Frugal Living

What I Wore Wednesday

May 9, 2012 By Emily

Hey!

Well, it’s another Wednesday and here I am organized enough to share a couple outfits with you. Last week was so crazy that by the time I got home from work everyday all I wanted to do was put on pajamas and curl up in a ball. This week has been less crazy, thus I have been more patient with keeping my “stuffy” clothes on.

Monday, I wore this. Nothing too exciting, but it was comfy.

Pencil skirt with belt is Banana Republic from a local consignment shop, new with tags for $12. The short sleeved button up is JCrew Haberdashery from Goodwill, $4. I feel fancy in that shirt.

Please forgive my messy garden. I only have so much time in a day.

After work and before taking my daughter to her after school activities, I changed into comfier clothes.

Tank, JCrew, from goodwill new with tags for $4. Have I convinced you to shop at Goodwill yet? Jeans, Seven for All Mankind from Ebay. Purse, Matt & Nat, Goodwill $3. Do you hate me?

I made hubby take one more picture that included my feet – because I was so excited that I could finally wear shoes that covered my feet after the traumatic blister incident from last week. I love my Toms. Thanks mom!

And Tuesday, nothing exciting again. But I did get dressed, there is that! I am sure my coworkers appreciated it.

Top, JCrew $4 from goodwill. Pencil skirt, Banana Republic $4 from Goodwill. Belt, Target. This outfit was so darned comfy that I got out of work at 1:30 and did not change until 8! Comfy.

And I put my hair into a sock bun. I was so proud of myself. I really loved not having my crazy hair all over the place all day.

And this next picture is just so you can see that I am a completely nerdy freak. If you didn’t know that already. It looks like the chicken is attacking me but really she was just trying to fly out of my arms after I picked her up because she was pecking at my feet. The chickens really want to be on the blog apparently. Oh…leopard flats are from Target.

That’s all for now. I have embarrassed myself enough for one day.

Head on over to http://thepleatedpoppy.com/blog/ to join in or just get some inspiration. Hopefully you won’t feel as frumpy as I do after visiting everyone else.

xo
Emily

Filed Under: Frugal Living, life, This Girl

25 Comments

What I Wore Wednesday

April 25, 2012 By Emily

I haven’t participated in What I Wore Wednesday at The Pleated Poppy in a loooong time. With my new job (thank you all so much for the congratulations – what a boost!), I had to figure out an appropriate work wardrobe pretty quickly without spending my first year’s salary on new clothes. When I got the job, I quite literally had three pairs of not jeans and maybe a skirt or two, none of which were really work appropriate anyway. You know I love thrifting for clothes, so I started at my Goodwill and got really lucky the first try so that I could survive getting dressed the first week of work. I am tall and that makes finding pants on a limited budget quite difficult. I was lucky to find that first day that someone else tall had donated their work wardrobe. I snagged a couple pairs of pants, a silk skirt and a dress and made do with those few things to mix in with what I had in my closet. From there, I kept stopping in Goodwill once a week to see if I could add some more options without spending an arm and a leg. Over the past few weeks, I have come across some really great finds and finally feel like I have enough basics to mix and match and I can stop shopping. Whew!

One thing that I love is pencil skirts. I think they work well with my body type and wow, they are soooo comfy.

This black with white pinstripes skirt was one of 3 Banana Republic pencil skirts I scored for $4 each. I love the pockets.

The chambray shirt is from Old Navy. It may be my favorite shirt. I really really love it and I really really wish I had gotten the red one too because when I went back to get it, they were all out boo hoo. Necklace that you can barely see is lisa leonard designs.

After work, I changed into comfier clothes for taking my daughter to gymnastics and lounging around.

The sequined striped tank top is from JCrew that I got on ebay. I also got the jeans on ebay – 7 for all Mankind. I love them, but refuse to pay $165/pair so I get them on ebay. The chickens wanted to join me for pictures. The bracelet is my favorite accessory and is from a local boutique here, but you can get one online if you like at their website goldfinch boutique. The leopard flats are from Target.

I have no clue why I look pregnant in that picture. I promise I am not.

Tuesday for work, I wore this dress that I got at Goodwill. It’s Shabby Apple and I got it for $6. I seriously grabbed it and RAN to the dressing room to try it on when I saw it. I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t come with the polka dot belt, it has a plain navy blue belt but I couldn’t find it so I put this other one on and then found the navy one but decided to be wild and crazy and keep the polka dot one on. I really live life on the edge.

See? Wild and crazy.

More outfits next week. I only was on the ball enough to have hubby take pictures the past 2 days.

Happy Wednesday!!

Head over to The Pleated Poppy to get some getting dressed in the morning inspiration!

Filed Under: Frugal Living, life, This Girl

33 Comments

Lego Birthday Party

February 13, 2012 By Emily

Today, my baby is 5. I don’t know how that happened. No matter how many times we’re told when we first have kids, “It goes so fast”, you just don’t know until suddenly you find yourself having a party for your youngest child who is 5. I know, there are so many more milestones to come, but for now, I’m dealing with all the bittersweetness of his big 0-5 day.

Saturday, we had a party here at our house and I decided on a Lego theme. Over on Pinterest, I pinned a whole bunch of ideas. I love Pinterest for inspiration for things like this but I definitely had to swallow my pride and realize that there are some people who do really huge, really detailed, really perfect parties for their kids and I was just not going to be one of them. I tried to glean from different sites ideas that I could implement without spending a month’s pay or going so over the top that I was paying more attention to making a perfect party than just celebrating my little guy.

I tried to keep it authentic to us, and I think that worked out.

First, a few days ahead of time, I took one of his plain shirts and cut out a 5 and sewed it on. Easy, and he loved it.

The next big thing I worried about all week was the cake. I tried to make a cake that looked like a lego brick. Here is where I tell you that I have never ever done anything other than bake a cake and frost it with frosting out of a can. I don’t decorate cakes, I don’t make fondant. I knew I was attempting something I probably should’ve left to the professionals, but whatever. I baked two cakes and layered them, frosted over the whole thing and then stacked 6 sets of two oreos to make the little lego knobs, then frosted over all of that. It kind of looked like a lego brick, but not really. What I lack in cake making ability, I made up for by having my daughter put lego men on the cake holding little “5″ signs printed on red paper and using the lego font. I am pretty sure I am the only one who cared that the cake was a mess. It still tasted like cake

For goodie bags, I got plain colored bags in two colors, red and blue, and my kids helped me cut out 842 circles because we don’t have a fancy circle punch. We glued them to the outside of the bags to make them look like legos, too.

I bought a big bin of legos on ebay from a local seller, so for $10 had enough legos to fill a baggie for each goodie bag and send each of the 10 kids home with a stash to build with. The goodie bags were also used for a lego hunt and all the kids got to take home what they found. Lots of happy boys!

Let’s see…for games, we played pin the dot on the lego.

The kids loved that. Such a simple easy game made with foam board and cardstock paper, and each circle had a child’s name written on the back and had a little adhesive tab on it so we could keep track of whom they belonged to. The prize was…a baggie of legos.

I also set out a mason jar full of legos and some pieces of paper for each kid to write their name and their guess of how many legos are in the jar. The winner got to take the jar home.

Last, I printed out Lego coloring sheets and had them set out for the kids to do during the party. But all the kids were too busy playing outside on the tire swing, playing tug-o-war, or chasing our chickens around, so I sent a coloring sheet home in each goodie bag instead.