My outfits feature another new item from my out-of-season Lands End sale purchase last winter: a lightweight 3/4 sleeve navy/pink/blue floral cardigan that they call the "Lightweight Jersey Cardigan" in "Deep Sea Navy Petal Floral" that I bought for $11.69. Wouldn't this cardigan have been perfect for the SIA challenge as well?
Carol at Scribbling Boomer (who is something of my straight size Lands End cousin) featured this style cardigan in a different print earlier this spring. (It's still available in my floral print in lucky sizes, plus they have a bunch of other prints too. Currently on sale for $12-22!)
Outfit #1 is similar to my SIA outfit as it combines a navy/pink/blue floral topper layer with a navy blouse and my "fancy" slate blue skirt from MM LaFleur but is a bit less casual than that outfit. In this look, the navy blouse is a sleeveless one from Loft that dates to fall 2019 with 27 wears and a cost per wear (CPW) of $0.99, reaching my <$1 CPW target as of this outfit!
I love the pop of bright color lent by this thrifted scarf that I call my "pink Cheshire striped scarf" because it reminds me of the Cheshire Cat in the 1951 Disney cartoon movie.
My shoes are one of four pairs of BP brand flats I bought at Nordstrom for $50 in 2014 (along with black, leopard, and my lamented gold ones). I have worn these 55 times for a CPW of $0.91. It's funny...I took a break from wearing these shoes because they weren't feeling comfortable to me, but when I tried them again later, they felt good again! I have no idea what that was about, but I'm glad I didn't purge them from my closet immediately.
My earrings are a pair of light pink and silver drops from CJ Banks. I look like I'm wearing blush in this photo but it's just the pink scarf next to my face giving my skin a bit of a rosy appearance. (My face is pretty rosy to begin with so it doesn't take much!)
My daily bracelet stack was based on another new DIY paper bead bracelet set that I made in a soft indigo/pink/silver colorway to coordinate with the many muted dark blue and pink outfits that I wear. In my softer alternatives to navy post, I had promised to share the paper-to-bead details of this bracelet set, so here goes...
The top paper bead bracelet with the silver flower was made from a Coldwater Creek catalog page featuring this blue denim shirt with embroidered stars. I used light navy acrylic paint to cover up the text, white areas, etc., so that the entire rectangle of the page was blue. The beads rolled up beautifully with the paint adding another shade of blue and a different texture to the beads. I love that here and there one of the little stars shows up too!
The middle paper bead bracelet started with this drawing from The Economist that had the perfect dusky pink and dark blue tones in it. The figure of the woman has a bit of white and red that I decided to leave as-is because it affected such a small area of the page. I thought a hint of off-palette color wouldn't hurt and might add a bit of extra dimension to the beads. I liked the result.
Finally, the bottom paper bead bracelet was made from a full-page bedroom photo in a Garnet Hill catalog. If you get these catalogs, you know that they have page after page of beautiful bedroom photos, and I like to use them for paper beads. My thanks to Marsha at Marsha in the Middle for recommending this catalog to me! I forgot to take a photo of the original page, but I hope from the strips below you can get enough of a sense of what it looked like. I did cover the white text with navy marker before rolling the beads, but otherwise used the photo as it came in the catalog because the soft blue and pink colors were spot on for my color palette. I love the delicacy of these beads with the small scale prints of the pink rug and blue/white bedspread showing up well. One thing that's fascinating about paper beads is that when you take the detail of an image out of its original context, you see the various colors that truly exist on the page rather than what our minds edit for us. For example, we basically see the bedspread as blue/white with darker areas that our brains correct for because we know that part of the bedspread is in the shadows, but on the finished beads, the "shadowed white" looks like taupe!
For my second outfit, I paired the long cardigan with a slimmer bottom piece for a more traditional long-over-lean silhouette. The pink knit top coordinated well with the various pink tones in the floral print.
My layered necklace consisted of only two pieces: a triple-strand faux pearl/rose gold necklace and a silver chain with a DIY paper pendant {tutorial}. I'm not sure if I've shown you this specific one before; the paper is from a Lands End catalog, an image of a leaf print in warm pink, blue, and mint on a navy background. I added the close up photo so you can see that it's not the exact same print as the cardigan!
My blue Sofft flats (which are pretty comfortable, if you struggle with so many ballet flats having virtually no cushioning on the bottom) are another older pair, dating from 2013. I love this medium blue color. I don't usually wear flats with squared-off toes, which is a style that seems to cycle in and out of fashion quickly, but these snip-toe shoes read classic rather than faddish to me, and I wear them regardless of what the specific trend is.
My daily bracelet stack (all DIY) is based on a paper bead bracelet set I designed last spring to match a Brooks Brothers fish scarf using a soft blue and pink colorway (set #2 here). I think that set looks great with this cardigan, too. Of course I couldn't resist adding the pink glass/silver rabbit bracelet I made for Easter to the stack!
Do you have a color combination you've been wearing a lot this summer? Do you have any shoes in your closet that are 10+ years old?
Blogs I link up with are listed here.