Treasure Is Always Buried

Hello! Mariana is back! :)

As you can see, I have not been on top of my blogging and that has been the result of some BIG things that have happened. Firstly, my mom had baby number 9 this past July! So exciting and he is soooooo cute! Well, as you can imagine adding another person to the family changes things up a bit and I did not pour the time I should have into this blog.

Secondly, I wrote 3/4 of a new novel. I've always been a fantasy lover, but that by no means changes my strong liking of Science Fiction. In addition to LOTR, Narnia, and the Disney Princesses, I love iRobot (the book and the movie, but mostly the book), Star Wars (the movies), and the movie Star Trek: Into Darkness. I'm not even going to mention Marvel/DC... it has a special place in my heart. Anyway, I was getting a bit tired of my one-chapter-away-from-ending fantasy novel and decided to refresh my mind and write a Sci Fi novel. That was my big summer goal and I wrote about 58,000 words, which I rather enjoyed.


Thirdly, my sisters were the flower girls at our cousin's wedding and I was their hair stylist. These pictures were taken on experimentation day, so the hair actually looked prettier and the flowers where crystal flower pins, I just don't have pictures of that. :(

Now, I have a number four before getting to the fashion section of this post: my junior year of school started. Can you hear that scary music in the background? I sure can. Honestly, I'm scared of what my senior year will hold because this junior schoolwork is incredibly stressful.

On to the point of this post! Yesterday, I went to a consignment sale with my mom. It was really big and as soon as we arrived, those of us who came scattered. After much scouring of the shelves, I found some pretty cute stuff!

 

 

I'm really happy about these buys! It was great because I got a lot of clothing for the price of one outfit at a store. Plus, I got a couple shirts (not in pictures) to use as parts of costumes I'm going to make hopefully soon. I'll probably blog about it then. Anyway, shopping at consignment sales is definitely something I'd recommend! I've never actually been thrift-storing excepting at consignment and second-hand stores, which is kind of different, but I'd recommend that too! The biggest thing I'd recommend is digging! If you don't touch anything, you will not find anything. As I've learned from every pirate story, treasure is always buried. All the articles of clothing above are in pretty good condition, but the lavender pants, the belt, and the black flats were brand new!

Also, be prepared to have some things not fit. Two pieces I did not take pictures of were a pair of too-large jeans that I gambled with and a blue sweater that had been accidentally placed in the teen section that was supposed to be in the maternity section. Yes, that last one was a bit embarrassing, but I didn't notice until I actually tried it on.

One last tip: if a parent suggests something, don't immediately knock it. I know some parents know nothing about the fashion and what-not, but I find that my mom has a really good eye for what's pretty... and so does my dad. Sometimes I don't like things he does, but yesterday when we were shopping he pulled the brown jacket (above) off the shelf and I fell in love with it. It's really pretty, really warm, and that belt that ties in the front makes the whole thing. He's done things like that that before and has earned my respect, so-to-speak, when it comes to taste in clothing. (Don't take that literally because I love my dad and totally respect that awesome guy! :)

After my "one last tip" I must add a "one last thing". . .

Yes, I loooooooooooooooooooooooove these shoes! I am a big shoe-lover and I've been wanting shoes like these for a long time and I got these for $4.50! These shoes were my favorite buy at the consignment sale! I can't wait to wear them!

So, have you ever been consignment shopping? What was your favorite buy?

~Mariana

Orange Is In

Of all the trends to turn modest, colors are the easiest. Today, Polyvore sent me an email (you know, those junk ones that I don't ever actually look at) and the title of this email was "Orange Is the New Black." Although it's pretty likely to have been intended as a play on words due to some TV Show out there that I don't watch, my reaction was still something along the lines of "Ha! Yeah right! Black is always going to be the most popular clothing color." However, when used to apply to the change in winter to summer clothing colors, I allowed it a second thought. Although no color will ever replace black, orange is a color that is everywhere this spring/summer season. It does seem that everywhere I turn, there is some fashion article with the colors peach-orange and mint. However, that's not the only way orange is worn. Orange and white is always a nice combo and if you call pull off the bold splashes of color, (which is not what I can usually do), then orange and turquoise is another fun style.

  Now, here's a little fun fact!

 In the theory of color, cool colors (green, blue, and purple) make the warm colors (red, orange, and yellow) pop. However, each one color has another one color that makes it pop the most because it is on the exact opposite side of the color wheel. These are called complimentary colors. If you notice, the orange shades are opposite the bluish ones. In fashion you'll tend to see orange shades paired up with blue shades quite often. Now, even though peach-orange and mint aren't exact complimentary colors, they are really close to being complimentary.

PLEASE NOTE: This is only part of color theory and only applies to what colors make other colors pop. It does not actually mean that you should always pair up your clothing in this way. As I mentioned before, orange and turquoise is a really fun combination, but all that brightness on me washes me out. For me personally, more subtle shades or the combination of bright and neutral (instead of bright and bright) are often more flattering. Depending on your coloring, certain shades of certain colors will look better on you. The color theory behind the colors that look best on you is called Season Color Analysis, which I don't have time to get into in this post.

Back to our original topic: orange is in. Orange is a fun, warm spring and summer color and I can guarantee you'll start seeing it more and more. However, you can't just look at dresses, tops, and shorts; I find that it's just as commonly found as the color of bags, sunglasses, and especially jewelry. My cousin works for Premier Designs and while I was looking through one of the catalogs, what color did I see a lot? ... I don't think this needs answering. The amount of orange was not overwhelming, but it was very, very common.


So yeah. Orange is in... so what? That is usually a pretty important question to ask when looking at trends. I'd say to look in your closet and find everything (if anything) orange, just for the fun of it. How often do you wear these articles of clothing/accessories? If you find that they aren't pieces you wear much, then see if you can match some of them up with something and experiment by wearing them places. Try adding some cute jewelry with it too! Just have fun with the little challenge! If you're already into wearing orange, then awesome for you!

~Mariana

Catching Up on Time and Happenings

It's been a while since I last posted anything, sadly, but today I sat myself down and decided I was going to write at least something. Usually I use the weekends to write for this blog, but recently every single weekend has been full. One weekend was dance performances.

I must say, dancing is one of my favorite things to do, especially when it's the type with a partner. It is really just so fun! Especially when your partner is as enthusiastic about dancing as you are. Anyway, my class performed a swing and waltz, which were both so fun! The style for the swing was 40's, so we dressed up in the dress-styles of that time and some of us even went as far as hair and makeup. I was one of the people who went all the way and I enjoyed putting my hair up in the barrel rolls and applying colors to my face that I would only ever use for costume. When it came time to wait in line because we were going on soon, I was incredibly nervous. Everyone else was too and that made it easier. It was also made easier when I realized that that would be the last time I got to dance for a few months until the start of the next school year, which made me suddenly miss the classes.

Little did I know that there are dancing opportunities outside of class.

There was a weekend or two of camping somewhere in these past months along with the yearly, community Mary-Fest, a day full of outdoor activities, that ended with an (as of this year) annual camp-out with with my friend. We're trying to make a tradition of it, just for fun. These were all great fun, but there is another highlight that I want to speak of more than these.

After church one Sunday, I looked down at my lovely Sunday-dress, said goodbye (for then, not forever), and exchanged it for jeans and a plaid, button-up shirt. Then I split my hair into two sections and braided each. Then, I tugged on my sturdy cowboy boots and smiled. I was going with my family to a country themed couples shower for some people who live in my community. [note: the outfit is pretty much the same one I wore in the Country Couture post, only with darker jeans]

I get there and see many of my fun friends and it's all really nice... then things got great. No, it wasn't the brownies. As I am simply chatting with one friend, Julia, I hear a last name shouted that I hadn't heard in a long time. Excitement surged through me, or rather hopped around inside my chest like an energizer bunny, and I yanked Julia's arm and started pulling her towards the 15 passenger van that had just pulled up. Those are not uncommon vehicles around my community, due to the sizes of the families, but it was the people filing out that I was dragging Julia towards. I've already apologized to Julia, but I must now apologize to you in advance in case she has some trouble writing for her makeup page because of her arm. Just kidding, she's fine. I know because as soon as she saw where I was dragging her... well, it no longer appeared to be dragging but rather a race.

A family that had moved away to the other side of the country a long time ago and rarely were able to visit had just made a surprise visit. This family was also friends with pretty much everybody and were just such amazing people. I should also mention that they are really fun people, too.

After saying hello to everybody and catching up with them a little it was time for country line dances. Line dances are fun... but it became more fun when one of the older boys of the family said they knew a dance they could teach us. It was a partner dance, (though not a country one, which was totally fine with this not-so-country-girl). Everyone paired up and got in a circle. After a series of walking and jumping steps the girl would spin from the outside to the inside and then from there she would spin back. The boy would step forward and then everyone had a new partner. We did this over and over and it was a blast!! So yes, there were more dancing opportunities outside classes than I thought. Anyway, the dancing was awesome because everyone was super happy and fun. I am so glad that the family was so outgoing and loved dancing! That day was simply amazing, even with falling down the stairs and colliding full force with one of my friends during girl-tag.

Just a quick note on dancing: Guys, when you can dance and enjoy it and will actually dance, you are awesome in many girls' eyes (not romantically, mind you)! Remember, partner dancing is not girly because it requires 50% girl and 50% guy. All you fun guys and fun girls need to realize that when you just let go of the worry of what people might be thinking about you and you just get into the dancing it is SO FUN! Yes, it's hard, but when you stop caring you might find that other people are actually thinking that it's really cool. All of you out there who do dance, kudos to you!

I'm sorry there was so little fashion, style, and clothing mentioned in this post, but I have some ideas for upcoming posts that will be much more fun. I thought it best to at least write something instead of nothing.

~Mariana

2014 Easter Dress

I hope you had a very happy Easter, yesterday! I helped hide the thousand eggs for my community's Easter egg hunt and enjoyed watching all that hard work result in the great enjoyment of all the children. It was a big success and it was finished off with a delicious potluck dinner. It was a beautiful day, which also makes an interesting story. For Thursday, Wednesday, and Friday the weather was overcast and was raining a lot, but on Sunday it was sunny and the sky was completely clear. Coincidence? No way!

On to the fashion part of this post. In the last post I promised pictures of my Easter outfit and I shall now fulfill that promise.

 Here are the list of pieces in this outfit:

1. Dress from Dress Barn — I went shopping at a Tanger Outlet searching for an Easter dress and my mom, (who is really smart), suggested we shop for a dress in the women's section because the biggest difference between junior's dresses and women's dresses is modesty. Women's dresses are significantly more conservative than junior's dresses, which honestly shows the really sad truth about a lot of other teens nowadays. Let me tell you, after looking in a lot of women's stores for clothing I can tell you one thing... "goodbye junior section!" I'm serious, the styles are only really different in the fact that junior's clothing shows more skin. The only down side is that I'm pretty small (only 5'3) and sometimes the stores don't have a size small enough for me, (I know I won't be saying that one day), but it's worth it and I can always take the piece in. Even the my Easter dress is a size too big, but it's not too bad. Highly recommend you trying that, if you already haven't. Thank you so much, mom!



2. Beige Sweater —  Found a dress I love with a good price and length... but with no sleeves, only a thick band. I'm sure that would be modest for some of you, but my family prefers that I have sleeves. That was a bit of a dilemma, but it wasn't as hard at all to find a sweater as I thought. We bought the dress and soon found a 3/4 length sweater that matched at Ann Taylor. However, that wasn't the only item purchased at Ann Taylor, which leads to the next parts of my Easter outfit.

3. & 4. Necklace and Bangle — Checking out the sweater at Ann Taylor, what is right there near the counter? Jewelry 60% off. The two layer, gold chain necklace with little coral beads and the coral bangle really pulled the outfit together and definitely made it pop. Jewelry can do so much for an outfit. The sweater made the dress look more casual, but the jewelry added that little bit that both made the look complete and dressier. There was one more piece that made the outfit dressier as well...

Easter up-do (after an few hour's wear)

5. Nude Pumps— I've already sung the praises of these 3" pumps from Payless before, but I really love these versatile shoes. They seriously go with every dress/skirt! Okay, maybe not everything, but they go with a lot of closet including this Easter dress.

I had my Easter dress and was super excited to wear it Saturday. I just added some borrowed gold loop earrings from mom, some soft makeup, and a sleek, fancy, side up-do (right) and I was ready to attend the beautiful Easter vigil. So that was my Easter outfit and how I made it modest and stylish. I highly recommend shopping at outlets because although they might be "last season" they really are just as trendy and they are always having awesome sales on already lowered prices. We got some real deals for this outfit and although yes, it wasn't cheep, modesty does sometimes come at a price; however, purity is always worth the cost.

~Mariana

Perfectly Pretty Pastels

Wow... does time fly or what? If you said "what," then I envy you. I won't bog you down of the boring details of the past few weeks, but there are two interesting events that happened weekend before last that I'll share after the main event: fashion; topic: trendy spring pastels. 

 In past years pastels never caught my attention, but this year I'm totally opposite. Right now I'm loving the softness of the pastel look. You can wear pastels on pastels or with a bright contrast. Seeing as it's spring they are very fashionable (obviously) and there are two colors I've noticed are really in: mint and pinkish-peach. Those colors look so great together and I am so sad that the peach colored shirt I have has been missing for six months and is still missing. Such sadness and mystery. Maybe I'll find it one day with all the books and other random stuff that I've strangely lost.

 Back to our main topic again, be sure to check back soon to see my Easter dress, how I've made it modest, and accessorized to make it nicer and have more pop. I really love the whole outfit and can't wait to wear it Saturday night for the Easter Vigil.
 

USS Yorktown (battleship)

Laffey (destroyer)

Now to exciting personal events in my life. The weekend before last my family and I went camping in Charleston South Carolina. Why this location?

Submarine

Selfie in the gift shop

Charleston is on the coast where there one can go and tour the U.S.S. Yorktown, a battleship; the Laffey, a destroyer; and a sub, of which I have forgotten the name. There were a good amount of people there, but one could simply roam around for as long as one wants for it's a self-guided tour. Plus, if someone is in the military and wears his/her uniform, then they can get in free, so it was pretty neat seeing soldiers of the different branches here and there. One thing I especially liked was that the battleship's top was covered in military planes, (and those were in addition to the planes within). Overall, it was really cool and a fun learning experience that I enjoyed very much!

I'm on the far left holding the baby

The other notable thing that happened up in South Carolina during our camping trip: I got to see the ocean for the first time in my entire life! Yes, it might sound crazy that this sixteen year old has never been to the ocean before, but it's true. We went there expecting to wade in the shallows and get our ankles wet... well, eight children going to the ocean for the first time... even the low-70's temperature couldn't stop us from slowly, but surely getting more and more wet until we were soaked. The sandy-freezing-half-hour-long car ride back to the camp site was not the most pleasurable part of the trip, but the fun we had in the waves were worth it, (or at least it was for me).

~Mariana

Spring Rose and Winter Black

        

Right now it's that in-between time of the seasons. We're a few days into spring, but it's not until Easter and afterwards that one wears a lot of white and pastels. It's that small part of spring when we're still wearing blacks and other winter colors. Today's pictures show my combination of the winter and spring fashion stage we are in right now. Diving into my closet (just kidding, I don't have that kind of energy in the morning), I pulled out a rose colored spring sweater that I absolutely love (from Kohl's) and my long, black, lace skirt (from Maurice's). For a classy and elegant look I added these nude pumps, which are a new addition to my closet I got for $24 at Payless. Let me add here that finding heels that aren't stilettos or almost-stilettos was so difficult for me! I was looking online in most every store I could think of, but 3" or less pumps weren't to be found... until I finally thought of Payless. These 3" nude pumps are such nice shoes because they go with so much and I found them to be rather comfortable, as far as heels go. Another note on these shoes: I have officially ran in these heels several times... just for the sake of feeling cool because I was running in heels, (even if they're small ones). Regardless of the running in them though, these shoes were definitely a great buy.

I realize I haven't actually had many outfit inspirations recently, especially ones that I myself have modelled. Maybe it's because of the lengthy process of getting the camera, tripod, and everything ready and finding the outfit; however, this was the outfit I pulled together for church and loved, so I just snapped a few pictures. This is undoubtedly a formal outfit, but it could also be worn to simply nice events, like dinner, and can be less dressy with flats instead.

~Mariana

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

 



Saint Patrick's Day... I do love the holiday, but I most always get into that last minute situation in the morning where I'm franticly looking for something green to wear so I won't get pinched (even just on my way to get a little breakfast). This year, I've come up with a list of items I have that are green to prevent that:

1. Although I'm not the biggest fan of wearing shirts with words or brand names on them, on Saint Patrick's Day if I just want to be comfy while doing school or anything else, it's an easy go-to.



 2. Flower print is also an easy way to get some green on you, for flowers almost always have leaves. It can be a top, or some pants (know that mine are looser than the pants in the image below), or a dress

3. If it happens to be a cold day and you're going out, a military jacket is always a green option for March 17th, even if it's not a clover-green. In fact, a green hoodie or sweater could also work well.

4. Don't forget jewelry! It can be mint, emerald, olive, etc., but a green necklace or bracelet could save you from a pinch



















5. Scarves are tricky this time of year, but since the weather is still on the chilly side, a lightweight scarf is still in season and if you happen to have a green one like me, it could easily be a nice green article if you're going out somewhere






















6. If your closet still fails you or you just feel like wearing a little extra green, don't forget the sock... yes, the sock. Although they aren't a large or really much of any part of fashion, having warm feet is always nice in the cool of March and green socks are nice for the cool of March 17th















I wish all of you lasses some Irish luck finding something green to wear this Saint Patrick's Day!

~Mariana