OOTD x2: Monochromatic Teal Outfits for Winter + DIY Viva Magenta Bead Bracelet

I was recently contemplating whether I prefer green or blue - because truly, I love both - and decided that my favorite colors are probably the entire section of the color wheel that covers Blue, Blue-Green, and Green hues (and some in the Yellow-Green section, too). But if I had to pick a single favorite color, it would probably be teal. Now that said, there are a lot of different versions of teal...as my wardrobe can attest! Today I'm sharing two winter outfit ideas from earlier this month in two different shades of teal: bright teal and teal-green.

My first outfit in bright teal features that rare animal, the top and bottom that were purchased at different times from different brands that actually match! Even more surprising, both pieces were thrifted. The sweater is Karen Scott brand, purchased from Goodwill in Dec. 2018 for $5.99. I could not believe my luck when the skirt (Alex Marie brand, purchased from ThredUp in Aug. 2020 for $8.20) both fit perfectly and completed a matching set with the sweater. (Not quite as impressive as Mireille's recent $3.39 pieces but still great scores.) The sweater is perhaps ever-so-slightly lighter than the skirt, but they work together beautifully as a column of color. Since I spent most of the pandemic winters in pants, this is the first time I've worn the two items together, and I couldn't be happier with the combination.

OOTD 2/8/23

Because we've had an oddly warm February, I was able to wear the sweater without a layer over it (I did wear a layering top underneath), but of course I had to add a scarf! This lovely African stripe pattern woven scarf from the Kilgoris market was a birthday gift from my sister a few years ago. The color combination is unusual and gorgeous, and a simple column of color made for a great backdrop to showcase it. I picked up the black in the scarf for the simple scarf ring, tights, and tall boots.

My easy 5-strand braided headband from a t-shirt (specifically, a perfectly faded black university T from grad school) aka Alice band and black leather leaf earrings from Amazon continued the black accessorizing theme.

My daily bracelet stack is all DIY pieces but...prepare yourself...it doesn't include any paper bead bracelets this time! I know, I can scarcely believe it myself. But I decided I wanted to create a colorful stack of solid-colored beaded bracelets to repeat the main accent colors in the scarf. I already had the two teal bracelets as well as the aqua/silver and light yellow ones. But I did make the magenta bracelet specifically for this outfit!

At first I wasn't sure how I was going to do it because I didn't have any bright pink beads larger than seed beads in the numbers needed to make a bracelet. But luckily, I had several of these magenta glass beads in 10mm, 8mm, and 6mm sizes from my Boss' Bead Bags, and I was able to cobble them together into a bracelet. This was definitely one of those "necessity is the mother of invention" moments...I ended up with a more interesting design due to needing to combine the 3 sizes of beads than I would have come up with on my own. It's a simple beads-on-stretch-elastic bracelet [tutorial] that I am already looking forward to wearing again. And I just realized that it fits in perfectly with the Pantone color of the year Viva Magenta! Do I have my finger on the pulse of fashion or what? :D

My second outfit uses the color I interchangeably call "green-teal" and "teal-green": a blue-green hue that has more green than blue. I shared this print knit pencil skirt earlier this winter styled with a denim shirt, but this is the first time I've tried a monochromatic teal look with it. This lightweight dark teal-green pullover sweater has a nice drape to it, and I thought it made for a nice long-over-lean silhouette with the pencil skirt. Strangely, this sweater was described as a "t-shirt" online, but it's definitely a sweater knit! (The only stranger "t-shirt" I have bought is the woven linen "t-shirt top" at Lands End. What???) I did wear the outfit for a short while with this wonderful graphite marl moto jacket from CJ Banks, but for most of the day, the thin sweater was enough on its own.

OOTD 2/10/23

I have a number of blue-green scarves, but I decided to wear this ombré one in teal and green-mint to add some low contrast lightness to the outfit. (I had not paired it with either the sweater or skirt before, so I enjoyed testing out the combination. I think it works well as a tonal variation on the "matching top + scarf" color formula.) I continued the "shades of blue-green" theme with the DIY paper pendant made from a peacock blue fleece top image from a Lands End catalog [tutorial] worn on a DIY shank-button-scarf-ring.

My daily bracelet stack is based on a DIY mint/black paper bead bracelet set with some familiar elements. I shared the behind-the-scenes for the top tube bracelet as Example 2 in this post and the bottom bicone bracelet as Example 2 in this post. The black glass bead and teal glass bead bracelets are ones I use over and over again to complete my bracelet stacks (you just saw the teal one in the previous outfit). The middle black/silver bicone paper bead bracelet is a relatively new one that I created as a stand-alone neutral piece to add into bracelet sets like this one.

Once again I wore black tights and my black riding boots. This is the pair of tall boots with the lowest cost per wear in my closet: $1.46 CPW with 72 total wears. This photo also shows better how wonderfully the color of the sweater matches the darker green-teal in the skirt, another serendipitous pairing. I purchased the sweater new from Kohls ($8.49 in Dec. 2020) and the skirt secondhand from ThredUp (Lularoe brand; $16.95 in Aug. 2020). Of course, when wearing a solid with a print, even we matchy-matchy types have a lot more wiggle room in coordinating rather than matching the colors, but I am still very pleased with how readily these two pieces work together.

Are you a fan of blue-green colors? Do you have a favorite one? Do you ever wear monochromatic outfits? Do you have any pieces that you were surprised to discover matched in color despite having very different origins?

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