I've mentioned before that last December I was able to take advantage of a big sale at Lands End to add some new items to my wardrobe. In addition to the two sweatshirts (the wintery plaid one and the spring-tone striped one), I bought some items in anticipation of summer, which has 100% arrived in Minnesota. I have already shared the navy striped T, navy pleated blouse, and navy floral linen top (oddly, for three consecutive Style Imitating Art challenges!). But I have some more items you'll be seeing in the coming weeks, many of which feature my favorite summer fabric: linen.
I haven't owned a lot of linen items before this summer, but I loved the ones I had and was ready to bolster my "stand alone summer top" inventory with shirts in fabric that would keep me cool. I was very excited that Lands End was offering their "linen T-shirt" (note: not a t-shirt!) in several prints at a large discount because I have really enjoyed wearing the beige striped version I bought in 2020 (for example, outfit #2 here). One of the prints was this wonderfully summery large check print in light, warm-tone colors that remind me of fruit sherbet, therefore called my "sherbet check" top. (Lands End current linen shirt offerings here; some of them are significantly on sale. Not an affiliate link.) I was happy to realize that many of the same colors are prominent in the new white floral Rifle Paper Co. Keds that I bought last fall, so obviously I needed to wear them together! Today I'm sharing two recent OOTD featuring the sherbet check top and white floral Keds.
Outfit #1: One thing I love about a colorful print "stand alone summer top" (i.e., one that doesn't need to be layered over or under) is that the rest of the outfit can be quite minimal and it still results in an interesting outfit. Of course, there is truly minimal and there is Sally minimal. So while no one would call this look a classic example of minimalism, the base outfit is an easy-peasy outfit formula: print top + denim + sneakers.
I did have to jazz it up with some accessories, and for my layered necklace I went with a variety of seed bead options because summer is strongly associated with colorful seed bead jewelry in my mind. The shortest purple strands are from one of my DIY multi-strand necklaces, the middle strands are single-strand seed bead necklaces bought from Fire Mountain Gems in a set, and the long tassel necklace is another of my DIY projects with seed bead and embroidery thread. I found this combination of sherbet tones quite yummy.
I have a serious weakness for the Rifle Paper Co. floral prints, but I have used good judgement in not overbuying them (which is difficult because I want all the things). Once my navy floral Keds (e.g., outfit #3 here) reached the under $1 cost per wear (CPW) mark, I decided to buy a second pair in a very different colorway that is well-represented in my closet. I think they are super cute!
My daily bracelet stack (all DIY) is a kind of interesting mish-mash because I combined a new paper bead bracelet set in purple with a couple of yellow bead bracelets and a rosy gold spacer bead bracelet. Yellow and purple are complementary (opposite) colors on the color wheel, which makes for a dynamic color combination.
I made the two paper bead bracelets to form the basis of a set inspired by this floral blouse in shades of pink, purple, and dark red on a black background. I chose gold as the metal color and put a little gold coin charm on one of the bracelets.
The bracelet with the coin charm was made using a full page Louis Vuitton ad in The Economist. I loved the range of soft purple colors and the sparkly lights on this page, which I hoped would come through on the beads because the lights in the image are small in scale. And they did, creating pretty purple 1" bicone beads with a speckled appearance.
For the second bracelet, I used another page from The Economist, this time a drawing with colors I absolutely love. LOVE. I knew that the scale of the drawing was too large for any of it to come through on the beads, but I hoped that the soft washes of color might. I'd call the resulting beads a success because the colors look great, but the beads don't quite capture the feel of the original page...which is something that often happens when starting with a large scale image.
Outfit #2: This time I went into full-on Bright Mode, wearing the sherbet check top and floral Keds with thrifted ankle pants in a color I call "neon coral watermelon" (that also hit <$1 CPW with this outfit!). These pants are just *chef's kiss* with this print top...definitely a pleasing pairing I will want to revisit in future outfits.
Since I did a layered necklace in the previous outfit, I chose a scarf for this one: a yellow ombré print that repeats a significant color from the top and shoes. I styled it using one of my tried-and-true techniques: the very easy "loop to the front with ends loose" shown as Method #4 in this post. I left the two ends uneven in length for a nice relaxed effortless summer vibe.
I wore my go-to sparkly gold headband and a pair of gold leather leaf earrings (both from Amazon) that felt right in the golden color family of my scarf and hair. A bright lipstick matches the energy of the colorful outfit.
I'm not much on wearing sneakers with a skirt/dress, even though that's a very fun look that's really popular right now. It just doesn't feel like me in the way that the same outfit with a pair of ballet flats does. But I LOVE wearing sneakers with pants, and colorful ankle pants definitely do feel like me.
My daily bracelet stack (all DIY) is based on another recent paper bead set I made, this time not to match a specific garment or outfit, but in a color palette that I thought would be interesting and useful in my collection: sandstone coral, pink, yellow, and black. For this particular stack, I added bead bracelets with gold and silver spacer beads for a mixed metal look, but the paper bead bracelets use black spacers so that they can easily be worn with any metallic color(s).
The top paper bead bracelet with the black striations was made from a full page image in an alumni magazine that had all four of the colors in my desired color palette (plus a bit of green/teal). My alumni magazine paper is relatively thick, so I applied black marker to the cut edges of the strips to cover the white paper core, which created the cool stripe effect in the rolled beads.
I absolutely loved this vintage décor image from a birding magazine and knew I'd make it into paper beads. The pink, yellow, and black was great for my color scheme, and the dark teal wallpaper would coordinate well with the accents of green/teal in the previous bracelet. These turned out really nice with a good range of colors on each bead. The brown from the spines of the books was a bit more prominent than I'd expected, but it still worked well for this set; it's always a bit of a mystery how a page will translate into beads, which of course is part of the fun!
Do you like wearing linen shirts in the summer? Do you seek out "stand alone summer tops" for your wardrobe? Would you wear bright colors head to toe?
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