Tell Us About...Sunshine-Inspired Outfits and Handmade Jewelry

I am fortunate to have joined a talented group of bloggers for the Global Writing Challenge. Each month, we write about a very broadly defined topic, and the responses are quite varied. We recently welcomed two new members to the group: Amy and Cat.

The newly revised group includes Deb’s World, Marsha in the Middle, Suzy Turner, Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After Again, Cat's Wire [Cat], Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa [Amy], and me.

This month, I selected the topic of Sunshine...which may be surprising because I am not the biggest fan of sunny days! Overall, I have a preference for nights and cloudy/rainy days. In part, this is because too much sun makes me feel sick. Not just that ill feeling that comes along with sunburns, overheating, dehydration, etc., but ferocious headaches from being out in the sun (even though I wear sunglasses and a hat) or even looking out a window at a sunny day.

However, I do enjoy the concept of sunny days and am a fan of sun motifs, so I own some sun-related clothing and accessories that are especially fun to wear in the summer.

1 - Sun and Moon T-Shirt

I bought this top primarily as a sleep shirt (I generally sleep in a regular t-shirt or an exercise top) but I have also worn it in regular outfits.

Outfit #1: The colors of the t-shirt make it a nice layering piece under my linen check button up shirt (that I call the "sherbet" due to all those summery, fruity saturated pastel colors), and worn with orange ankle pants, we get an undeniably bright and cheerful result.

OOTD 6/9/2024

For additional subtle print mixing, I can throw in my white floral Keds from a Keds x Rifle Paper Co collaboration. Can I take this moment to lament that I just do not love the look of sneakers with a skirt/dress on myself? Other women of various ages, shapes, and sizes work the combination, but when I try it myself, my reaction is somewhere in the range of "meh" to "hell no." I'm not even very pleased with how sneakers look with shorts/skimmers/capris on me, and that's a really normal thing to wear. Since these sneakers are not ones that go with a cold weather vibe (let alone cold weather reality), they tend to get worn more often in the spring and fall transition seasons and those not completely rare summer days when I wear lightweight long pants.

For my daily bracelet stack, I started with a paper bead bracelet set I made to coordinate with the sherbet check shirt (I have made several inspired by the sherbet fabric because I own both this button up and a short-sleeved pullover top in it!). This set leaned into the yellow, orange, blue, and purple tones in the shirt. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

The top paper bead bracelet (underneath the yellow glass one) was made from this Economist magazine cover, and it is an example of something that happens occasionally when designing paper beads: the original paper itself is better with the inspiration shirt than the finished beads are! When I look at the cover, I think my brain "sees" the yellow, orange, purple, and pink accent colors - yes, a match! - and ignores the fact that there is a good amount of black and tan neutral colors. But when the beads are rolled, those neutral areas become much more prominent. I'm OK with this result, but if I had it to do over again, I would cover some of the tan skin color on the strips with an accent color in my desired palette like orange or purple so the finished beads would have more colorful oomph.

The bottom paper bead bracelet (the bottom of the stack) turned out more like you'd expect given the paper I used: a flower image in an alumni magazine. I'm really not sure why I didn't think to cover up the green on the strips with purple marker to bring the colors closer to my desired palette...though I suspect that once again, I failed to consider that even though the yellow and orange flowers grab the eye more than the background when looking at the image, the background colors would be equally prominent once the beads are rolled. I didn't do much doctoring to the strips on either of these bracelets, and I think they would have benefited from a bit more thoughtful examination.

This whole "focus on the colorful subject of the image and ignore the background" thing is, of course, not idiosyncratic to me. This process, known as the figure-ground principle in Gestalt psychology, is a natural, automatic feature of the human visual perception system. It's one of those shortcuts that our brain uses to manage situations efficiently; in this case, quickly honing in on the subject and ignoring the rest helps ensure that our limited attention is focused on what matters most and lessens our overall cognitive load. It's easy to imagine how useful this sort of prioritization would be for the survival of our distant ancestors (and indeed, for us today). For example, it's much more helpful to immediately lock onto the dangerous thing in our field of vision rather than slowly and systematically examine every single aspect of the environment, most of which is made up of things like trees, grass, rocks, dirt, etc.

So, figure-ground principle - I am a fan! But it can lead me astray at times when I'm designing paper beads because the finished beads don't have the same figure-ground aspect that an image on a piece of paper does.

Back to our sunshine-inspired outfit...unsurprisingly I made a pair of easy bead soup stack earrings with glass beads in my color palette of yellow, orange, blue, and purple with gold spacers (see design #2 in this post) to go with the paper bead bracelet set.

Outfit #2: Another bright summery outfit with my sun and moon T-shirt leans hard into the orange/coral accent color from the top for my skirt, ballet flats (my go-to shoe choice with skirts in warm weather), and DIY seed bead tassel necklace. The aqua-blue striped scarf doesn't really match my t-shirt per se, but I think it looks good with it - it's hard for me to say no to a low-key print mix.

OOTD 7/18/2023

My all-DIY bracelet stack above looks like it could have been inspired by this t-shirt, but it actually was made to coordinate with a floral top in a coral/aqua/white palette. But since Red-Orange and Blue-Green are opposites on the color wheel, they make a popular pairing in many different fabrics and hence many different garments. I think this paper bead bracelet sets works great with the sun and moon t-shirt, but of course if I were making a set especially for this t-shirt, I would have used a sun or moon charm instead of a clock! (The clock has nothing to do with the inspiration for this bracelet set, but since clocks/watches are an Alice in Wonderland motif, I like and use them randomly.)

The translation from paper to bead was definitely more straightforward with this set. The top paper bead bracelet with the clock charm started with this complicated page from a birding magazine. This time I was on the ball when it came to predicting how the rolled beads would turn out, so I added extra orange and aqua marker to the strips to bring the green and brown tones more into alignment with my desired palette.

The bottom paper bead bracelet was made using this irresistible page with four colorful bird photos in Audubon magazine. Even though there was a significant amount of black/grey in this page, I chose to use it anyway because...well come on, how could I not?? The pink parrot and grey "mustache" bird were not as close to my desired color palette, so I started my strips (cut longwise in this paper) with those two other crazy multi-colored ones, and I got just the kind of orange/aqua-blue/black/white beads I expected. I love how the visual texture of the feathers from the images shows up in the rolled beads.

2 - DIY Yellow Bead & Silver Sun Charm Earrings

I purchased a set of pre-wire wrapped beads in various colors (I believe 4 of each color) from Fire Mountain Gems that I have used to make some very easy bead and charm earrings (see design #6 in this post). Of course the golden yellow-orange beads called out for sun charms!

Outfit #3: I don't have a lot of yellow clothing, but the knit tank, ankle pants, and 3/4 sleeve cardigan trio I bought in light yellow from Christopher & Banks in 2020 are still going strong in my wardrobe. Here I put the yellow cardigan over a print variation of the "inner column" color formula pairing a dark blue denim skirt and tropical bird sleeveless blouse on a dark navy background. I repeated the yellow color throughout my accessories: the sun charm earrings, mustard yellow flats, and layered necklaces (2 yellow, 1 silver with a feather charm to go with the bird theme).

OOTD 7/25/2024

In Outfits #1 and #3, I wore monochromatic DIY bead soup necklaces that I made using exclusively singleton/one-off beads from my stash: yellow-mustard on the left, orange-rust on the right. In summer 2024, I made 17 (!!) of these necklaces in various colorways, and they are workhorses in my layered necklace looks. Each one is about 26-30" long, so a nice mid-length to wear below a short necklace and above a long one. I strung them on S-Lon or Chinese knotting cord with a 6/0 seed bead between each colored bead and finished them with a simple shank button closure.

3 - DIY Sunshine Life Layered Necklace

This layered necklace in brilliant shades of yellow and orange was made using primarily two collections from Curated Bead Box (supplemented with my stash): Sunshine Lollipops and Tree of Life...hence the name "Sunshine Life." I chose to use silver instead of gold as my metal color because the focal bead on the shorter necklace has silver stripes. I thought the silver made a nice contrast to the warm golden tones of the beads.

Outfit #4: Here are some familiar pieces - the sherbet check shirt featured in Outfit #1 and the light yellow tank and ankle pants that go with the cardigan from Outfit #3! Apparently these pieces have a lot of summery sunshine energy that make them a good match to sun-inspired jewelry.

OOTD 9/3/2024

I like how the bright warm tones of the necklace stand out against the light yellow background, even though there is a lot of yellow in both. I think the inclusion of the yellow-orange and orange beads in the necklaces adds just enough contrast to make them interesting while keeping the overall look very warm, cheerful, and yes, sunny. This is an analogous color scheme in color wheel terms: 2-5 colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel and hence share many characteristics. Analogous color schemes are common in nature, with colors that flow seamlessly together, and are considered "evocative, poetic, harmonious, and easy to work with."

With so much color in my look, I chose nude-to-me flats that are an inconspicuous neutral tone but have texture and interest with the pointy gold stud details.

My all-DIY daily bracelet stack was created around a paper bead bracelet set in shades of coral, pink, yellow, and black, and I filled out the stack with various glass, stone, and metal bracelets. I included two mixed metal bracelets because my outfit features both gold and silver details. I shared the page-to-bead details for this set in an earlier post that features several of the items in today's outfits styled in different ways, yet more proof that I do re-wear my clothes and that certain combination show up over and over again!

Another outfit, another pair of easy bead soup earrings in the "3 beads on a stick" stack design. Because the beads are all similar in color, I used shape (and material and finish) to add interest: stars (glass with AB finish), lanterns with silver stripes (acrylic), and faceted rounds (glass).

4 - DIY Here Comes the Sun Jewelry Set

This is a jewelry set that I made this spring using the March 2026 Bargain Bead Box (Here Comes the Sun) with one of my summer t-shirts (a warm toned bird/floral design) in mind. The jewelry features peach aventurine, yellow opal, coral crystal, orange agate, shimmery crystal nuggets, and some nice sun-motif findings like the stunning gold sun pendant. I actually haven't worn this jewelry yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it out this summer!

5 - DIY Sunshine River Paper Pendant

Last summer I made a reversible paper pendant {tutorial} for this aqua swirl jacket with a mallard on a pond on one side and a sunshine over the river design on the other. I usually wear my paper pendants on a simple chain or on a seed bead wrap necklace. I have worn the mallard side but not yet the sunshine river side, so that's another sun-themed jewelry piece I can style for the first time this season.

Thanks for taking a stroll through my wardrobe and jewelry box for some bright sunshine outfit ideas.

Now check out what other bloggers have to say about sunshine:

Debbie: On vacation through July 28.

Marsha: Even though her students begged her not to sing, Marsha loves music.  This time around, she’s writing about songs she loves that mention sunshine!

Suzy: Suzy writes about her changing relationship with sunshine and why she appreciates it far more now than she ever did before.

Leslie: Leslie packed a little El Paso sunshine in her pocket for their trip to the UK.

Cat: Cat talks about her thoughts on sunshine as a vampire.

Amy: Amy writes about her first year of freedom to chase the sunshine in all four seasons.

Now over to you...what are your thoughts on sunshine? Are you a sun lover? A hider-from-the-sun? A sun-in-moderation type of person? Do you like sunshine colors in your clothing, accessories, home decor, or garden? Do you own anything with sun motifs? Have you made anything with a sunshine theme?

Blogs I link up with are listed here.