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What I Wore This Week

November 7, 2016Sara Leave a Comment

*I found this top and tweed jacket when I was going through one of our old baby clothes bins in storage. See, it sometimes pay to hold on to things and forget you own them 😉

This weekend we went to got to Hogwarts. While I wish we actually got to go to either a) the UK to do a Harry Potter tour or b) Harry Potter World at Universal Studios that is obviously not a spontaneous trip. Neither of those being an option we went to Guelph University where on Saturday they turned it into Hogwarts and offered kids a day touring around getting sorted, taking Hogwarts inspired classes, and playing Quidditch.

It was a ton of fun although I didn’t take a many pictures. I don’t like to take and post photos that have other people’s children in them (and they were everywhere). When we are doing things we are generally living in the moment and not thinking about photo ops and I always get home thinking I took a picture or two to commemorate. Some parts of the University are old buildings and they looked a lot like the real Hogwarts campus with the fall leaves, a million kids in their house robes walking through the fields with the Quidditch hoops in the distance.

I learned some interesting things about my kids too while taking these classes. Merle can place all the human organs in their correct places without help, and Roo really enjoys owl pellet dissection. Trying to figure out what it ate and reassemble the bones of the animal remains was a fun challenge for her (sounds gross but she was totally into it and I may have to get her an owl pellet dissection lab). It was a good day and I am glad that all of us as a family got to enjoy it together even though Tom was tired because he worked until 6am that morning.

Signing off now because Tom set off the fire alarm making spaghetti and everyone seems to have forgotten how to shut off the alarm key pad even thought they have all been shown a million times.

I hope you had a great weekend!

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What I Wore This Week and A kind of Halloween DIY

October 31, 2016Sara 2 Comments

So Hallelujah we finished Merle’s costume on Friday which was perfect timing for a practice run. There was a Halloween kids festival across the road on Saturday and we were able to test everything out and see if we needed to buy anything new or tweak anything in the costume. I learned that I needed to add more white and yellow coloured hairspray as a base before adding the green so it would be light enough to look more Beetlejuice and less Joker green. We also added some green accents (after I took pictures) to her make up to resemble the mold Beetlejuice has on his skin in the movie.

I actually planned on doing a costume DIY blog post since I don’t do a lot of them. I used to DYI a lot but over the years have lost the drive to do many projects so when this came up I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to add one. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way and instead of sitting down and photographing the step by step process over a weekend it became a long draw out process of passing the baton between Tom and I in the evenings. He would take the suit to work on his less busy nights and we would send each other shitty text photos of its progress.

This is the quick and easy basic breakdown:

Supplies needed:

White suit jacket/blazer (found at Value Village)
White pants
1″ painting tape
2 black Fabric markers (thick) or fabric paint

Process:

We first found some movie stills to get a good idea of stripe placement.
Pick a section to start. I suggest starting with the back so you can get used to it without messing up the front.
Lay three pieces of tape in a row touching one another, then remove the middle piece. This empty “stripe” is the piece you paint/colour.
Lay down more tape before removing the old ones because your paint stripe will be the width of the tape.
Repeat process until the section is complete. Let dry. Pick a new section.
Areas like the collar and arms took a little longer to place the tape because of the different directions the stripes angled. With the arms I suggest keeping the sleeve flat and complete the stripes on one side of the sleeve, then flip over and just match up the tape to the other sides completed stripes (if that makes sense).
Follow the same idea with the pants. Just work one leg at time, front then back.

I’m sure that totally sounds confusing but once you figure the tape placement it was easy because you just repeat the same steps over and over. It was just quite time-consuming and was often done on a flat tv tray/table while watching Netflix.

The costume was completed with a white dress shirt, black tie, and black shoes. For hair and make-up I used 3 different sprays on the hair, a white, yellow, and a lime green. That is also the order I layered them as well. Then I teased her hair and rolled up and pin the long sections in the back. Her makeup was a base of white, with dark purple around the eyes and then green smudges along the hairline, neck, ears, and mouth (added after the below picture). I’m hoping to get some better pictures on Halloween that I can add to this post.

Roo’s costume is Coraline which was actually quite simple to thrift everything (except the wig). I found her a yellow coat which technically should be a rain slicker but I found a nice yellow wool pea coat which is more weather appropriate anyway. Some leggings, rain boots, a burgundy cross body, and a blue bobbed wig were the final pieces.

I used to love dressing up for Halloween parties but haven’t for years but if I did I would want to wear something like this 🙂

*Updated to add some more pictures from Halloween night.

Did you dress up this year?

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What I Wore This Week

October 24, 2016Sara 3 Comments

I’m going to admit, this past week hasn’t been very productive in the grand scheme of things but that’s how life works I guess. I’m working on it. We are still trying to get the Halloween costumes complete (apparently we are big procrastinators). Tom is working on it now but I think we need to buy another marker. It’s running out of paint and the stores are closed since it is Sunday night which is a consequence of procrastination.

On late Thursday night, or early Friday morning actually since it was 4am Tom came home from work and he had hurt his knee. He uses a cube van while working and while he was loading it he slipped on the stairs that go up into the back because they were wet from the rain. His knee hit the metal stairs and got cut up pretty badly as well as was now swollen so he had to take Friday off work. He spends 14-18 hours on his feet a day so they thought it was best to let him have Friday and the weekend to heal. When he came home at 4am I woke up with a start and went out to the living room, as he was telling me the knee story I started seeing spots and got clammy but went in to the kitchen to get him some acetaminophen and Ibuprofen for the pain. As I was reaching them down I also got seriously nauseated and thought I was going to pass out, so I immediately sat on the floor to put my head between my knees. I’m sitting there, Tom is panicking asking me 9 millions questions and yelling out if he should call 911 waking the house. Then the bloody cat climbs up and sits right on my back as I am hunched over. I’m thinking, “even when I could be dying people won’t leave me alone.” Needless to say I recovered and it was probably from jumping out of bed too quick right from a dead sleep. But man, I can’t even suffer in peace 😉 Here is to a more productive and less eventful week.

How was your weekend?

This week I am working on a Paris in April packing light list for a readers honeymoon.

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Fall/Winter Work Capsule Wardrobe Outfit Options

October 21, 2016Sara Leave a Comment

Based on the pieces from last post Fall/Winter Workwear Capsule Wardrobe Business Casual I put together 30 outfit ideas. There is definitely a lot more different combinations that can be made, 30 is just a good start. These options are based on a work business casual environment that has casual jean Fridays. Under the dresses I would wear some black tights to still keep a professional look while remaining weather appropriate.

I suggested that you start right from the bottom of your wardrobe all the way to the top to see how many items you already own that would work in your professional wardrobe. It is surprising how many pieces you can transition over to look completely different paired with the right pieces. I give a quick breakdown on how you can do this in 5 steps in this post.

While many people have a completely separate work wardrobe from weekend wardrobe I like to integrate them together as much as you can because it can save you money and give you a lot more outfit options. Along with your work capsule you still need your accessories and seasonal pieces like scarves, winter hats, gloves, and winter boots. These are necessary items if you live in an area that experiences a colder winter season.

Is your work wardrobe and weekend wardrobe separate or integrated?

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Fall/Winter Workwear Capsule Wardrobe Business Casual

October 19, 2016Sara 2 Comments

I was asked if I could put together some fall/winter business casual workwear outfits to give some inspiration, so this weeks list is a fall/winter workwear capsule wardrobe. I thought it would be a better idea to break it down into what pieces I would include and then make outfits based on those pieces like with the packing lists. That way it’s easy to see what pieces you have that are similar or that you already own and what type of things you might want to add. If you refer to my A Simple Teacher Capsule Wardrobe in 5 Steps I give you a quick way to go through your clothes to see what you have that will be suitable for work and what you may need to add/substitute/or buy. It’s the easiest and most inexpensive way to build a work wardrobe.

I didn’t include bright colours because that is a preference of mine and I find it easier to make everything match if I follow a basic colour palette. But it would be very easy to build a more colourful wardrobe or add some colour with scarves, accessories, shoes. Even a bright blouse, sweater or blazer will add a nice burst of colour. This list is for fall so I obviously picked heavier knit sweaters, wool pants, and a wool jacket. Not included in this list is the rest of your winter gear like hats, scarves, gloves, and boots. When I was working in a professional environment I still walked and used public transport to work. This meant that I had to wear my winter boots and pack my heels/dress boots in my bag and switch over at work. It is a pain and doesn’t usually look very cute, but it is a common practice because a) It stops you from falling on your ass in winter and b) saves your work shoes from being destroyed by slush and snow.

I’m going to pair these in to outfits for the next post. I hope it gives some inspiration.

What are your favourite fall/winter work pieces?

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What I Wore This Week

October 16, 2016Sara 2 Comments

I had my first seasonal crafting fail this week. I guess not as much as a complete fail as a slight miscalculation and setback. When I was on Instagram I saw a photo of a lion hat that someone made for their Luna Lovegood Funko from a lion Beanie Boo. Luna wears a Gryffindor lion hat in the movie and since she is my daughters favourite Character (Roo’s not Merle’s. Merle is completely in love with Ron Weasely for some reason). I thought she would love it and it wouldn’t be too hard to make for Christmas. I searched online for the lion which I found at Chapters Indigo. They listed them as small medium and large. Based on the measurements I ordered the medium because I thought the small was the really tiny pocket-sized one. Nope, I needed the small because the medium is like a regular sized stuffed animal and the Funko literally can fit in the head entirely which totally doesn’t work. It looks like Merle inherited a lion stuffy by default and I have to order the small. I have this twinge of guilt thinking about taking the stuffies head off to make the hat, almost enough to abort the mission. I get worked up upset over weird shit though so it might be just me.

Have you had any crafting fails lately?

I’m working on some fall/winter business casual outfit ideas for work this week. If you have anything you’d like to see on here let me know.

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