Happy Holidays!

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it -- if not I hope you had/are having a wonderful break from work :)

Here's a roundup of some of the outfits I wore this holiday season!

sweater | ralph lauren (old)
tartan button up | old navy (recent)
cobalt chino pants | h&m (fall '12)

I wore this for my last day of work before Christmas -- I'm a huge fan of sweaters over button ups and this pairing felt festive without being too red and green.

dress & leggings | h&m (fall '12)
glitter skinny belt | walmart

The outfit I wore for Christmas Day (I actually lasted in the booties for a while!)

striped knit | forever xxi (fall '11)
sequin vest | target (winter '12)
brocade skirt | jcpenney (winter '12)

 And...what I wore today :)  Brought back the brocade skirt and got a little dazzly.

So I went a little crazy with my shopping this month and I wanted to try something new on the blog so I'm really excited to share I'll be participating in the 30x30 challenge that Sam is doing.  The idea came from Kendi and is a spectacular one: go through your closet and pick out 30 items.  Then use the next 30 days wearing outfits only composed of those 30 items.  One of my New Year's resolutions is to actually stick to a monthly clothing budget in 2013, so I'm kicking it off by not doing any shopping the first month (yes, I'm already sweating it).  I picked out my 30 items tonight and will be sharing them with you all this weekend before the challenge starts on Tuesday!

Happy Holidays,
Nicole

the week in recap

This last week was all about attempting to gear up for the holidays: prepping Christmas cards, looking at dresses for New Years and failing at Christmas shopping. Cheers to having another week, right?

So let's see - I decided I wanted to mail Christmas cards to far away friends and that I wanted to make them instead of buying a pack.  I'm almost finished writing them and just have to stop by the post office to pick up holiday stamps and then that will be crossed off my list (HOORAY!).  Here's a sneak peek:

Loving the Scottie theme :) you can follow me on instagram @sequinedpatterns

I also picked up a pretty awesome gift for one of my friends.

I know a few places are carrying OPI's Top Ten set - Ulta featured it as their "Deal of the Day" over the weekend so it was $14.95 instead of $24.95.  Still, what a great price for these colors and they are grouped so you can break it into a top five for coworkers or stocking stuffers.  I almost justified buying myself a set but I held out.

Finally, the outfits I want to share with you all today.  I lovelovelove putting together different outfits this season for holiday parties, family gatherings and just being festive for going shopping, etc.

Tartan shirt dressed up and worn casually

I picked up this tartan shirt from Old Navy (similar here) on super sale for $13.30 and knew it would be all I wore come December...and I was right.  I was messing around with it while trying to decide what to wear for a Christmas party this upcoming weekend and paired it with my brocade skirt that I wrote about in my last post.  I liked the look so much that I threw on some gold accents and wore it to work on Saturday...and then wore it right on over to a Christmas party, so I guess I'll have to try something different this weekend.

I lazed around and then ran errands before working on Christmas cards on Sunday so I unrolled the sleeves and threw the shirt on over leggings and a Jimi Hendrix tshirt for a much more casual look.  Which look do you like better?

Of the two looks, I favor the dressed up version:

I may just end up repeating this outfit for Christmas Day (shhhh! don't tell!)

Linking up with Shana at ColorBlind and Molly over at still being [molly]

:) Nicole

Got your voice in my head

So the soundtrack to last week was this song.

On Sunday, I dropped off my presents for the little girl I adopted through Salvation Army's Angel Tree program and I have to tell you all, I am so, so excited about my finds.  I'm hoping she loves all of her Christmas presents this year.

I am in love with the sequins and metallics that are in right now, especially with the holidays coming up.  I tried on this skirt from Francesca's Collections:

Illuminated Brocade Skirt - $38

I loved it online and even saw it featured on a friend's blog, but wasn't feeling the fit and length when I tried it on.

I was at JcPenney's and found this beauty:

Alyx Brocade Mini Skirt - regularly $25, marked down to $14

The back features an exposed zipper which I love and I'm much more comfortable with the length and fit of this skirt.  I was lucky enough to find it in my size and bought it immediately.  I'm thinking it'll look great with black tights, turtleneck sweaters, chiffon sheer blouses and even paired with a blazer - stay tuned :)

I was actually really impressed with JcPenney - they had a lot of collections that were very cute and reasonably priced and many cute items were marked down in clearance.  Here are some items I'm keeping my eye on:

Sequin Trim Blazer - original $25, now $16

Olsenboye Piped Blazer - original $30, now $20

This blazer is part of the Olsenboye line, designed by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Striped V-Neck Sweater - $13

I was picking up shoes as part of my Angel Tree shopping and they had a buy one pair, get the second for $10 promotion running and so now I'm the proud owner of these:

studded loafers - charlotte russe, not available online

Hope everyone has a great week!
Nicole

Tis the season (to get thrifty)

The holidays are always a tough time because there's so many good sales, but it's also the time when I feel like I should only be buying for others.  Every year is a struggle because I find that some deals are just too good to pass up.

I have a love-hate relationship with Forever 21, I know it's weird.  I love that the store allows you to try a trend at a relatively low price, but I hate that the store rarely has sales and doesn't allow returns.  On top of that, my local XXI is two stories with escalators which sounds wonderful, but is really just incredibly overwhelming and messy. 

However, when I got an email from them letting me know about the 21% off they were offering for Friends and Family this past weekend, I decided to go in to look for a leather jacket I had seen on their site.

studded leather jacket | forever 21, $37.80

This one was on sale for 50% online Black Friday weekend, but I hesitated to buy because I like to try jackets on first and I hate paying for shipping. I didn't think I'd be able to find this in store after it disappeared from the web site but as I scoped out the first floor, I found the jacket in black and white. After debating on sizing and color, I decided on the black in medium.  With the F&F discount the jacket was $29.86.  I love the gold zippers and studs on this.

left: striped relaxed slub top. right: union jack baseball tee.

I'm a sucker for striped knit tees. They're so easy to layer or wear with colored pants and matching jewelry and I always think they look nicer than a tshirt.  So, it wasn't a hard decision to pick up this one in Royal/Mint ($8.53).  One of my friends loves anything Union Jack so I teasingly sent her a picture and she quickly convinced me to buy it.

I also went thrifting and found some real gems.

Linking up here today!

close up of detail

I was super excited about this sheer green blouse.  The top is loose fitting and I think it would look fantastic tucked into a gold sequined skirt for the holiday season.

appàrenza top | thrifted, $3

Next was an interesting find -- do you ever wonder about the previous owner of thrifted clothes?

These were besides each other on the rack, one still had the tags as shown above.  I'm curious as to why someone bought two of the same $40 shirt at Express and then took it to Goodwill.

sleeveless top | thrifted, express - $3

sleeveless top | thrifted, express - $3

These will be great under cardigans until it's warm enough to wear them alone.

ikat ruffle tank | thrifted, $3

Grabbed this tank to pull on as I tried on a cardigan and ended up liking it better than the sweater.  It's bright and fun and will also be wonderful under cardigans until it warms up again.

patterned knit tee | thrifted, talbot's - $3

Overall, a pretty great thrift haul that I'm very excited to style.

Have a good one!

Nicole