Fashion Compassion: Making or Breaking the Outfit!

Hi there fashionistas!
Today, I would like to talk to you all about SHOES!  First of all shoes, like the title says, make or break an outfit.  Shoes can be a really nice touch, subtle or bold, to your outfit...or....they can take away from the outfit so much, the only thing that is noticed is the weirdly matched shoes!!  Let's take a look at the do's and don'ts.


Breaking the Outfit:  Breaking the outfit with your shoes can happen in a couple of ways.  1) Mis-matching clothing style and shoe style.  Here's an exaggeration:  you are going to a nice restaurant with your boss or boyfriend, whomever it may be, so you wear a nice blouse with dressy pants (or a pretty skirt) and on your feet rest...tennis shoes.  Bing-no!  Your shoes need to match the style of the rest of your outfit.  So if you're going with Boho (skirt over leggings, cropped jacket or shrug, long necklaces, headband around the head, etc.), you are going to want to wear either ankle boots or knee-high boots.  Vans or wedges probably won't complete the Boho look, it would be more like a Bo-oh-no look! :(  Another outfit breaker is this thought: 2) The shoe color is close enough...  When matching the color of your shoes with your clothing color, (once you have determined that the outfit styles match up), make sure the color is appropriate.  So if you're wearing beige pants, gold heels would not work because they are so close, but not close enough, that it looks like your eye is off.  Close enough is not always good enough.

Making the Outfit: To make an outfit, completing it successfully with your shoes, use common sense based on the two reasons above.  For matching up the styles, look at what kind of shoes you are thinking of wearing and determine three places the shoes would normally go.  Tennis Shoes?  A tennis game, on a jog, and at a dog park.  Are those places similar to where you are actually going?  What about pumps? Red Carpet, a evening date, an award ceremony.  Flat boots?  Afternoon movie, dinner with a friend, and possibly a evening party.  Are you being sensible?
For color matching your shoes, you can go one of two ways: exact color or opposite color.  Exact color matching means finding any color in your outfit and putting shoes that have that same, EXACT color with your outfit.  So, black skirt?  Black boots.  Pale pink blouse?  Pale pink wedges.  Gray and navy blue combination outfit? Navy blue pumps.  Exact color matching also includes picking out a small accented color in your outfit and matching your shoes with it.  So if you are wearing an orange sun dress with yellow earrings, you could wear your yellow sandals.  Even though orange was the main color, yellow was in the outfit a little and as long as your sandals are the same yellow as the earrings, it works!
        Now, opposite color matching means taking a color in your outfit, clothes and/or accessories, and putting shoes with the outfit that match (not necessarily the same color) the color in your outfit even though that color is not in the outfit already.  Confused?  Here, if you are wearing a navy blue skirt and a black shirt, but you don't have black shoes or navy blue shoes, but you do have lavender pumps...navy blue matches really nicely with a pretty lavender.  So you'll have black on top, navy blue on bottom, and lavender shoes.  It is a really nice color mix-up, however it is bold and is sometimes hard to maneuver.  I believe in you guys, though!  Good luck and have fun! Please comment, ask questions, and follow!  Thanks! :)
         xoxo,
            Maddie

Summer Outfits: No Money, but Need Clothes?

Fashionistas!
  Broke, but still want summer style?  Easy!  There are a few tricks from changing your old, fall clothes into new summer ones!  Check it out!

Shorts: Find a pair of old jeans that still fit, but are too hot to wear.  Grab a pair of scissors, a Sharpie, and markers and/or paint.  What you are going to do is make your jeans into denim cutoff shorts.  Mark with your Sharpie a small line on the side of each pant leg on your jeans where you want to slice.  (I would start off with a capri sized cut, because you can always cut more, but not add on what you've already cut off.)  Then take your scissors and make a nice clean cut.  Try your new shorts on before you make another cut because they might look shorter than you think.  Once you have the length that you want, you can keep like that, normal denim jeans...or....mark them up with marker!  Find cute tracers to trace or a design you want to copy onto your jeans.  You can also find a nice paint color, generously paint your hand with that color, and stick your hand on your jeans.  Make sure you are on a surface that can get messy!  Have fun! :)

Tops:  Tops are always the harder ones to alter to be new, but there is a couple of things you can do.  One is to cut off the sleeves.  If you have a long-sleeved shirt, carefully cut off the sleeves (measuring it with a Sharpie, like with the shorts) and make it into a 3/4 sleeved shirt, 1/2 sleeved, or even a tank top.  Another thing you can do is bead it.  Take a hot glue gun and some crystal beads from your crafts box and make a cute pattern directly on the shirt for a new look!  I would hot glue on an ironing board, the shirt separated by the board so the glue doesn't seep through to the other side.  Good luck! :)

Shoes:  Converse looking old?  Flats getting scuffed?  To get a newer look, but keep the same shoes, try these tips.  For shoes with laces, spice it up with different colored laces, neon is bold, but can look innovative.  You can usually find laces at places like Hot Topic, Payless, or Claires.
For shoes that are getting scuffed, try a polish or if they're black, fill in the scuffed part with a black Sharpie.  It works!  Also to prevent weird rain lines and water damage of your suede boots, you can get a spray that will protect your boots.  The one I have is called Rain and Stain Guard.   I got mine at Payless.

And lastly, if your parents haven't already bugged you about this, working really makes it all so much easier and more fun! :)

Please give me your questions in the comments!
XOXO,
             Maddie