Decline Designs

Archive for July, 2009

Lately I’ve been craving a certain color; I’m not even sure if nude is the right descriptor - not too brown, not too pastel-pink, but a light dusty pink color. I don’t think this would work in my wardrobe in large amounts, so I’ve been thinking of ways to work touches of it in here and there.

Irregular Choice Candy

These shoes are just perfect! The slightly pointed toe…the color…and for those who have the super-light complexions, light colored heels like these elongate the legs!

Monsieur Tillier Chiffon Tank at ShopRuche

I’ve been lusting after this tank for ages; in fact, I think that might be where the color obsession spawned from!

Nude nails not only look super classy (and I imagine it’d be less noticeable when they chipped!), but they elongate the finger too!

I couldn’t find a picture of what I have in mind, but I think a bib or statement necklace with stones in that color would be a nice contrast against an all-black or monochromatic outfit without being garish.

Mother of Pearl Doctor's Bag

And isn’t this bag just the most gorgeous thing?!

Do you ever get “color cravings”? What do you do about it?

Found via Wicked Halo

• Queen Gilda has a great post about coming out of the closet, in whatever way that may be.
• Freelance Switch has a post on 5 ways to save money on freelancers (without pissing them off in the process!). I thought it was a good read; it has reasonable ways rather than just nagging or trying to haggle.
• On the off chance you haven’t yet seen the teaser trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, go check it out!

The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it’s only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.

Chuck Palahniuk, via Wicked Halo (again!)

• Outi says “Sorry, Elle, I don’t do minidresses.” US Elle REALLY dropped the ball on this one - they used photos from Hel Looks (several of which, side note, I have in my inspiration folder) for a “style don’ts” sort of column. Without getting permission from Hel Looks, who has it stated in plain view on their website that the photos aren’t intended to be reposted without the permission of the person in the photograph! Whatever happened to professionalism, eh?
• Darla Teagarden’s Candyland has some seriously gorgeous photography. Found via Lady Lavona’s Cabinet of Curiousities.

• Also, did you know that Louise Black is going to be on the next season of Project Runway? Because I didn’t! How badass is that?!
• Here’s a tutorial to make super cute shorts from a men’s button down!

I hope you all had a fantaaaaaabuhlous weekend and you better have a great week!

I thought I’d keep the rest of the outfit relatively simple, since, you know, I’ve got matching shoes and hair…

Fluevog Sigourneys
Petticoat by me
Secondhand top, amethyst necklace, jingly bracelet, and costume rose ring (over-accessorized? nahhh!)

Went to a clothing swap/housewarming party today! I brought in some stuff I hadn’t worn in a while to see if anyone else wanted it, and came out with a two dresses, accessories, and some other stuff. This top almost made it in to the swap items, actually - I think I bought this in March and have worn it twice since. I like it though, I think it’s just a case of not bothering to work it in to the rest of my wardrobe. At least with me, that’s hard to do, because I buy new things and then forget I have them after a week (which is ridiculous! I really don’t own that many clothes!) so I don’t consider them an option when making outfits in my head. Silly Michelle!

I also hadn’t worn the petticoat in a while; I think I was worried about how I’d fare wearing synthetics in this heat. The housewarming party was inside, though; and it actually does fairly well in the heat since it’s so light and airy. The airiness is almost a problem, I’m continually worrying that my butt is hanging out since the satin is so light I can’t feel it! Then there was the time when I walked outside on a windy day and the first thing that happened was my skirt hitting me in my face. Thankfully, no one was outside to witness my Marilyn Monroe-esque moment. Anyways!

And, I assume you’ll notice, I switched up my hair. I picked purple and red because it’s something I haven’t done yet; I know purple looks good but it’s been a while since I’ve done red. I’m still experimenting with my wardrobe palette, finding out what fits and what doesn’t, and I thought I’d see if I could fit some red in as an accent color - I think this will definitely make it easier, don’t you? Hopefully it’ll help me hammer down my palette some more; what I’ve got as of now are pink, purple, and blue for the main colors; with yellow, orange, and red as accents. I keep debating on green; I very rarely wear it though. Anyways, it’s Special Effects Cherry Bomb in the front; Pimpin’ Purple in the back with a little bit of RAW Purple tossed in for good measure. It’s been a while since I’ve done true purple and it was much darker then, I really like how this is a bright purple!

Also, here’s two awesome giveaways you should look at: District of Chic and the Year of Living Thriftily are both giving away winner’s choice of Mink Pink item at Chickdowntown. How cool is that?

And the winners are:

Femme Death by Evil Plunder Bunny featuring JILL STUART shoes

Stargazing by jaka_merriman featuring Fendi shoes

Moab by Ashe Mischief featuring Givenchy shoes

Girls, I’ve emailed you to get your information so I can send out the prizes! And a big THANK YOU! to everyone for participating, it was harder than I thought it would be to pick the winners!

• New shoes.

Fluevog Sigourney

I love them so so so ridiculously much. I haven’t even worn them out yet, just taken them out of the box and stared in pure awe. Please excuse my beat-up feet, the bugs here have not been kind to them!

• Coraline came out this week! Oh yeah, you know I bought it on Tuesday, haha. And watched it while sewing, which brings me to…
• Finished my first job as a freelancer! (aka the tarp job) Sweet action.

• I started setting up shop at Market Publique. Artfire obviously isn’t working out so well for me, so I think I might take everything out of there, and sell the vintage locally and at MP, and sell the handmade things on consignment somewhere. You can see the first few listings here; I’m starting out small to get some positive feedback built up.
• I got my serger back from the repair shop! So I can start working on the fun jobs, as well as some new clothing for me I’ve had brewing inside my head.

This isn’t a regular feature or anything, I just thought I’d gush about some awesomeness!

Oh and of course, the contest ends tonight at midnight, so get any last minute entries in! I’ll announce the winners tomorrow afternoon!

This week, I got to interview Lisa of Wholly Cow! Aside from being an obviously talented seamstress and designer, she donated one of the prizes for the current contest (that ends tomorrow! Did you enter?). The clothing at the website is absolutely lovely, retro-influenced without becoming a tired cliche.

Image from S/S '08 Collection

Tell us a little bit about Wholly Cow and how you got started with it. What did you do before?

Denim Dress

Style is a sprinkling of confidence, arrogance, creativity and wit.  My personal style is a bit schizophrenic, it goes with my mood but I do love to dress up!

Again, the music scene both locally (there is a great underground art scene in Newcastle) and internationally.  I also love the rugged beauty of the countryside so maybe this is echoed in my style too.

Thank you for the interview Lisa!

This one will be short and sweet!

• These photos from Cheri on China Shop make me drool and definitely make me want to see the movie!
• I got a haircut! If you’re in the Austin area, I highly recommend Shannon at Method Hair. We chatted about tattoos, shoes (another Fluevogger! ooh yay!), and our love of big hair; and she actually *gasp* knows how to work curly hair. Love love love. Anyways, picture:

And I’m dying it a different color later this week. EXCITED. So more/better pictures will be coming then. Next item on the jewelry agenda: finding a good eyebrow threading place!

• Audi at Fashion for Nerds has a great series on Buyer’s Remorse - Part 1 and Part 2.
• I just discovered Untamed Menagerie Etsy shop. I think these two are my favorites:

Forgotten

The Intrusion

But I also love this and this.

• Use the promo code FIFTYLIPS at E.L.F. cosmetics and you can get 50% off lip products with an order of $15 or more! (Limit of 10, I believe)
• And don’t forget to enter the first ever Decline Design’s contest! It ends on this Friday, the 24th at midnight CST. There are only four entries right now, so your chances of winning are great!

What made your weekend marvelous?

As you may have recalled, I mentioned a big job on Saturday that I’m working on right now - and unfortunately it’s just consuming too much of my time this week! I’m aiming to have it done by Friday or Saturday, so next week posting will resume as normal; but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with some fun photos. These were taken before I left Missouri, with one of my friends who happens to be a talented photographer.

This is the outfit I was wearing when I was informed I looked like Mary Poppins (by a drunk homeless man no less! I took it as a compliment, haha). So we decided to play it up a little bit…

And those are the heels I almost broke my ankle in!

Looking at the photos, my makeup didn’t turn out QUITE the way I wanted it too. And obvs, my collar was being obnoxious. But I like how bright my eyes are in this photo!

There’s a few more photos, if you’d like to see them, here’s the set on Flickr. Oh, and you should definitely look at the 80%20 lookbook for fall, because it is DROOL. WORTHY. Those cobalt blue shoe-buckle-wedge-things? They will be mine!

I’ll see you all next Monday, for sure! Don’t have too much fun without me!

• Oh Snap! Our Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Shot by the Sartorialist. Funny because it’s true!
• The Tour de Fat: A Fantasyland to Change Reality at Let’s Go Ride a Bike. This looks like so much fun and I’m excited for when it comes to Austin! (which will be in October when hopefully it will be, you know, under 100 degrees…)
• Blog Goggles covers the Signature Style of Elizabeth Marie (of It’s Unbeweavable). I LOVE this quote:

“The badass carves her own path. She wears, drives, drinks, watches, and listens to what she chooses, when she chooses, where she chooses, uninfluenced by fads or advertising campaigns.“

It’s from Urban Dictionary, of all places!

• How I Lost My Insurance at the Hairstylist is not marvelous at all; it is in fact pretty sad. But I think this woman deserves to have her story heard, so I’m linking to it anyways.
• Danielle at Final Fashion has a few thoughts on de-cliqueing.
• Like I mentioned on Saturday, the job I’m working on right now makes for tedious sewing - it’s all straight lines and etc. So I’ve been trying to find decent podcasts to listen to, as even my extensive music library is being exhausted! While looking through the iCiNG archive for old podcasts, I came across this link which gives you a free trial and a download at Audible courtesy of IndieFeed. I’m not 100% for sure how long it’ll be functioning, but it was as of last night! I used it to download Steering by Starlight by Martha Beck, which I’ve heard good things about. Also, I’ve listened to Love and Sequins #1 and #2, might be doing a review soon!

What’s making your Monday marvelous? I hope you all had a fabu weekend, and be sure to take the reader survey and enter the contest! Thanks dolls!

Hmm. That sounds vaguely pervy now that I think of it; but I can’t think of a better title so oh well!

I don’t usually do much life posting here, but I thought you might want a little update. As most of you know, Matt and I moved to Buda (just south of Austin) from southwestern Missouri, about a month ago. I like it MUCH better here and am already finding lots of confirmation that it’s a much better place for creatives, full of opportunity! As you might also know, I decided to become self-employed after the move. I’m not sure if I mentioned it on the blog, but I know I mentioned it on Twitter. That’s going really well, I’m finishing up a very hectic job right now - sewing 250 6′x6′ tarps, which is mind-numbing work indeed, but it pays the bills. I have been SO busy with it that I’ve even been neglecting my writing a little bit and I apologize! After it’s done, I get to start on the fun stuff! I’m designing and sewing production samples for a clothing line/store that will be debuting soon and I am SO excited about this project! I unfortunately can’t say a lot more right now but believe you me, I’ll keep you updated. I also might be doing some collaborations with a local artist. And, I don’t want to say a whole lot about it because it’s not 100% concrete yet, but the owner of the store I was working for in Missouri is looking into opening a store here and I might end up being in a sort of co-owner managerial position. This is all, obviously, fabulous, and it might mean some changes here.

Which brings me to the point of this post! I want to know how YOU - yes you! - feel about Decline Designs and the types of posts here, now and in the future. As I venture out into the freelancing/self-employed/business world, do you want to hear chronicles of it so that you can learn from my (hopefully small and not many!) mistakes or adventures? I don’t want to alienate any readers; but as it becomes a bigger part of my life it’s a good chance there will be posts on it. There might also be some posts on personal development, although fear not! this will not turn into a New Agey crystals and incense blog, I promise. So! I created a reader survey, for you to let me know how you feel about how things are now and what you would change, and so I can learn some more about you. I would greatly appreciate any input you have, so much more than I can express! It’s pretty short (technically six questions, although one question is a rating system for the different kinds of posts here), so it should only take five minutes or so. Thank you! for your input and have a fabbbbulous weekend!!