SHOPPING HAUL

Yesterday, I went to the mall with some friends and I got to see Sherlock Holmes 2 again! :D I also got some new clothing and I'm really happy with what I found. The after Christmas sales are so much better than the Black Friday sales in my opinion. H&M in particular, has the best deals right now!

Photo credit: Glamfull.com

I had been looking for another heavy duty, winter coat for a while. I ordered this one online but when it came, it was a little too long on me, so I returned it in store, hoping to buy this one instead, but I couldn't find it in store sadly :( I then went to H&M because I knew they were having a huge sale. I wasn't expecting to find a fur coat but I thought there would be no harm in trying. Immediately, my eyes zoned in on this furry thing peeking out amongst the racks. I'm telling you, it was meant to be! Lo and behold, it was a beautiful, faux fur coat, in my size, with only one left, for 50% off too! I could have died right then! :D It was originally $70, and I got it for $35. That purchase alone made me quite happy for the rest of the day!

Buy here for $22.80

My problem with shopping in store at Forever 21 is my eyes have no idea where to go! There's too many things coming at me at one time so instead of actually browsing, my eyes just glaze over everything and I give up, which is why I much prefer to shop online. Regardless, since I was with friends, I decided I might as well start in the front of the store and slowly work my way to the back. I had probably made 3 or 4 rounds in the store until I saw this top. I love the little building, leaf, and bird silhouettes! Plus I've been trying to add more prints, and blouses into my wardrobe.

Buy here for $12.80

This isn't something I'd normally pick up because I tend to buy things with more color, but I figured it would be a versatile and fun piece to mix and match with other prints! It's super soft and I can't wait to wear this with the skirt I got below!

Buy here for $19.90

I wasn't too sure with this skirt at first because I usually don't pay more than $15 for solid color skirts. But I couldn't resist the silky fabric or the gold zipper in the end. I wish it had a little more body but I'm sure I can fix that by wearing another poofy skirt underneath. I hope Forever 21 makes more skirts with this same fabric!

Buy the socks here for $2.80

I also picked up this pair of polka dotted, over the knee socks. They were a great price and I plan on wearing them scrunched down with a short pair of boots, or pulled up all the way with some wedges and a cute dress. I got these nude tights too, I need to make a mental note to buy more next time! I can't believe I never thought about wearing nude tights in the winter because I'm constantly complaining about how I can never wear some of my dresses in the winter, bare-legged. Supposedly, wearing nude tights is a fashion no-no but I think goosebump covered legs look worse than nude tights. I'm not sure how well this pair ($3.50) will hold up, but for now, it will do! Sorry, they sold out online so I can't give you a link, but there were still a ton in stock in store!

$2.50 at Target

Lastly, I bought these purple, knee high socks from Target. If I had more money left, I would have picked up a few more pairs. Target has a huge selection of really nice long socks in a variety of colors and patterns, and they are all relatively cheap :)

I hope you enjoyed this haul post! I won't be buying anything for a while now but I'm pretty sure I've satisfied my retail therapy craving. Hope all my readers are enjoying the winter holidays and that you all got great deals! I'd love to hear what amazing deals you got after Christmas in the comments too. :)

OLD PHOTOGRAPHY

Merry Christmas everyone! I haven't been posting my outfits lately because I quite frankly, have not actually left the house since school got out! :P (Sad, I know...) My excuse is that I've been working on putting together the designs for my collection for my school's fashion show in March, as well as my college art portfolio. But I will try to get out more often because I actually was unable to remember what day of the week it was today. I think that is a bad sign. But for now, I thought I would share with you some of my old photography from my sophomore year of taking Digital Photography. These photos were part of our "Nature" assignment. I hope you like them!

THE SUN WILL LIGHT A SEA OF SORROW

Today, I'm wearing a faux fur vest from Forever 21, and a vintage velvet dress that used to belong to my mom and it's 25 years old! It's a perfect example of how fashion cycles in and out. I had seen a similar velvet dress at American Apparel for $44 so I was ecstatic when my mom gave me hers :) The cuffs are from Forever 21, the tights ripped on their own (my dog scratched a hole into them), and the short, leather boots are also my mom's. In case you're wondering what the string is, it's actually a piece of twine that I tied around the vest to fit it to my waist.

The nice thing about Finals Week is that we get out at noon everyday so I get to take my pictures earlier and the lighting is just so nice around midday. These photos were actually shot with a self timer instead of my remote because my remote battery died :( So I was running back and forth resetting the camera today haha but the pictures actually focused a lot more consistently without the remote- weird huh? Also I just now noticed that I have this obsession with talking about my camera. Anyways, thank you to all my new followers, I'll be making a flower headpiece and turban headband tutorial during the break for you all :)

DIY CHAIN HEADPIECE TUTORIAL

Make your own chain headpiece!

Hi guys! Today, I'm wearing a vintage beaded tunic that my mom gave me, a peachy/nude tank top which I'm wearing as a skirt (Forever 21, $3), and these Colin Stuart wedge sandals I got online from Victoria's Secret a year or two ago for $12.

I hope you guys like my new chain headpiece because I made it myself using only 3 of my old necklace chains! Here is a tutorial below if you would like to make your own. All you need are some old necklace chains, pliers, and jump rings (if you don't have any laying around, you can remove links off the chains and use those as substitute jump rings).

I would have taken pictures at each step while I was working, but I was afraid that the pictures wouldn't be clear explanations of what I was doing, so I drew some illustrations instead :) I would love to hear what you all think about this tutorial!

A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA

Semester finals are next week! There's a lot of work to be done in preparation but one of the pros is that we get out at minimum days, so I can have more time to photograph at home; and the weather is also on my side too! It's going to be sunny for the next few days :)

This blouse is from my Mom. The brown, corduroy pants are J Brand and I thrifted them for only $7! (Can you believe that?) The necklace is something I had laying around from Halloween 2 years ago, when I dressed up as a gypsy. Plus having just seen SHERLOCK HOLMES 2 last night (MIDNIGHT showing baby!), I'm especially loving the bohemian vibe. The costumes were great by the way, especially Holmes' coats; I'd wear them all. I'm a die hard RDJ fan and have waited over 450 days to see this movie, and I was not disappointed at all. I cried at some parts... it was just a romantic comedy, action, drama, mystery movie all in one. And while waiting for the movie to start, we went into the arcade and I nearly died when I saw the Iron Man pinball machine!!! What a great day! Even though I only got 3 and a half hours of sleep today, I was still riding the post-movie excitement so I managed to stay awake at school surprisingly.

 

 

HONEY

I love this outfit so much! I bought this skirt at H&M during the summer for $15 when they were having a sale, but for 4 months, I wasn't sure what to wear it with. I threw this on in about 5 minutes this morning; it's funny how sometimes the best outfits are the ones we don't put too much thought into. The beaded headband is a gift from one of my best friends, the cross necklace is one of the pieces of jewelry that my Mom gave me. The fur vest is from Forever 21, and was $21. Today, my sister helped me photograph, so thank you to her! <3

MAD AS A HATTER

This outfit is inspired by none other than the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland! I just loved his scarf so much and I had found this vintage lamé scarf at a thrift store for only $3! I really adore the way that scarves look when you tie them in bows; definitely going to be wearing them like this more often. The jacket is by Carmen Marc Valvo, also thrifted, for only $7! The print is just gorgeous and also reminds me of a jacket the Hatter might own. The skirt was actually my Mom's. It's made of a brown, faux suede material, and was originally a pencil skirt but I cut it shorter. And then I'm just wearing a plain blue cardigan underneath and some burgundy tights from Forever 21, to stay warm in the mornings. All I need to finish my look is a fun top hat! That would make a fun DIY project ;) I'll mentally add that to the endless list of DIY projects I wish to pursue in the future. Keep your eyes out for a DIY tutorial on a flower headdress soon!

I feel like my hands always look awkward whenever I use my wireless remote.

CHARCOAL

This week has been so crazy, there is literally a giant mound of clothing in the middle of my room of worn clothes, clean laundry, and stuff I've thrown out of my closet in the morning rush to school. The last time I was able to really sit down and draw on my own was in July and that finally changed last night! I really didn't know what to do for my next portfolio piece, but I always knew in the back of my head that I wanted to draw RDJ because he's my favorite actor. (BTW Sherlock Holmes 2 comes out in 13 days, and I'm going to the midnight premiere ;D) But I was always too scared I would mess up his face and never forgive myself.
I finished the drawing in 2 hours last night, but then I realized I made his face too short so I took another 2 hours today to fix little details since I started getting really OCD about making sure it was PERFECT. I'm planning to include this in my college art portfolio; it just wouldn't be an accurate representation of me without some type of drawing of RDJ :P Tell me what you guys think!

TELL 'EM

This is another one of my Mom's sweaters! I love the gold lamé and the exotic pattern; who knew this beauty had been sitting in her closet for years! The sheer, plaid tights are from H&M but the lighting makes them look like they have an ombre effect. They were only $1 though because they were having a sale :)

Just trying to get back into the groove of things now that our Thanksgiving break is over! This is the first year that our school has decided to have semester finals before break, rather than after. Of course they would decide to enforce this new policy during my junior year! Oh joy! I guess this way we will have a stress free vacation but I think that you can never be entirely stress free until at least after your junior year. But what choice do we have except to move forward right? I just know I'm going to be hibernating for the first few days of Christmas break then!



Also, Brandi from My Dear Vintage was so kind as to feature me on her blog as her Style Crush of the Day! My Dear Vintage is an online vintage shop which is very reasonably priced! I really like the Wild Moon Bag but I'm on a complete shopping diet at the moment :( But someone should pick it up and if you post a look with it, I would love to see! :) Thank you again Brandi! If you have a twitter, you can follow her @mydearvintage 

THE REST YOU CAN KEEP

I picked this shirt up at Forever 21 recently; it's actually a Men's shirt but I loved the colors so much and  it was super soft, so I figured I could wear it as a sleep shirt anyways. But I like that this shirt is oversized because it looks good tucked into a bandage skirt. The red tights are also from Forever 21 and were $5.80; I'm trying to get bright tights in every color and so far I have fuchsia, mustard, and red. I'd love some sea foam or lavender colored ones but I have yet to find any!

This Friday was rather productive for me- no I did not go Black Friday shopping! I did however go to Michaels on Thursday after dinner and got a few things: a 5 pack of large canvases for $12? A desktop easel for $7.50, a few brushes, palette knives, and some acrylic paint. Random fun fact: my favorite color is Quinacridone Magenta! :)

Anyways, I was falling really behind on school work and on Friday I woke up early and worked for 13 hours straight and 1500 words later, I had my research paper completely written out. :) I wrote mine on how fashion is the most powerful form of human expression, so it didn't feel too much like homework. 

TOSS OUT THE KEY

This is one of the sweaters that I stole from my Dad! Hehe I love the colors so much; he's not going to get it back. I layered these old sheer tights with a pair of cozy, knit legwarmers I got from the Abercrombie outlet ages ago for $5. I wish I had bought more. You can pull them up even higher to have that over the knee sock look, without the bulk around your foot. 

I started playing around with some light leak effects too and I'm really happy I figured out some better camera settings so that my camera focuses more consistently now! I'm especially excited for Black Friday too! I'm not really looking to buy more clothes but I'd definitely love to find an adjustable dress form and a desktop easel, and to stock up on canvases and acrylic paints!

FIDM FASHION SHOW

Hey guys! Yesterday I went to the FIDM fashion show in San Francisco with around 10 other girls from my school's Fashion Club! I went to the LA debut show with the club 2 years ago also but not the one held last year. Today, they were showing the same collection shown at the debut show last year in LA, so I got to see the clothing anyways! I'm hoping to go back to the 2012 debut show, I particularly want to check out FIDM's costume museum... from what I've heard from my friend who went on the trip last year, they had the costumes from Sherlock Holmes on display... I literally wanted to punch myself in the face when I realized I missed out on that.

Even though the place where the show was being held, the Masonic Center, is technically walking distance from the SF school, it involves hiking up I believe about 8 blocks (or at least it felt like that) on a very increasingly, steep hill. I honestly have back problems now from that since I was also carrying a couple bags full of stuff! But we got great seats, in the third row on the right side of the auditorium, and I made sure to pick the aisle seat so I could get a good angle for photographing.

The lighting up front was overwhelmingly bright though so I apologize for the over exposure in these images but I did get some especially stunning shots of certain garments, especially the voluminous gowns!

I love the ombre effect on this gown, and it photographed beautifully!

I could not have asked for a better capture. The time and effort spent into this gown is obvious!

The pants on the left are by far my favorite of the show. Love the ombre once again, and the hippie vibe of the loose, bell bottom pants. 

I would like to find something similar to this long vest on the left! I don't have many minimalistic pieces but I am being more inspired by this clean, simple, yet structured look.

I can't get over how lovely this gown in the middle looks in movement! Also a big fan of the white, "sea sponge" dress on the right!

Hope you enjoyed these pictures! I definitely had fun being able to photograph with a good quality DSLR rather than the dying digital camera I had at the LA show last time! Leave me a comment and tell me which one was your favorite! :)

I'VE GOT MY EYES ON YOU

These are a few of the items that I'm currently stalking:

1. Rainbow Merino Yarn at Etsy

I recently saw a multi-colored knit scarf at Free People that I fell in love with but it was the last one in store and was $60... so I figured I should make my own! I love all the colors in this but will probably wait until Christmas because the shipping from Australia is quite pricey!

2. Starfish Cuff

I fell in love with this after I saw Aimee Song with hers!

3. Interlaced Tights at Romwe

I love the whimsical and doodly feel of this design.

4. Evil Eye Pendant at Etsy

I've never seen anything like this; it's got the perfect balance of scary, unusual, and beautiful.

5. Chain Headdress at Urban Outfitters

This piece has a very gypsy-esque feel to it. I'm always looking for new hair accessories!

6. Floral Backpack at Urban Outfitters

My green Olsenboye army backpack officially broke, I need a replacement but everyone at my school has the same tan, green, grey etc. canvas backpacks now. This print will surely stand out!

7. Jeffrey Campbell Skate Shoe ($198)

I'm swooning over these shoes right now! I could never afford these but I can still admire them from afar!

8. Eye Print Shirt at Motel Rocks

With my obsession over eyes and anything rainbow right now, this shirt is perfect to me!

DIY STUDDED BLAZER

After falling in love with this Burberry studded jacket, knowing that I would never be able to afford it, I decided to try to make my own version! It's no where near as amazing as the original but it satisfied my craving for a fun and easy DIY project.

I bought this plain black blazer from H&M and bought a couple hundred studs online from Etsy from this store:

Item Factory

The studs are very reasonably priced and there's a huge variety to choose from!

I bought some conical studs, some square studs, and some pyramid studs. The conical ones are my favorite! All you have to do is push the stud through the fabric and on the underside, press the two metal legs in. There's probably a tool you can use to make it less hard on your nails, but I was too excited to get started. It took me around 2 hours to get all the studs I wanted affixed. (I work slow though) But don't let the time, discourage you! This project is super easy and the end product looks great!

The total price of the studs was around $15 (shipping included from Thailand), so for a $20 plus the studs, I'd say this $35 jacket is good enough for me in comparison to the $3000 original!

CUT LIKE A BUFFALO

Today I tripped TWICE because of these boots! I wanted to leave them half unlaced so I tied the excess around the boot and knotted it. Well the knot decided to come undone as I was crossing the road and the lace caught on the hook of the other boot and I fell to the ground. I was fine but WOW was that embarrassing! The lace snapped in half too! After I walked to the sidewalk to retie my boot, I guess I didn't tie it well enough because within two steps, I fell again! Funny how I've never tripped in regular heels, but always trip in platform sandals and flat boots? I have a nice battle wound on my knee now and I must have landed on my hand weirdly because my left thumb hurts when I type now.

I also look really angry in this photo because well I WAS! I normally get back home at 3:10ish (it's the earliest time I can possible get back home) but today we got back at 3:45 because my sister had an ortho appointment. So you can imagine I'm always scrambling to photograph as soon as I get home before the sun goes down to an angle where a house is completely covering it. Well basically on the way back it seemed that EVERY STOP LIGHT turned red and all the cars were driving ESPECIALLY SLOW. Now imagine me trying to photograph with the 5 minutes left of proper lighting but my camera refuses to focus! I'm running around to all these different places trying to photograph but nothing is working out for me today so I do look extremely frustrated in the photo on the left but you can take my word for it that I was! Oh well, at least these two photos kind of worked out; not what I would have preferred, but I'll take it over nothing.

I'm wearing a studded headband which was actually the empire waist band on a black halter top I thrifted, but was too lazy to alter the top and I just wanted the studded part so I cut it out and tied it into a headband! The top is actually a dress, and I took a small safety pin, and pinned the middle of the bottom hem onto the middle of the top hem. The skirt is from Forever 21 ($15.80). Hopefully, I'll have better luck tomorrow!

LET'S CONSPIRE

I'm wearing a mustard beanie from H&M ($6), a chunky sweater from my Mom's closet, green pants from H&M, and black boots, also from my Mom. This weekend, my Mom went through two giant boxes full of sweaters that belonged to her and my Dad and I took back a ton for my own closet. She actually knitted this sweater! I ordered some yarn from Etsy so I'm going to ask her to teach me how to knit a scarf. I'll also be doing a post on all the new sweaters I added to my wardrobe soon. :)

I've been getting too obsessed with my black wedge booties, and it's nice to wear these flat leather booties for a change. Not something I'd pick out on my own normally but I really did love the way they looked once I tried them on. Plus they've already been worn in and are so comfortable. Even more comfortable than sneakers!

PUT THOSE SNEAKERS AND UGGS DOWN NOW

I have a bad but we can admittedly say, fashionable habit of wearing heels and wedges to school multiple times a week. Don't get me wrong, I love how they add that perfect finishing touch to your outfit and give you that extra boost of confidence, but let's face it, some days I just want to come to school in squishy slippers. Above are my top picks of flat shoes that are affordable and so much more stylish than plain sneakers or Uggs. After the tall brown Uggs I've had for 4 years were completely ruined due to an extreme downpour, my mom threw them out and told me she'd never buy me Uggs again LOL. I'm actually really glad she did that because boy, looking back, there were so many more prettier shoes in existence. Which one is your favorite? Leave me a message in the comments :)

Clockwise from top left:

1. Wingtip Oxford - Target

The perfect pop of black and white!

2. Patent Nude Flats - Famous Footwear

I would love wearing these bare legged because they make you look barefoot!

3. White Lace-Up Boots - Target

I already have a brown pair, but these white ones remind me of ice skating!

4. Gold Glittery Flats - Urban Outfitters

OOH SPARKLY

5. Red Velvet Mary Janes - Urban Outfitters

Velvet is very on trend this season and red is one of my favorite colors! Not sure how durable these are but would definitely make for adorable house slippers!

6. Leatherette Shoes - Forever 21

These would look great with more menswear inspired pieces.