white stripes
• A black/ white stripes tuttleneck

SOME MORE BASICS

These few pieces I don't exactly know how to classify . You see the jacket on the left is a classic design but the fit and fabric are not good , the fake leather skirt is too short ...you get the picture . But at this point I can make good use of them to strech my wardrobe .

THE MORE COLORFUL PIECES

In the selves above you can see my more colorful items be it tees ,cardis or skirts . Most of them aren't of excellent quality but they will do the job . What I plan to do is to wear my neutral colors more and when I become an expert at making outfits out of them only then will I start adding color . Hopefully. it will be around spring by that time. I also relay havily on my scarves collection to add color to my outfits.
It might sound frivolous or silly but I feel like I have to study what I have , put some thought on the planning of my outfits and have a strong knowledge of what I can accomplish with what I have. Only then will I be able to make a special addition that will stay with me for a long time and that I will enjoy everytime I wear I wear.

How to rediscover your clothes

dress i've made back in 2009 , camel cardigan , french scarf , my favorite riding boots , velvet bag

Things are getting tighter and tighter with the money here in Greece so I decided this is the year to really play around with what I have in my closet.
Like I have already mentioned in earlier posts there will be no new purchases this year , including 2012 , too.
So this afternoon I had the inspiration to play Polyvor with what I have and mix a few clothes to make new combinations.

burgundy chanel like jacket , light blue men's shirt , emerald  scarf ,denim trousers (not pictured here  ) , broques

I made a bit of recearch and got inspired by this great blog of the vivienne files and I came up with the following conclusion probably a no brainer to many of you but for me it hit home just this morning.
If I train my eyes to many different color combinations then I can have numerous new outfits without spending a dime. 

olive green tartan scarf  and denim dress , strong blue cardigan and camel bag & shoes

Only by playing around with color , scarves and accessories ( I plan to diy a few during this winter ) I can strech my existing wardrobe big time.
I love all the outfits I came up and evrything seems so new again just because I tried different color palettes.

olive green monochromatic cardi /tshirt /skirt and a puprle scarf on top , never have I tried that

If you want to do what I did you follow these steps:
hung your clothes roughly according to color (all black together ,all greys together next to blacks etc )
get inspiration from polyvor or numerous other collages 
Pay attention to color combinationsthere
 try to recreate a few with what you have.
make outfits around the scarves you own .

bag I made , scarf I love

Whatever you do just make sure you blessed the clothes you already have and buy nothing new. This will give you time and space to rediscover what you already own and give them the love they deserve . Clean them , iron them put some  perfume to them and they will become precious to you .
I greatly enjoyed playing around with my clothes. I hope you find my outfits well put together and I hope even more that  you  try some new combinations yourselves !

How to rediscover your jewelery

 I took all my jewels out yesterday to make an inventory and decide which ones I wear and which ones I could probably revamp and inject some new spirit into my otherwise same wardrobe.

What you see in the photos above is necklaces I joined together with a pair of my hoop earings. Very simple ,instant results.

 I want to up cycle many of my bracelets , as well .One thing I want to do is turn them a size or two smaller because when I shopped from them I made the mistake not to check carefully for their shape. I feel like I threw my money away since I don't enjoy to wear them if they slip all the time so I have to find a way to fix it.

The best way to do a jewllery clean up is :
take all your jewelery out and put on a large surface 
put all alike together hoops with hoops ,rings with rings etc.
 this way you will have a clear view of what you own.
make 3 piles one to keep  , the second to give away or throw or put somewhere out of sight to rediscover in the future and the third pile
to revamp or upcycle or tear apart to use in future projects.


Keep the third pile in a big box and throw a piece of paper inside and a pen. Each time you see on the net or in magazines something you like note down what materials you need in order to create new jewelery from your existing ones. 
After a while you will be able to know what you want to do exactly and what you need to shop. 

Now that you took all your jewelery out try to think of different ways to store what's left. The best way according to me is to keep somewhere you can see everything you own because that's the only way you can use it all. Try to make displays like in shops .I 'm sure we can all make a nice little corner to keep our jewels.
I'll keep you updated.

Take a different direction

It so happens in life that interests shift and at the moment my creativity forces me to put all my energy in decorating and transforming my house .

All my beautiful followers I'm sure have noticed already my falling in love with DIY projects and this time I'm not gonna walk away from what my instict  tells me to do.

I will keep my dressing style very simple and minimal involving a few basic pieces and I will be blogging about my diy and decoration adventures in my other blog angie's world.
I will be checking your wonderful blogs and occassionaly post my outfits probably on a weekly base but mostly I will dive the diy deep waters. Feel free to join me !!!

Well dressed and crafty

I'm so much into little crafty projects that I didn't manage to take the time and post what I wore during the week .
I like how I wear simple basic pieces again . I seem to gravitate between simple classic a bit tomboysh look where I repeat a few basic pieces and a different persona everyday look with lots of color . I will wait and see where this style polarisation might take me.

 Like I told you it has been a totally creative weekend . You see , I had many projects on my mind and I managed somehow put them together this weekend .
First it was this ethnic bag that I found in the local market for 2 euros. I didn't like everything about the bag but I knew I could work on it and make a few alterations . I know that ethnic bags are a trend and I wanted to give it a try without breaking the bank ( Hey ! I live in Greece and we might go bunkcrupt any day now , or so they say).
So ,  I took the ugly straps from the back as you see in the first photo and replaced with an old belt of mine as seen in photo number 3.In the middle photo you see how I replaced the fabric around the opening of the bag . It's the bag you see me carrying above .

After I tackled the bag I decided to make my house look a bit more beautiful . I had cleaned it and had decluttered my home during the whole month and it felt like the right time to decorate. Beleive me ...you can't decorate a messy , clutterd home.
So, I went out in the garden and cut  the leaves ,secured them in place to get the round shape and tied a simple garland around .
Now , my front door looks so much more nice. But that's not all.

Then I transformed  these green ugly bottles with left over fabric and glue . I have to say the jute stuff is amazing . It's cheap and easy to use . For the flags I used the the material you find around the neck of a wine bottle wrapped around a tooth pick .

I had some unfinished business with the pillows in the living room . I meant to make covers for them for a ...gasp couple of years  ...I bet you know the story.
That's how the pillows look now . The red one I made from scratch... the filling ( from old huge teddybears)  and all !

And here is how I made the covers ! It's the easiest way you can imagine and it ivolves no zippers or buttons. Beware though ...it can be addictive !!!

 1. Place the pillow on the cloth to take measurements . Take the measurements on the tight side so the pillow looks stuffed and fluffy.
2 . Put the right side of the cloth to face the table and make a seam of 1-2 cm
3-4-5- . Just to make sure every thing fits and the two ends of the cloth overlap. 
6 . (I have no clue why no6 became invisible but it's the last photo ) Now sew again at each end parallel to the measuring tape. Turn inside out and stuff your pillow into the cover .

Once you get the hang of it you can make a case in less than 5 minutes !!!
I plan to tackle a few more projects this weekend . Nice weekend to you all and get crafty it's so rewarding , creative and it saves a lot of money.

Blue shirt , white shirt

Shirts for me is an aquired taste . Until recently ,when I fell in love with tomboy style not even once in my life had I worn a shirt . How little did I know !!! Shirts are so classy and versatile and so easy to style be it for casual looks or for formal occassions.I  can wear them buttoned or unbuttoned ,with sleeves up or down tucked or not and get different but always elegant looks with just one shirt. I especially like the white  and the light blue shirt and occassionally the denim shirt.
How do you go about shirts ? Do you find them as classy as I do ? Do you think they are versatile?

p.s : There is a catch ,though . As much versatile and classy shirts are ,they are so difficult to find the perfect fit . I'm on the quest for a white one and I'm begining to despair.

Simple

This is a very simple outfit I wore in a very complicated day . The more I blog , the more I start seeing patterns in the way I dress. Like in the summer time that life is more simple I love to wear more visible clothes , weird combinations ,colors and tend to experiment more . On the contrary when the busy season starts in September ( I teach for a living ) I love to go as simple as possible in my clothes.
Have you noticed your style changing according to season, too ?
Today's outfit was inspired by this photo and was made more age appropriate but I hope it captures the look .
skirt : zara
shirt :chinese market
shoes : elite shoes ,suede carefully cleaned recently

Bracelets

You've probably noticed how many bracelets are piled up on the wrists of stylish people the world over this summer. Well , today was my turn to have a go. I made team with my daughter , we gathered material from all over the house and we followed these instructions . Much less than an hour later we had our bracelets . We made small alterations like we used rope instead of leather cord and beads instesd of brass hex nut but you can use anything that can do the job .
We are both very proud because we accessorized in no time spending no money at all . Plus ,this is a good starting project as it requires zero skills.
This actually was meant to be  my  Visible Monday post but blogger decided otherwise . Never mind I'll give it one more try . I strongly believe that accessorizing is the epitomy of personalizing an outfit . Many times accessories make the plainest outfit visible and all the more if the accessories are self made . My personal experience is that  a sense of pride is infused into the way I carry the outfit that makes me more visible. I strongly suggest that you find ways to incorporate some diy projects into your style.

DIY paradise

As you can see I'm totally in love with my new bag ,  the one I made . I'm slowly entering the DIY territory and I feel enthousiastic about it . The internet is filled with great affordable and easy to make ideas and my wardrobe collection needs accessories . I feel like I have covered the basic clothes chapter and I'm moving to the next step which is infusing personal style through accessories . And I can't think of something more personal than make things myself  that no one in the whole world has . How do you feel about DIY projects ? Have you ever tried to make accessories yourself ? How that felt ? Do you love accessorissing ? Do you also feel that many times accessories make or break an outfit?

inspiration : thebudget babe
shirt & trousers : chinese market
shoes : leather and locally handcrafted
bag : self made , instructions here

I made this

Wonder what I've been doing the last few days? ( I know you don't but it's a nice opening line ). Either way I'll tell you. I've been making my own (fake) leather bag . After seeing this post and following these simple instructions I had a bag ( I still don't beleive it!) and I'm in DIY heaven.

This is how it looks in an outfit . I challenge you to make your own as you can use any fabric. I will make a new one if I can put my hands on a nice soft black suede piece of fabric.

Husband's pants

When I went through my tomboy period ,which by the way is not over but a bit sleepy at the moment , I searched for men clothes in the nearest and most obvious place ... my husband's closet. I've cleaned and ironed and tidied and sometimes ,though rarely , I even bought his clothes but I had never thought of wearing them before.
What I realized for the first time as  soon as I opened his closet was how little clothes he owns .It's a very small amount and still he only  wears half of it most of the time.
The second thing I realized was that he owns no prints , it's only basic colors in there . He owns the exact amount of 2 belts . One black and one brown the kind that looks even better with time. He has 5 pairs of shoes worn the whole year ,one suit and a leather jacket.
I lived next to a minimalist master all this time and I hadn't known . It took me many years and lots of reading and experimenting to build a basic wardrobe and learn the tricks and he did the exact things under my nose  .
When I asked him how he managed to build this basic wardrobe he thought I was speaking chinese ...he couldn't understand what I was asking him . He build a...what ?
It took me more pondering and more reading on the web to come to the conclusion it's just the way men are conditioned to shop ( which is changing fast for obvious reasons ) very few items of good quality in basic colors that co ordinate well . Only when something is worn out  ,only then it gets replaced to something similar of good quality.
So simple but like a riddle to me. Then, after I solved the riddle did I felt entitled to borrow his pants . They produced many nice outfits and they are high waisted which I don't find so easily anymore.
To tell you the truth last night I notice a pair of chaki trousers that get minimal wear from him and I think I might try those out as well . What would you do ???

Lace & black skirt

Minus the evening bag is this visible enough to wear while doing some errrands in the morning? Cause this is what I wore in the morning and during a visit to a new born together with my children inthe evening ! And it felt so comfortable and chic .
I've got a little story for the lace top to share. I found it while on holidays last year abandoned  on the beach. I didn't pick it up because someone might go look for it later . But the next day I was on the beach ,  it was still there so I pronounced it mine . If I'm allowed a tip here, a camisole under a thin top goes a long way . I felt well covered  and warm all day.
I will dedicate today's post to my sweet fashion blogger Patti for the inspiration behind this outfit . It's her Visible Monday series that got me into something I wouldn't normally wear . Check her out for the 10th challenge already !!!

inspiration photo : madeleine
lace top : found
skirt : sewn by me

Autumn blues

It's been more than a month since I last posted and I've spent most of it in a bathing suit and a sarong around my waist.
But I'm back in town now and the transition to formal dressing has been a difficult one. It took so long to pick an inspirational photo and twice as long to get used to wearing so many items of clothing. I had a slight feeling  of being restricted by my clothes but I know it will go away.
As for my outfit , the scarf is a new addition because I love the colors and because it's a tribal/ethnic print a huge trend for the winter or so they predict . The navy blue jacket is given to me by my mom  and it's a classic item that will stay with me for many years be it a trend or not.

inspiration photo : madeleine cataloque
white t shirt & navy blue jacket : given by mom
scarf : blanco
pants : my husband's
shoes :boxer
straw hat : spriderstores

To end yet another come back post I'd love to share a photo from my holidays and wish everyone

                                                      happy autumn