Since it's St. Patrick's Day, I am sharing three recent OOTD featuring various shades of green. I don't actually have any classic kelly/shamrock green in these outfits, but I think it can be a nice change of pace to wear a less-standard shade of the traditional colors on holidays.
My first outfit is a twist on the classic navy + green combo using a dark hunter green cardigan and light apple green accessories with a simple navy striped T and skinny pants. Seeing this photo, I really like the cuffed sleeves with the striped T showing! I need to remember that little styling detail. This is a good reason to take a daily OOTD photo, even if you have no desire to share it online - you sometimes will see things (good/bad/indifferent) about your outfit in a photo that escaped your notice in the mirror. If it makes you feel self-conscious...yeah, I get that...but in my experience, you can quickly get used to it.
This is a very thin, shorter than usual rectangular silky scarf which worked well tied into a simple bow like the pussy-bow on a blouse. Isn't "pussy-bow" a strange term? Apparently it was thus named because it resembles the "traditional bow that would be tied around the neck of a kitten" (source). So...I didn't know that was a thing, but it does explain why Alice's kitten wear bows in the Alice books.
My bracelet stack is based on a set of 3 DIY paper bead bracelets that I created last summer in a navy/green/silver color scheme to coordinate with a particular outfit. Because it's a color combination I wear frequently, it made sense to me to design a bracelet set with these colors. I discuss this bracelet set's design and show the paper to bead examples in this post. I switched it up slightly by selecting a DIY dark blue lapis lazuli bead and a silver-tone metal bead bracelet (from Amazon) to complete the stack.
I enjoyed lightening this outfit up a bit for early spring with the apple green floral scarf and light apple green loafers (a Pleasing Pairing or, with the bracelet set included, a beauty bundle/accessory set). I could wear this base outfit from fall to spring, changing up the look through the accessories.
My second outfit is based on aloe/sage green with a pop of color from the bright pink ombré pashmina. I would call this my most successful outfit with this surprisingly difficult to wear scarf. There's nothing inherently challenging or wrong with this scarf, but it's such a bright, saturated pink that it tends to overwhelm my softer coloring.
I did like how the colors of the bright pink scarf, aloe vera sweater, chevon/floral print skirt, and olive tights/boots look together in the outfit. The skirt doesn't actually contain any aloe vera/sage/olive green colors, so the sweater doesn't match, but it does coordinate due to the various green colors in the skirt.
Here are two previous OOTD with this scarf that I wasn't quite as happy with, though each one has aspects that I do like. In the jeans outfit on the left...it's partly the lighting, but the scarf really was very high contrast against the olive vest, so I would have preferred a somewhat less vivid pink. Otherwise, I really liked the outfit, though I purged the uncomfortable blouse after only two wears! It was cropped with elastic at the bottom and felt pretty terrible on. A stupid Loft final sale purchase I made because it was $8 and I liked the print. Ugh. In the skirt outfit on the right, I'm wearing the same thumbs-up sweater + scarf combo as above, but I absolutely HATE the cream tights + olive ankle boots together! I hate them SO MUCH. I am very glad that I now have a pair of olive tights to wear with the boots!
My daily bracelet stack is based on a set of three DIY paper bead bracelets that I shared in a page to bead example post last month. I added DIY stone bead bracelets from olive serpentine (top) and sage chrysoprase (bottom) beads as well as a DIY pink glass bead bracelet.
Ah, olive tights with olive boots...I needed those tights! You can also see here how the olive and sage colors play nicely with the light neon green, emerald green, and teal colors in the skirt. With three variants of green already present in the print, it makes it easy to add a couple other versions of green to the outfit...they just fit into this "shades of green" theme that the skirt has going on.
My third outfit is a somewhat rare mostly-neutral outfit that works fine for me because of the aqua and lime green accent colors in the scarf. It's the same vest and jeans as above left and the same olive boots as above right with an ivory sweater. Yes, I am wearing a pullover sweater with a sweater vest layered over it! It's silly but this is a bit out of my comfort zone because I have this feeling like, Wait, is it weird to wear multiple sweaters together?? I usually wear a quilted/puffy vest over a sweater because it feels less questionable to wear two distinctly different textures together. It's kind of ridiculous given that a traditional twin set is a sweater knit shell with a cardigan in the very same sweater knit worn over it! In this outfit, the ivory sweater is very lightweight and the olive vest is a chunkier wool, which felt more natural to me because it follows the "heavier outer layer over lighter base" logic.
I love how the dark lime green in the scarf looks with the olive green sweater, and this peacock feather jewelry finding makes for a great scarf accent when added to a DIY elastic-with-shank-button scarf ring.
I know the fashion world has moved on (temporarily, I expect) from skinny jeans, but I still love the skinny jeans + ankle boots combo so I keep wearing it. I'm enjoying wearing wider-leg jeans as well, but I see no reason to completely abandon my skinnies, which are pretty much a classic at this point.
My daily bracelet stack is based on a new DIY paper bead bracelet set that I created in an all-neutral olive/cream/gold color palette to wear with my many olive-based outfits.
The top paper bead bracelet started life as a page from a Christopher & Banks catalog. These have thicker paper that makes nice beads, but I've only ever received this one catalog. I liked the varied green, brown, and cream colors of the background so I ignored the model in the center and cut my strips from the two sides. I was only able to get 8 (rather than my standard 12) 0.5" wide bicone strips, but that's OK. I colored over the white text with green marker before rolling. I used chunky gold spacer beads as well as the two swirly focal beads (front and back to balance the weight) to fill out my bracelet.
The bottom paper bead bracelet was made from an old calendar image with a panda against a tree background. I cut 1" triangular strips for bicone beads, and because the paper is thicker with a white core, I colored the core/edge with metallic gold marker. I ended up using the same chunky gold-tone spacers as in the other bracelet so I only needed 6 of the paper beads to complete the bracelet.
The dark paper bead bracelet is not technically a part of this set! I have been making some paper bracelets in various neutral color + metal combinations as individual supplemental bracelets. The idea is that if I make paper bead bracelet sets with only two bracelets, that's a little on the skimpy side, but I can complete my daily bracelet stack by adding supplemental paper bead bracelets as I do with my stone/bead bracelets. Does that make sense? Paper bead set + individual supplemental paper/stone/glass/metal bead bracelets = daily bracelet stack. And of course I can also do a combination of individual supplemental paper/stone/glass/metal bead bracelets to create a daily bracelet stack with no paper bead sets at all. Or combine multiple paper bracelet sets. There are a lot of possible variations, but the basic logic is that some combination of sets and individual supplement bracelets can be worn in a daily stack, and I'm working to build up my collection of both sets and individual bracelets.
I started this individual supplemental paper bead bracelet (ISPBB) creation process by finding pages in neutral colors with relatively thick paper...like this alumni magazine page with a variety of olive green colors (including a green so dark it looks almost black). I thought the warm green tones would be a good choice for an olive bracelet with gold spacers (which was high on my list of desired ISPBB). I cut 1" strips for bicone beads and covered the white core with black marker. The beads have an overall dark appearance due to the stripes of black marker, but you can still see lighter and darker green tones throughout.
I already had this olive serpentine + gold disk bracelet (same stone beads as shown in my second outfit in this post), but I didn't have anything in a cream/beige color that would work with this set. So I made my first beige wood bead bracelet from a variety of beads that I'd gotten in my Boss's Bead Bag hodgepodge. Much like with the Viva Magenta glass bead bracelet, I didn't have enough of a single size/shape of bead to make an entire bracelet, so I used a mix. The larger round beads (at bottom) are the front/top of the bracelet as in my daily stack photo above. They are 8mm beads, which is just a bit bigger than would have been ideal for this set with paper beads in the 5.5-6mm range. But I am happy enough with the larger beads, and I like how the beige color works with the paper beads and that the wood beads add another texture to the stack.
Other posts in this series:
Do you wear green for St. Patrick's Day? Do you stick to the classic greens or do you wear other greens on the day? What is your favorite color of green to wear in general? Do you wear multiple versions of green in an outfit?
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