In The Navy

Before the epic heat wave of 2015 hit I was craving some winter dressing so pulled out my boots, a knit top, a wool hat and attempted to create a heat-happy outfit. This is what I came up with and it was actually perfect for a 27 degree day.

 

I know it’s terrible to be longing for winter just so I can wear my coats, but I can’t help it. The other day I cranked the air con and paraded around my house in my newly op shopped leather jacket with faux fur trim and thigh high suede boots. It was awesome.

My boyfriend and I have booked a trip to New Zealand for July and I am SO EXCITED about what I’ll pack. I’m dreaming of wool coats and furry hats and cozy scarves and all of the boots. That’s weird right?

 

Skirt: Salvos Osborne Park $6
Top: Salvos Mt Hawthorne $4
Bracelet: Opportunity Knocks $3
Boots: Asos
Hat: Glebe Markets Sydney
Sunglasses: Ray Ban

P.S This skirt is incredibly 'flippy' and I flashed many people while wearing it on a windy day, I'm actually sad I didn't managed to capture it on camera a little better!

Life Recently

Hello! I forgot to do a Life Recently post in December, the silly season seemed to take over my life for a while there! But it’s 2015 and I’m back at it. Life has been hectic with all the usual stuff (work, volleyball, blog etc) but last weekend I found time to stop, drink some champagne and celebrate my wonderful Dad’s 60th birthday. I could babble on for pages about how excellent he is, but to save some time I’ll just say that he’s the most inspiring person I know and I feel lucky every day to have him looking out for me.

So with that little bit of mush out of the way, here’s what else I have been up to recently…

Eating a packed lunch! I'm keeping up the habit and my wallet is thanking me!

Drinking lots of champagne, there seems to be constantly something to celebrate

Cooking new recipes, in the spirit of the new year I am trying to broaden my cooking repertoire, so far so good!

Watching Breaking Bad, I never got in to this show when it originally came out, but now I can’t get enough

Buying nothing new! I’m swearing off the mall for a year, read about it here

Wearing silk and cotton and not much else, it’s just too hot for anything synthetic

Reading Dark Places and Sharp Objects both by Gillian Flynn (of Gone Girl fame) and both harrowingly good

Avoiding online sales, I still get all the discount code emails and it’s killing me

Browsing Pinterest for my Street Style looks to steal, there are SO MANY!

Dreaming of my next holiday (always!)

All photos from my instagram (@inthedressupbox)

Accidental Genius

I wear lots of outfits (duh!) and the majority of them never make it on to the blog, particularly the outfits I wear at night because it’s harder to get pictures of them. I wore this out on a date with my lovely man and was so pleased with it (both the outfit and the date) that I just had to recreate the look and snap some pictures of it.

It’s just something I threw together at the last moment, a combination of newly op shopped pieces that I was dying to wear and a few trusty oldies. Who would have thought that a red leather mini, navy t-shirt and brown men’s loafers would work so well together?!

Skirt: Op shop $10

Top: Zara, Salvos South Lake $8

Shoes: Opportunity Knocks $8

Earrings: Red Cross North Perth $4

Sunglasses: Pared Eyeware

I can actually remember the price for each item I'm wearing! A whole outfit for $30 is pretty exciting!

Blog Update!

It’s a new year so I’m adding some new things to the blog! I’ve got two new tabs up there in the menu bar, it’s all very exciting! The first one is Blog Love, where you can see a list of all the blogs I follow, love, obsess over and get inspiration from. Some of these blogs I’ve been following for years and others I only just discovered. If you don’t really follow many blogs then I’d definitely recommend you check out all of these. 

The second new tab is a FAQs one, which is probably a little self-indulgent because I don’t really get many questions, but when I do they seem to be the same ones over and over. So knock yourself out and have a peak at my new tabs!

I Pledge...

One of my absolute favourite blogs is We So Thrifty, written by the hilariously funny Julie. Julie is a very-soon-to-be new mum so she hasn’t been posting as regularly as she used to (fair enough!). Over the Christmas break in desperation for a We So Thrifty fix I trawled through her blog archives and re-read a whole bunch of old posts (am I the only one who does this?). I came across Julie’s pledge from 2012 to quit the mall for a year and I thought ‘why the hell haven’t I done this?’. So I’m doing it, right now. Three years after Julie made her pledge, I’m making mine. 

I pledge to not buy anything new for a whole year.  

WOOHOO!

For me that means no Myer or DJs, Kmart or Sportsgirl, no after-Christmas sales or 50% off the already marked price, no ASOS, Nasty Gal or Urban Outfitters and no new designer sunnies for 12 months (God help me!). Any clothing/shoes/accessories I want or need to buy over the next year I can and will find second hand. Gumtree and op shops will be my best friends (they already are actually) and I won’t succumb to those quick impulse buys while at Garden City, because it’s those quick impulse buys that are made in China from crappy fabric and with poor craftsmanship and they fall apart in 2 washes. No thank you!

The only exception to this new rule will be underwear/hosiery (because, gross) and sports shoes because they are impossible to thrift, everything else will be second hand. But you know what? I don’t need anything more in my wardrobe, I honestly have everything I could possibly need. I’ve got boots (ankle, calf and thigh high), I’ve got gym gear, I’ve got jackets, coats and blazers, I’ve got bikinis and hats and I’ve got a dress for every single occasion that could ever possibly arise. So surviving a year without buying something new shouldn’t be too challenging and if I really need a fashion fix I can head to my local Vinnies/Salvos/Good Sammies and find something awesome for a 10^th of the price I’d pay for it brand new.

This might all seem a bit rash, but I’m ready for this!!! (ask me in two months how I’m going and it might be a different story!), is anyone brave enough to join me?

T-shirt: Save the Children Mosman Park $4
Skirt: Op Shop
Shoes: Opportunity Knocks $3
Hat: Melville Markets $5
Sunglasses: Pared Eyeware

Own Devices

Sometimes a girl just needs to get all dressed up and take herself out for coffee. After sitting around in my underpants re-watching Breaking Bad for the first week of my summer break I finally decided to put on a bit of makeup and get out of the house.

On this particular day I went wondering around Fremantle, stopped for coffee (twice!) and did a little op shopping (of course), it was a perfect solo-date. My boyfriend didn’t get any time off over Christmas so I found myself alone a lot during the break. As much as I'd have loved to have him around it was actually really nice to be left to my own devices and have a little time to be completely selfish. I certainly got a lot done, I now only have one dress left in my sewing pile!!

This dress had been in said sewing pile since I bought it back in September. It was originally a size 18, so I was very excited to finally re-size it and wear it out. The fabric is a little bally but the print is so perfect, it was definitely worth the hassel.

Dress: Vintage store in Melbourne $5

Belt: Op Shop

Shoes: Op shop

Brooch: Gift

Sunglasses: Pared Eyeware

Street Style Stolen

I’m back with another street style look! Did you see my last street style interpretation? The idea is to take a fabulous image of some fabulous lady swanning around New York or Paris or Stockholm and then restyle the look using only op shopped pieces and other things from my own wardrobe. I have a whole bunch of images I’m excited to recreate, but unfortunately most of them are winter looks, and with the weather hovering in the mid 30s at the moment I am NOT keen to layer up for the sake of fashion. So I searched Pinterest for some ‘Summer Street Style looks’ and came up with image after image of gorgeous women in denim shorts. It seems that distressed denim shorts are a stylistas must have summer piece. So the challenge was on to recreate one of the endless street style images.

all above images from Pinterest

I love my denim shorts, I have a pair which I wear a lot throughout summer, but they aren’t something I wear to be stylish. I throw them on over my bathers and add a t-shirt for a day of running around. I don’t really feel like I have the legs to wear them as part of an actual ‘outfit’ … if you know what I mean?

I didn’t want to distress my existing denim shorts so I went out and bought another pair of jeans to make new pair. I lucked upon these old high waisted Levis, which really do make the best cut offs. Distressing them was harder then I imagined, but I’m really pleased with the end result and actually think these shorts are rather flattering… or at least as flattering as they could get.

I wore this outfit out on a date and was a little uncomfortable the whole time. The short shorts and heels is a bit of a stretch for me. Maybe I’d like it better if I swapped the heels for flat sandals or boots? I do love this billowy silk shirt though and wearing it with denim and some simple gold accessories feels very luxurious. How do you wear your denim shorts?

Shorts: Good Sammies Fremantle $4 (DIY)

Shirt: Equipment, Save the Children Mosman Park $20

Hat: Op shop

Bangle: Op shop

Shoes: Guess

Scoring Goals

Way back in November I set myself a few goals to achieve before the end of 2014. And guess what? I actually achieved them all!

Goal number 1: Start and stick to a skin care regime

Read about my skin care revelation here (I’m happy to report that I’m still keeping it up!)

Goal number 2: Buy some herbs and keep them alive

This is the goal I was most dubious about, I’ve had terrible luck with plants in the past (i.e I’ve forgotten about them and they died). But I hate shelling out $4 every time I need some basil, so growing a little herb garden has been on my agenda for a while. I bought some coriander, mint and basil plants from Bunnings, potted them, watered them and waited for them to die. But they didn’t! They are still growing! The mint in particular has gone berserk, I’m very impressed with myself. (The above picture isn't the best example of them as I had just pillaged the mint for dinner the night before). 

(sneak peak of an outfit I'll share later in the week!)

Goal number 3: Learn a new hair style and wear it

I didn’t so much as ‘learn’ a new hair style, I just kind of altered something I was already doing. Over summer I like to put my hair up and have it off my neck. My favourite style is doing Heidi braids, so I used the same idea but instead of pinning two braids on top of my head I pinned them along the nape of my neck instead. It’s super easy to do and looks a bit prim and proper. Goal achieved!

Goal number 4: Enjoy my house and neighbourhood more

Goal number four was definitely my favourite. I am truly spoilt to live in the centre of Fremantle, with only a 50m walk to the beach, views of the ocean and harbour from my  balcony and the best coffee only minutes away. Since November I’ve made a concerted effort to go for more beach swims, go on longer walks, try different bars/cafes/restaurants and just soak up how lucky I am to live where I do. It’s been great and I will continue to love every moment I have left of inner Freo living.

I'm pretty pleased I managed to complete all of my goals! Hopefully it's a good omen and means 2015 will be super productive and awesome for me. Fingers crossed! Did you set any goals or resolutions?