Outfit Diary #29
Purchase #13, making jewelry, cats + a frugal tip - a very good week!
Changing things up a little this week and posting my weekly outfit diary on Saturday instead of Sunday, which I plan to do for the foreseeable future. There’ll be another post on Sunday as I intend to stick to my 2 posts/week schedule!
This weekly summary may also evolve over the summer as my kids are off from school, so I’ll be more active, and I have projects that I plan to do around the house (I’m finally getting around to my den update), which means I may not have outfits to share everyday, but I’ll replace those outfits with other things (maybe along the lines of the extras that I share here).
Also, a heads up that this post may be truncated in your email, so click on over to Substack to continue reading if it gets cut off!
Find past Outfit Diaries here.
I’ve probably said this in a previous Outfit Diary, but this sweatshirt that I inherited from my kid’s recent closet switchover and declutter has become my favorite item! I wear it pretty much everyday, usually when I just wake up with a pair of leggings until I get dressed. Some days, I plan my outfit around it, which is what I did this day!
I love how it looks with these lighter wash jeans. And I decided to wear my brown fisherman sandals that I thrifted a few years ago. I chose my tote bag to hold a bunch of things to go and sit in a coffee shop while my daughter and her friend did a little shopping in the surrounding stores.
Comfort - 10/10; Style - 10/10; Fun - 10/10
As I opened my journal to the last page that I wrote something on, I came across this quote from Michelle Obama that I had written down to include in a friends daughter’s graduation card and I think it can apply to so many people, no matter what phase of life you’re in!
In case you can’t read my writing:
The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them.
- Michelle Obama
Outfit Rating System:
Comfort - Was I too hot or cold? Did it fit me properly? Did I have to adjust any of the items constantly? Style - Did I feel stylish in the outfit? Did it feel like a “me” outfit, or was there something about it that was off? Fun - Did I try something new? Was I really excited about the outfit, or was I bored by the outfit?
* denotes a secondhand item.
Do you ever keep passing over an item because you’re just not in the mood for that kind of item? That’s been happening a lot with me and this dress that I sewed a few months ago.
Which feels wild to me now because I used to wear dresses and skirts most of the time but I rarely reach for them anymore.
This day, as I stared at all of the items in my closet, with the intent to wear something that I hadn’t recently worn, I decided to try styling this dress in a new way. So I added my thrifted denim vest that I buttoned at the top. My favorite feature of this dress is the sleeves and I think that the addition of the vest really highlights them.
Keeping with the casual vibe of the denim vest, I opted to wear my light suede sneakers. I really thought that I would be wearing my sneakers more but I find that I’m not reaching for them as much since I got the ballet flats. But I really liked them with these items and I think they work better than the ballet flats would’ve.
Comfort - 10/10; Style - 10/10; Fun - 10/10
It was a crafty day at our house for my daughter and her friend. First they painted old records that my husband didn’t care for to put on their walls. I had never thought to upcycle old records this way.
Then they discovered my old jewelry making supplies and I taught them how to make earrings.
Fun fact: I used to have a jewelry shop on Etsy in 2012-13 and I kept the supplies in the hopes that my daughter would use them up someday!
Here’s a few of the things they created:
Day
Debuting my 13th purchase of my low buy year - a denim shirt from Madewell that I found on the sale rack of my local department store. It felt meant to be after declaring last week that I wanted to find a denim shirt that was less oversized than the one I currently had and wore last week.
This one has more structure and I love how it matches my light wash jeans, making the perfect Canadian tuxedo! I tucked my cream colored t-shirt into the jeans to continue with the lighter color theme but added my brown fisherman sandals for some contrast.
I decided to use my tote bag with the yellow detailing because I liked how it matched the t-shirt and how the yellow complimented the brown sandals.
Comfort - 10/10; Style - 10/10; Fun - 10/10
Night
Later that evening, I had an event to go to. Dressy casual was the vibe that I was going for so I decided to keep the denim shirt and sandals while switching out the t-shirt and jeans for my black maxi dress.
I added a long necklace that I made during my jewelry shop phase that I mentioned above. I like how the black/white/brown of the necklace coordinates with the colors in the outfit and I think a long necklace really compliments the long dress.
I decided to use my silver Coach crossbody bag. This is my oldest bag and the one that I use the most for dressier occasions.
Comfort - 10/10; Style - 10/10; Fun - 10/10
I want to preface this by saying that I really love this dress and it’s one of my favorite things that I’ve ever made. However…I’m not sure that I love wearing it at the moment.
I think the problem is that (1) it’s a dress, and (2) the print is large-scale and, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not really into these kinds of prints for me at the moment.
It will remain in my wardrobe and I’ll wear it from time to time but it doesn’t really feel like “me” at the moment. I do have a tendency to declutter these types of items, but I do feel sentimental about this dress. I have a couple of items like this (the silk equestrian blouse that I wore last week is another such item) that I won’t part with!
I wore it with my brown fisherman sandals that I thrifted a few years ago (I’m so sad that the fun shop I got them from has gone out of business) and my cream bucket bag.
Comfort - 10/10; Style - 10/10; Fun - 8/10
My daughter asked me to make jewelry with her in the afternoon, and I was pretty excited to get back at it honestly. I used to really enjoy using natural tones and so I have a pretty big bag of mixed stones to choose from and I really love all of the color:
I think the thing I like about a lot of natural stones is that they are shaped differently and don’t perfectly match - combining them feels a little “messy” which I like. I’m not really sure what the purple of leopard-type stone is called but the top stone is pyrite.
Enjoying the cream/black/brown combo again and I’m still in love with it! And look at how well it matches Claire, who’s doing her usual job of photobombing!
I decided to use my produce bag as my handbag, with a cream colored pouch inside to contain all of my items and keep them from falling through the net.
I also added my long memade necklace again and here’s a closeup of the “charm”:
My son and I decided to go downtown to a local bookstore and then we went and got gelato. It was really warm and humid outside and my sandals ended up rubbing a few almost blisters into some toes. So, I’m taking that as a warning to not wear them on those types of days!
Comfort - 10/10; Style - 10/10; Fun - 10/10
It was pretty warm again today so I decided to rewear my black maxi dress - I don’t feel like I have a lot of clothes in my summer wardrobe so I tend to wear my warm weather staples a lot and this dress is definitely one of those items!
At first, I tried wearing it with my “new” oversized t-shirt (purchase #12) and my brown ballet flats but something felt off. I think that it might have worked better with a shorter t-shirt!
So then I tried it with my memade “Camille” top and I liked how it looked much more. I appreciate how the brown in the top matched the brown of the shoes. This is another item that I sewed that I really, really love!
As much as I liked this outfit, Jazzy is obviously the star of the show. She was having a nap in front of the mirror when I went to take an outfit photo and obviously, you don’t move a cat (cat parent 101). But she was intrigued enough to also check my outfit out in the mirror.
I chose to wear my brown vintage Coach lunchbox bag and since it looks so good next to Jazzy, she decided to model it for you 😻
Comfort - 10/10; Style - 10/10; Fun - 10/10
Perfect Scores: 6/7 outfits that I wore this week received perfect scores from me - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (x2), Thursday and Friday. These are all outfits that I loved wearing and felt really good in. While I do love the dress that I wore on Thursday, I did feel a little self-conscious in it as it’s a departure from my current personal style. I love the act of looking back on these outfits each week and realizing that I loved most of them.
Absolute Favorite: my ABSOLUTE favorite outfit was Sunday’s outfit. I felt really chic and cool in this outfit, even though it’s super basic. The runner up was Tuesday’s (day) outfit - a Canadian tuxedo is my new uniform.
Most Comfortable: I’ll go with Monday’s outfit here - how can I not choose a flowy dress and sneakers?!?
Most Likely to Repeat: I’d definitely repeat all of these (even Thursday)!
Least Likely to Repeat: N/A (see above)
Item Source: Of the 17 items (apparently, a lot of repeats) that I wore this week (excluding jewelry), 7 of them were secondhand (39%), 8 were purchased new (33%) and 2 were memade (11%).
I shared this on my Instagram stories on Tuesday:
As always, thanks so much for being here and for your support - it means so much! I hope you have a great week 🫶🏻
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Hello, I would wear that gorgeous me-made green dress as a dress-up with a seventies vibe. I'd put some knee high boots (maybe navy but black could work) underneath, hair up, hoops, for the fall. A dark blazer over it if you have one. But you are right-- I don't think it works with the brown sandals as summer dress. I do think my idea about the boots is a good one. But sleek boots not chunky. With a pattern like that you want a sleeker vibe below. ( :
Do the denim vest over the plaid dress (which is my favourite thing you wore)!
Your cats are adorable, I love seeing them.💕