Hautelook (referral) is currently having an Amrita Singh blowout with prices up to 80% off. Amrita Singh makes gorgeous costume jewelry, and there are some great selections on the site. Go check it out! My impressions of AS are that the designs are beautiful, but the materials are a bit cheap. Mostly, they are just very lightweight and do feel like costume jewelry. However, at these prices, I think it's well worth it! Here are a few of my picks for the holidays:
As I've been (fruitlessly) trying to find holiday gifts for my friends and family, I've run across a fair amount of jewelry that I'm pretty sure I can DIY for a fraction of the price. Anthropologie, especially, is a great source of inspiration.
If I can manage it, I'm going to try to DIY versions of a few of these pieces for the upcoming holidays. I chose these designs because they seem to me to require very little talent and few materials; usually just wire and/or chain, and charms and/or stones.
I unfortunately forgot where I found these earrings--they've been in my inspiration folder for so long!
Anthropologie is also featuring these "DIY" charm necklaces. To put together a necklace (here) you choose a chain and up to five charms, customizing the design to your liking. The chains are $18.00 and the charms seem to be around $15.00 each. That means the necklace I put together (above) would cost me $93.00 plus tax and shipping! What do you want to bet I could make almost the same thing at a fraction of the cost?
And lastly, alas, I don't think I can DIY these earrings, but they really caught my eye as they remind me of one of my favorite artists, Andy Goldsworthy, and his beautiful work withserpentineshapes.
But, even if I can't make those last earrings, I sure can try to do the rest! Wish me luck!
Will anyone else by DIYing some of their holiday gifts this year?
Dress: H&M (borrowed from my sister) / Cardigan: Forever 21 / Boots: Urban Outfitters / Necklace: from Costa Rica / Sunglasses: Target
Thank goodness for sisters. Not only does mine let me borrow her clothes on the regular, but she also offered to take photos for me so y'all didn't have to see my backyard...again. :)
I thought I'd show you a bit of the wreckage left over from a crazy windstorm that swept through LA a few days ago. Winds were clocked blowing up to 97 miles per hour (!) in parts of LA, and trees and tree branches were down all over the place. This pile of debris was strewn about my street, until some kind soul (or city employee?) piled it up on the side of the road.
I think one of the best ways to stay in budget while constantly craving new clothes is to live with a roommate who has good style and is almost exactly your size. Thank you, mi hermana, for keeping my closet interesting...by providing me with your closet!
Dress: from a local boutique / Vest: LOFT Petite faux fur collar sweater vest sz ??? ($79.99 $48.00 buy here) / Coat: Forever 21 (old) / Tights: H&M / Booties: DSW
Finally, I am out of my backyard! I wish I lived in the small
central coast town--and more specifically in the garden/bookstore--where
I took these photos. Then you could see less of my backyard and more of
this pretty staircase and green landscape.
I just got this faux fur collar vest as an early Hannukah present from my mom (review to follow shortly! And the vest is currently on super sale at $79.99
$48.00). I went shopping with mi madre a few weeks ago and convinced
her to buy a gorgeous grey knit vest with a detachable collar to replace
a slightly decaying old purple one from REI she'd had for years. Major
improvement on her part, and major jealously on mine. Lucky for me, my
mom is awesome, and returned the favor with this cute vest from LOFT.
I've never owned faux fur before, being generally squicked out by the
idea of even the suggestion of wearing an animal's fur, but this looks
fake enough to make the cut, I think....
I've been feeling a bit craftsy lately and figured, since holiday time is tough for those of us with smaller budgets, it might behoove me to find something creative yet inexpensive that I could make for Christmas/Hanukkah presents. Enter, this great little wrap bracelet! They are easily customizable, can be made in any color combination and length that you'd like, and work (in my opinion) equally well for both women and men.
* * * * * * * * * *
For one double-wrap bracelet, you will need:
3 feet of leather cord or leather thong (like this or this)
4 feet of hemp cord, waxed linen cord, or embroidery floss (like this)
A pair of scissors
Measurements can go up or down, depending on the size of the person's wrist.
All of these materials can be found at a local crafts or beading store. For the bracelet below, I got my materials at Beads by the Bay, my boyfriend's mother's shop, in lovely Morro Bay, CA. Materials for two double-wrap bracelets (6 feet of leather cord, 2 feet of ball chain, 2 connectors, and all the hemp cord seen in the photo below), cost me $8.50. That means one double-wrap bracelet cost $4.25, but all subsequent bracelets will be even cheaper because I have a bunch of hemp cord left over.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Once you have your supplies...
Begin the bracelet by folding the leather cord in half, making a small loop at the top. Lay the end of the hemp cord down the length of the leather for about half an inch. Begin wrapping the hemp around both the leather and the piece that is laid flat:
Wrap about 5 times around, very close to the top of the loop, then place the ball chain on top of the wrapped cord. Leave about three ball chain links free at the end, and then wrap the hemp in the joint between the third and fourth balls:
Keep wrapping the hemp cord tightly around the leather, in between the joints of the ball chain. Be sure to keep the two sides of the leather cord even (i.e., not twisty or inside out) as you go. The best technique I found for doing this efficiently was to hold my right thumb over the "stitch" I just completed, and wrap with my left hand. Then, I moved my thumb to the next stitch, and continued (...slowly....) along the length of the bracelet. The bracelet will begin to turn as you go, ending up looking helix-y.
Continue wrapping while checking for fit around the wrist. Once you've got the desired length, cut the ball chain and the leather (but NOT the hemp cord just yet!) and attach a ball chain connector to the end. Tie a few knots at the end of the ball chain, making sure the hemp is secured, and then trim the dangling end of the hemp.
When you're done, you'll have a nice stacked bracelet like (half of) the one below! The bracelet shown is actually two double-wrapped bracelets, stacked together. I think when it comes to this style, the more the merrier. The bracelet can be easily removed by unclasping the connector. Here it is, modeled on the boyfriend:
You can choose multiple color combinations of ball chain, leather, and cord to create unique gifts for the people on your list (...yourself included...). If you want a bit more of a sparkly look, you can use linked crystal chain instead of the slightly industrial-looking ball chain. (Sorry for the fuzzy iphone photo)
Multiple colors, all stacked up! I think I'm keeping these for myself.... :)
Happy beading! And if you have any questions, just let me know in the comments!
I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but there is a Target**
commercial that recently caught my eye (actually, I don’t watch TV too often,
so it caught my boyfriend’s eye, and he showed it to me). It features a pretty
middle-aged blonde woman in a sweat suit, high heels, and pearls, completely
freaking out over Target’s Black Friday sales. Actually, she’s not just freaking out,
she’s preparing. Lifting shopping baskets as if they were weights, doing
crunches outside of Target, timing herself wrapping presents, screaming manically
over the Target catalogue, racing around the store in high heels, counting down
the days—not until Thanksgiving, but until Black Friday.
Now, I could get upset with almost every commercial that
airs on TV, especially commercials aimed at women, but other people
(cough*Sarah Haskins Target Women*cough) have done that 10 million times better than I ever
could. (Seriously, watch Sarah Haskin’s Target Women commercials—no relation to
the Target stores—they’re hilarious.) There are a few reasons this commercial
really gets on my nerves, namely its intense focus on materialism and its
stereotypical gendered portrayal of women.
Materialism has always bothered me. I know that sounds
stupidly hypocritical given this is a blog centered around style, but I’ll go
ahead and own that. In fact, it bothers me how
hypocritical I am about this. If I had more money, I would love to buy all my clothes
from people I knew, in small, local boutiques where all the clothes are made
from organic materials by people who make completely fair wages. I don’t have all the
money in the world, and I do fall
victim to fast fashion and my consumerist American culture. Guilty as charged,
absolutely. It does bother me, as someone who is interested in style and
fashion without spending a billion dollars, that consumerism and fashion have
to be linked. But this…took it to a whole new level.
The commercial showed a woman placing her own consumerism,
materialism, and discount-craziness over her time spent with her family. She
counted down the days to Black Friday, not to Thanksgiving (ok, I can write a
whole different rant about how crazy Thanksgiving is, but let’s just say for
now it’s generally counted on as a day to spend with your family, and leave it at that
for the time being…). Black Friday was her real holiday. A holiday that required
training, working out, and preparing…for shopping. The commercial told us, as
commercials often do, that this is what we should be doing; preparing ourselves
for a shopping holiday, spending our time and energy on buying things, not on
our families. But it’s not materialism, of course! It’s savings, which makes it ok. These are some of the things I hate
about shopping and fashion, and the things that make me feel weird about
telling my friends I have this blog; this is the image of me I expect them to see.
Fashion obsessed, deal obsessed, crazed, my priorities out of line. I don’t
want to be this person, and I don’t want Target telling me this is who all the
budget-conscious shoppers out there are.
The LA Times picked up on this push towards Black Friday
crazy consumerism the other day, stating, “Black Thursday is now becoming the
new Black Friday, as retailers are opening holiday sales on Thanksgiving Day
itself. Wal Mart, Toys R Us, Kmart will open [at 10 p.m.] on the night of
Thanksgiving while Macy’s Target, Kohls, and Best Buy, among others, will open
at midnight. ‘It’s no longer Black Friday, it’s going to be Black Thanksgiving
from here on out,’ said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NDP Group." Another article states that “About 194,000 people have joined an
online petition…begging Target to resist temptation and ‘Save Thanksgiving.’”
Back to the commercial, there’s a big kicker that’s
driving me crazy: gender. This commercial “works” by hitting on multiple
stereotypes about women. The bored housewife, the rich woman, the crazed
shopper, the looks-obsessed portion of our female culture. There are so many
gendered portrayals of clothing and shopping, and so many of them play off of
insecurities. The main one I see here is a direct connection between clothing
and weight. The woman in the commercial is working out to shop, she is working out to buy clothing (or, if you're feeling generous, all the other items Target has to offer). Exercise for women is always marketed as being about clothing. It’s about
“going down three dress sizes” or “fitting into my skinny jeans!” It is so
rarely about staying in shape, being healthy, being fit, feeling good about
your body, or heck, even lowering your risk for heart disease. This commercial
takes that to the extreme. It’s not only about exercising to fit into your
clothes, its exercising to buy your clothes.
I hate that by shopping in today’s America, I’m supporting
industries that do crazy things to get consumers to buy their products (too-skinny models,
too-airbrushed ads, crazed shopper ladies, you name it…). I love Target clothes, but
when I buy from them, I’m now supporting a company that is—here, at
least—presenting women as CRAZY. (Almost) every store I shop in has too-thin
models, airbrushed photos, unattainable perfection. But I still shop in them. I
like the clothes these stores sell; I don’t like the ways they sell them.
Should that be enough to stop me? I’d like to hold myself to higher standards,
but I don’t know exactly what those standards should be. I’m working on it.
**(This isn’t the first time I’ve been pissed with Target.
In 2007-2008, Target gave $3,250 to ProtectMarriage.com, a supporter of Prop
8—the proposition to ban gay marriage in CA. It should also be noted that they
did give $750 to Anti-prop-8 groups as well, but their donations seemed, to me,
a bit one sided.)
Top: Gap sz s / Sweater: from a local boutique / Jacket: Zara sz xs / Pants: Gap 1969 Always Skinny Jeans sz 00 / Scarf: Forever 21 / Shoes: Target
This Zara "leather" jacket was one of my best finds in the past few years. I'd been looking for a dark brown, versitile jacket for quite a while, but had never found anything that looked nice enough but was still within my price range. Shopping with some friends about a year back, I stumbled across this little thing, I believe for about $60-$70. Ya, a bit pricey for me, but I considered it long and hard and thought, in the end, that it was worth it. I'm so glad I made the splurge because I wear this thing all. the. time. Yay for Fall so I can start breaking it out again!
Outerwear is definitely one of the places where it can be hard to skimp on cost. In order to have jackets that keep you warm and/or dry, you might have to shell out a bit of cash. Since I live in LA, I'm able to get away with jackets like this (made out of Polyurethane/Viscose/Polyester, though fully lined and surprisingly warm), which cost way less than nice wool ones you might need on the East coast. Believe it or not, I have still managed to find a cheap warm wool coat (on sale for $25!) that got me through 90% of my winter semester abroad in England, also from Zara. So, I'd highly recommend that store if you're looking for decent outerwear on a budget!
