The weather has been all over the place lately. One day its freezing and windy (here) another it's 60 degrees and I'm enjoying the park! This outfit was all about being cozy for an 8 year old's birthday party. Even though it was chilly outside I decided to wear these mules to add some fun to the look, the party was inside, after-all! I've been favoring my easier to wear jeans but decided to make a statement with these patchwork jeans from Free People.
Purple Coat: Greylin Longline Shirt Jacket in purple (Anthropologie)
Sweater: Abercrombie & Fitch
Jeans: Free People 'Jax' Patchwork Jeans
Shoes: Splendid Harvest Mules in Tiger/Cheetah Print (eBay)
FlatSocks /co
Sunglasses: Gucci Aviators (bought in Rome)
Hat: Kensington Palace gift shop
Another month with no clothing purchases. These posts are getting a little boring, no? But I'm going to keep up with them because I think it's good to show that you don't always need to buy new clothes and can shop your own closet. We need to break the fast fashion cycle where people are buying new wardrobes every few months. For most of my later blogging years I have tried to go with the less is more approach and only add items that I know will last. Occasionally I will still buy a crazy piece I'm not sure of just to try it out, but I try to avoid that.
THE (modified) RULES
- Be mindful of purchases
- Quality over quantity
- Basics are best
MY PROGRESS
Clothes:
- None
Basics:
- None
Shoes:
- None
Handbags:
- None
Accessories:
- None
Activewear/Swimwear:
- Colorfulkoala High Waisted Yoga Pants with Pockets in Deep Teal ($20, retail $30, used CC rewards)
Gifted from Brands:
- None
Spent in February: $0
Spent in 2024: $0
Spent in 2024 - counting ad money: $0
I really need to start wearing all my blazers again. I have so many and can't get rid of them because they all hold such special memories and are just plain pretty! I mostly stopped wearing them because I don't go out to many "events" these days and wearing a blazer to the grocery store on the weekend feels funny. But I'm just going to go for it now! They're outerwear, so they're practical for this chilly weather This is one of my more recent blazers, bought for $36 in early 2019. Probably one of my last blazer purchases because I made myself stop buying them.
Blazer: Sandro burgundy double breasted blazer (Roundabout Resale)
Striped Top: Splendid 'Duke' striped pullover c/o Shopbop
Jeans: Everlane high-rise skinny jean in mid-blue
Ankle Boots: Candie's "ChiChi" Faux Suede Platform Heeled Boots c/o Kohl's
Bag: Dark Purple Chloé Faye (eBay)
Warmth is very important in the Winter and we're in the thick of it now. I've been wanting to get additional padding for my favorite winter boots for a few years now and kept putting it off. I finally found my solution in these fuzzy liner socks from Flat Socks! They are like insoles for your shoes but in sock material and they're
washer/dryer safe, even these fur ones. This keeps the inside of your shoes clean. To learn more about how to use these liner socks check out my post on them from last year! Can you tell I'm wearing socks in this Instagram post? Well, I am!
While these are meant to replace socks I've been using them more as extra warmth for this particular pair of boots and I still wear socks with them. The extra padding makes my feet super cozy and I love how soft they are. I even have a pair of arch support insoles under the liner socks to make them even more comfortable for long Winter walks or while shoveling snow.
Sweater: Everlane "The Wool-Cashmere Square Crew" in Crimson
Jeans: Current/Elliott (The Outnet)
Bag: Marc by Marc Jacobs 'Perfect Purse ostrich-effect PVC' (Net-a-Porter sale)
Hat: Disney World
Sunglasses: Chanel
Necklace: Indulgems (Gilt)
Boots: Vintage Snowland Moccasin Ankle Boots (from Grandma - another pair)
Chestnut Faux Fur FLAT SOCKS c/o
*This post was made in partnership with Responsival.*
Lots of Christmas weekend bakes in this one! Plus two more recipes I've had on my "to bake" list for a bit. Almost everything came out exactly as I'd hoped! Love when that happens.
Mille Feuille
I wanted to make something other than Christian's pie (below) for Christmas Eve and remembered we had frozen puff pastry I've been meaning to use. I googled and found this recipe for mille feuille (or napoleons, except this isn't almond flavored.) Objectively a simple recipe, but still messy and time consuming, ha ha! The diplomat cream was a little loose so they slid around a bit by the time I took the final photo, but they were a hit! Everyone that ate one said they were delicious. I don't like pastry cream so I didn't have one. We have some leftover cream and egg whites I need to use up too...
 |
| Not as pretty later in the evening, haha! |
Lemon Raspberry Pie + King Arthur Flaky Pastry Dough
This was Christian's Christmas Eve bake, but I helped a bit so including it anyway ;) The pie dough didn't come out right but I'm not sure what he did wrong since his pie crusts are usually good. Perhaps the instructions for the recipe were weird or he didn't cut in the butter enough. But the filling of the pie was very tasty even though that recipe was a little all over the place too, ha ha!
Cinnamon Babka
I made chocolate babka earlier this year (and again this weekend) and wanted to try my hand at cinnamon for our Christmas morning breakfast. The recipe was from America's Test Kitchen, the same place I got the chocolate one from but the method was very different. Mine didn't come out looking how I hoped - the filling melted into the bread more than it was supposed to and there was a lot of it at the bottom of the loaf. If I make this again I may double the filling or see if I can find a recipe that uses a different rolling/twisting method. It still tasted great!
Chocolate Babka
As mentioned above I already made this once, but it deserves another mention because its so tasty! And pretty easy to make, even if its a bit messy! It was a hit on Christmas morning and kept us all stuffed until early afternoon at Grandma's.
Chocolate Mousse Cake
I had some leftover heavy cream from all my Christmas baking so I decided to make a recipe I had saved back in October to use it up. This was my first time making a mousse and a layered dessert of this type. It was easier than I thought it would be but also a little nerve wracking. My ganache was a little bit oon the thin side but other than that it came out great! (I'm annoyed because I KNEW it was thin and I was doing a time lapse video and didn't want to stop it to add more chocolate...grr!)
Lemon Blueberry Loaf
I knew I was most likely going to have an extra lemon after baking Saucy Chicken Picatta meatballs for dinner one night so I decided to try and make this loaf! Before using the lemon for dinner I zested it for this recipe and had just enough juice left over as well. I like small, wild blueberries so I used some frozen ones to make this and I think next time I'll use a few less because it was a bit more blueberry dense than it would have been if I used normal size berries. It affected he cooking time a bit because of the extra bulk. But, even with the extra cooking time it was delicious! A perfect breakfast for cold winter mornings.
The first month of 2024 is already done, wow! This year I'm not planning on making too many clothing purchases, but I will continue to do my roundups because I can't stop now, ha ha! This will be my TENTH year tracking my clothing spending and it's funny looking back at my older posts where I would spend a couple hundred a month. My first recap post was March 2014 and it was the month I bought my beloved Carven map print dress! I've definitely gotten my $300 worth out of that dress, with lots more more life left in it.
Paragraph added before the end of the month since I prepared this early, haha! Amazon was having a sale on some leggings I like so I used credit card rewards to buy another pair. The first pair I bought was for my runDisney Cheshire Cat outfit.
THE (modified) RULES
- Be mindful of purchases
- Quality over quantity
- Basics are best
MY PROGRESS
Clothes:
- None
Basics:
- None
Shoes:
- None
Handbags:
- None
Accessories:
- None
Activewear/Swimwear:
- *NEW!* Colorfulkoala High Waisted Yoga Pants with Pockets in Deep Teal ($20, retail $30, used CC rewards)
Gifted from Brands:
- None
Spent in January: $0
Spent in 2024: $0
Spent in 2024 - counting ad money: $0
It's been a while since I did one of these roundup posts so I thought I would do it with some newer pieces! A couple pieces from pre-2017 also made the cut. We've got a mix of sweaters, jeans and one blouse. I'm a firm believer in wearing what you have and loving it to death. While some of these pieces are newer and haven't had the number of wears some other items in my closet have, they are well on their way! Gotta get that cost per wear down as far as it will go. Almost like a competition!
