The girl with the yellow shoes

I buy most of my clothing from the same stores again and again, but when it comes to shoes I will take them any way I can get them. Some might call me a shoe whore. I won't deny it.

Recently I bought a pair of bright yellow pumps. It was a bold move even for me! But I love the color yellow. Yellow however does not love me. It just doesn't go well with my coloring. So when it comes to wearing yellow, shoes or handbags or jewelry it is. And the fun stops there.

I looked and looked for the perfect yellow shoes for quite some time. Months, probably. In fact, I was afraid that the color was going to go out of style before I actually found a pair I liked. So a sense of urgency was beginning to set in, the kind that only happens to a shoe whore, which led to my buying a pair off Amazon.com.

Did you know that Amazon sold shoes?

When the shoes arrived I tried them on. The heels were a lot higher than I thought they would be. And I am 6 ft. tall. Hasn't stopped me from wearing heels before, but I usually draw the line at stillettos. So here are these BRIGHT, super HIGH heel yellow pumps that I have wanted for so long and I am not even sure I can bring myself to wear them in public.

I've always admired fashion forward women. They aren't afraid to try new things with their hair, or wear bold accessories. You know the type. And as bold and outside of the box as I am I think I am a pretty conservative dresser. Maybe I am wrong (I'm curious what those of you who actually know me think!), but I was going to have to find a way to show off those shoes!

They sat in the box for 2 weeks. Sasha pulled them out several times, admiring them, urging me to wear them. To the post office. "To the store, Mommy!" Wouldn't that be a sight. I really don't know what exactly I was waiting for, though. A vision?

I didn't have any intention of returning them. So I took the next most obvious step and brought them with me into none other than Charming Charlie's. If you've never been to CC or even heard of it, it's a fabulous place to find inspiration for all your fashion needs. Whenever I walk in the door I am immediately transported into what I call "Rebecca Bloomwood's world" ("Confessions of a Shopaholic" anyone?), and I am mesmerized (and consequently, close to being banned by my husband from ever going in there again).

CC is color coded, so there is a whole section of fabulous yellow there. Rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, headbands, watches, shoes, scarves, bows. It all made my simple yellow pumps look pretty tame. Huh, I thought. these shoes are nothin'! And I picked out a yellow headband and bracelet and made my merry way to the cashier.

"Let's see those shoes," the woman at the checkout counter said to me as I paid for my loot. "Wow, those are bright."

And that was all she said.

The other check out girl glanced at me, presumably to measure my reaction. Surprisingly, it didn't affect me at all. I was finally ready to wear those shoes! And I walked out with my head held high.

I awoke the next Sunday morning feeling mighty sassy. I put on my black dress with the little white polka dots. Along with the yellow bracelet, yellow headband, and of course, those bright yellow pumps. The piece de resistance. And left the house that morning with a little extra pep in my step.

Doors

We don't often think of doors as a canvas. Walls are usually the focus for our decor needs. I love using doors as focal points, though.

The first and most obvious decoration choice for a lot of people is a wreath. And I love me some wreaths. But let's think outside the box a little. A magazine rack with dried flowers inside, a hat, chalkboard paint... what about postcards?

When we were first married and had little money to decorate our tiny apartment, I stuck a bunch of black and white postcards all over the closet door in our bedroom. I loved it. Then in the most recently released IKEA catalog, I spotted another great decor idea for a door using postcards...



Isn't that fun? And so perfect for my pre-teen's brightly colored bedroom. We're painting one of her walls a bright apricot color this week and although it's strong enough to stand on it's own, I needed a way to bring some of that brightness across the room. So the color pallette for the postcards around her closet door relies heavily on golds and oranges (with some hot pink thrown in for contrast) and balances out the room very nicely. What do you think?

80s revisited

I know everything comes back at some point. Some of it has surprised me, though! And when my 10 year old daughter found "the perfect pair of splatter paint jean shorts" to go with a "rockin' pair of black converse" I just about pinched myself to be sure I was in fact, still in the year 2009.

She's lucky to have a mom who has firsthand experience with these fashions. It took my mother a while to accept that a big, pink fluorescent bow in my hair was cute, or that wearing my leg warmers over my jeans in May wasn't so idiotic.

To save money we decided to splatter paint our own jeans. I bought these capris second hand and we're going to cut them and roll them up into shorts (we're getting deeper and deeper into the past, it's like therapy - lol).

I just used fabric paint. It was difficult to get it to splatter though. At first I tried a toothbrush, which didn't make nearly enough splatter. I moved up to a small paintbrush (like for cutting in, which just left globs. When I ran out of options I tried dragging a straight pin through the globs of paint to create my own splattered effect. And it worked. In hindsight had I more paint, and a larger area to flick it without inhibition, I might have achieved the look more naturally.





As for the converse, my daughter requested that we doodle on them, and I immediately though of my rhinestoned, puff-painted Keds from days of yore. This is what we came up with.



And now I feel that peace, love and rock n' roll must never go out of style! Cuz this is fun!!!