What I Bought - February 2013

I thought I would start rounding up my clothing purchases on the blog each month.  I love when other bloggers do this, so I thought I would jump in and do it too!  I'm going to hit you with three months over the next three days (and get caught up).  Now, first a little about the "B" word - Budget!  I don't have a set monthly budget for clothes specifically.  I have a very strict food/household goods budget that I stick to.  I'm so militant about staying within my means (nothing is worth the stress of consumer debt).  I don't work outside the home (I work part-time from my home and when I do have to go to the mill I have a company uniform I wear).  So really my needs are slim (meanwhile, my wants are out of control - ha!).  I like to keep things simple and basic and I can't stand a crammed closet.  I generally buy good quality items that I know will last a while.  Therefore, I rarely spend more than $100 a month on clothes/beauty items.  This month was an exception because I won a gift card to Coldwater Creek!  Here's what I got in February:

Top from R to L:

Printed jeans from Coldwater Creek - $37.16 (on sale)

Broken-in straight khakis from Gap - $40 (20% off promotion)

Slim ankle pants from Coldwater Creek - $41.96 (on sale)

Winter Wonderland cardigan from Coldwater Creek - $49.54 (on sale - no longer available)

Middle R to L:

Slim ankle pants from Coldwater Creek - $44.21 (on sale)

Indigo Dream ankle jeans from Coldwater Creek - $53.06 (on sale) - LOVE these, so soft!

Slim ankle pants from Coldwater Creek - $41.96 (on sale)

Bottom:

Castaway shell from Coldwater Creek - $41.96 (on sale - no longer available)

Necklace from Coldwater Creek - $27.99 (on sale - no longer available)

Total = $377.84

-$337.84 (Coldwater Creek gift card)

Grand total spent out of pocket = $40

Go forth and shop responsibly!  

See you tomorrow for March's purchases!

What I Wore Wednesday 5-1-2013

One outfit this week.  It's a bright and cheerful one though!

Tee - J.Crew outlet

Pants - Gap

Shoes - Max Studio

Bag - Momentum Textiles trade show swag

Here's a better look at the bag from a few contract trade shows ago.  I ran across it in my closet and thought it was perfect for this time of year.  And bonus, I didn't spend a dime on it! 

I'm linking up again with The Pleated Poppy for WIWW and Shanna for Random Wednesday today!

"Blog Inc." Review

 

I posted this picture on Instagram (@spryonthewall if you aren't already following) this past weekend and got some comments about a review/what I thought of the book.  So I thought I would do a post about my thoughts of Blog, Inc. by Joy Deangdeelert Cho.  First of all, it's a super quick read, I mean I zipped right through it.  I found some useful information but I would really say it was steered towards new bloggers.  Look, I've been plugging away at this blog for a little over 4 years - 4 years!?!  And I'm still baffled by a blogging, I've learned a lot by observing, trying and just trial and error.  I think she oversimplified a lot of it.  If you don't have a blog and you read this book, it makes it sound like you can start growing and cashing in lickety split (and lickety split for me is a year or two).  There are so many blogs out there it's just not that easy.  Maybe it's just me and my current level of blogging frustration* (I'm sure you all have been able to tell because I just haven't been posting) but I didn't get much out of this book at all.  Have any of you read it?  What do you think?  Am I just sour grapes?  :o)

 

*My frustration has come to a head the past few months because I just feel so overwhelmed and saturated with blogs.  It's like information overload and I feel like 90% is just noise and not much use.  I struggle with whether to continue on a daily basis.  I'm going to re-assess my part in the blogosphere after Bloggy Bootcamp next month.  That will be the make or break time for me.

Happy Weekend!

First up, head over to Elembee today and see what I love about my home state of North Carolina (as part of her outstanding "Across the USA" series)!

Meanwhile, we don't have any plans for the weekend other than to avoid all the traffic from The Masters.  It's been crazy, a lot of people rent their houses out that live around us and it's been party central every night.  Between that and the endless stream of jets in and out of the private airport near us at all hours of the day and night, I'm done.  My husband, on the other hand, loves it (he's headed over to Augusta National on Saturday).

I'm a Jackie Robinson fan and I am so excited about "42" which opens today:
 I'm hoping to sneak off and see it in the next few days.  I have a couple of books about Jackie that I would recommend if you are interested in more information about him:

Jackie Robinson: A Biography by Arnold Rampersand - a comprehensive and extremely informative book on his life. I loved reading this!

Teammates by Peter Golenbock - a kids book that is one of my all time favorites about a day in Cincinnati where Pee Wee Reese took a stand and put his arm around Jackie and declared him his teammate.  I bought this book before I was a mother and now it's one of my daughter's favorites.

Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend?  See you next week!

The Scary Hair (color) Incident - Garnier Olia Review

I had a few people ask me to share my home hair color horror story, so here goes.  First of all, I just want to say that I really like Garnier products, never had an issue with any of them and I certainly don't want this to be a hate filled rant - but I do hate the Olia hair color product ;o)  Here's why:

Yeah, that's my hair the day after I colored it.  Like I said before, I've been coloring my hair at home for 20+ years and have never seen anything like this.  The aftermath was a weird patchwork of platinum, orange, fire engine red, burgundy and brown.

I always like trying new at home hair color products and when I saw the new Garnier Olia advertised with promises of oil powered color, little odor, etc, I knew that I was going to try it!  So off I went to the store to check out the red options.  There were only a couple in this line (first red flag - no pun intended).  Reds are tough, trust me I know.  I decided on this one:

I opened up the package and was met with this:

Second red flag - the developer wasn't already in the applicator bottle.  This gave me pause, because with most haircolor products the developer is already in the applicator bottle all perfectly pre-measured and ready for the color to be added.  I went ahead and squeezed the developer in the applicator but it was thick and super hard to get out of the tube.  I felt I couldn't get all of it in the applicator, which made me uneasy.  I then added the colorant and shook it up as directed.  It really didn't want to mix.  It was gloopy and splotchy but it finally appeared to be mixed.  I applied it as directed and as I normally do with any at home color.  But I noticed that as the color was running out, the more the mixture appeared to be more developer than color.  Weird.

Tick, tock, tick, tock - time to wash it out.  Took an amazingly long time to get the color out, I've never had so much red left on a towel after washing the color out in my life.  Like a crime scene.  It looked odd, but it was still wet and I decided to let it air dry and see what happened then.  Well, you've seen the results.  I was gobsmacked.  I had no idea WTF happened - or how to fix it.

Long story, short, I decided to go and get Clairol's temporary haircolor with no ammonia in a brown shade to try and tone down the crazy red and even out the blonde/yellow/oranges.  It worked good enough, not great, not perfect, but okay for now.  Luckily reds fade quickly and even after all this time/additional color the Olia is still washing out leaving my towels with a lovely reddish hue when I dry my hair.  Insane.

That all being said, I've seen several people use this brand and love the results, of course they weren't using the red.  Needless to say I won't be using this color ever again. 

As for what I will be using, these are the products that I've been super pleased with and would recommend:

L'Oreal Feria

Hands down the best color in my opinion.  They have a ton of shades to choose from.  I've been using it on and off since it came out years ago.  Delivers a gorgeous, vibrant, natural looking color.  Here's how my hair looked after a Feria coloring a few months ago using the color on the box above:

Gorgeous, right?  And delivered exactly the color promised.  This was an Instagram picture so excuse the quality.

Clairol Nice N' Easy foam

Super easy to apply and reliable results.  Not as intense of a red as I like, but delivers a lovely, natural hue.

So there you go.  Have any of you tried Olia yet?  What are your thoughts?  Any other at home haircolor products to you love (or hate)?  Anybody else had a color disaster?  Do tell!

Happy Weekend!

What a crazy past couple of weeks.  Here's a bit of what's been going on.

As everyone knows Google Reader is going bye-bye as of July 1st.  Thanks Google.  Really, I mean thanks for throwing a wrench in my blog reading/organization world.  Jerks.  Anyway, feel free to hop over and follow me on Bloglovin'.  They are making it super easy to import all your Reader info (it takes a minute, seriously).  I also signed up for Feedly to just have another RSS Reader option (they are making it easy to import your Reader info too).

I signed up for Bloggy Boot Camp in Charlotte!

I'm so excited!  I'm ready to reignite my blogging fire and learn a lot of useful information.  Because, duh, I've been a super slacker blogger lately.  Is anyone else going to be there?  Let me know!

This happened:

I tried a new at-home haircolor and it messed up my hair in the most epic way, I had no less than 4 different colors at random locations around my head.  In over 20 years of coloring my hair at home, nothing like this has ever happened.  And you can tell from the picture how silky smooth my hair was after coloring *ahem*.  I'm debating on doing a post about this, I don't want to be crazy mean to the company, but the issues with this product are multifold.  Would you be interested in reading about it?

And lastly, kudos for PopSugar for taking over Shopstyle and rendering the site virtually impossible to use.  That's why I  haven't been able to do any outfit stuff because I can't create a layout for love or money.  I have emailed, tweeted, DM'ed, screamed, used two computers, a tablet, 3 different browsers and still the site is basically useless to me.  To say I'm angry would be an understatement.  Is anyone else having issues with the site?  It can't just be me.

Boy, I'm all sour grapes today.  Well, it all can't be rainbows and unicorn farts.  On to a better week next week!  Have a great weekend!

My Fall 2013 Picks!

Fall 2013 RTW picks on Pinterest

The weeks and weeks of Fall 2013 ready-to-wear presentations are now over and I've combed through every. single. collection.  No lie (I mean I haven't been a good blogger because I've been looking at collections every night - I love it!).  I have finished pinning all of my favorite looks, details, and accessories.  We are talking 1,099 pins.  Wow!  So pop over and take a look at all of my favorites.  I just love seeing them all in one place and I hope you do too!

Have a great weekend!