DIY: Cheap & Easy Spring Trend Jewelry

Hey, everyone!
Emilyann here, and I'm very excited about the post I have for you all today.  I'm not usually one to follow trends religiously, but there is one trend that caught my eye this season, and that is the neon trend.  Literally everything on the store shelves is neon, and I couldn't be more happy!  One of my favorite fashion eras is the late eighties.  While the nineties influence my style much more, the eighties has that creative pop of color and texture that adds something to any girly outfit.  Neon is a product of the eighties, and I'm happy it's coming back.

Good jewelry can be pretty expensive, and it goes in and out of style faster than you can say Tiffany's.  While most of us succumb to the settlement of Forever21 jewelry and Claire's, I would argue there is a better alternative.  If you've read my posts before, you know I am a huge fan of thrift stores.  I buy in bulk.  It's inexpensive and often extremely rewarding.  I plan on doing a post with some of my best thrifting finds.  Let me know if you're interested in that post.

A lot of the time, the jewelry at thrift stores can be old lady-ish and boring.  But my number one tip for thrifting is to keep an open mind.  Everything has potential.  Including the old lady jewelry at Goodwill.  I went to my favorite thrift store in the town I'm in and got a couple pairs of really big, obnoxious earrings.  Most people would think I was totally crazy.  But my mom gave me a great idea.  In the eighties, she used to buy the one "in" pair of earrings, in white, and then paint them with nail polish to incorporate them into any outfit.  My immediate thought was "neon".

All you'll need for this DIY is:

• Plastic or similarly textured jewelry
• Neon or brightly colored nailpolish
• A paper towel
• Ear piercing cleaner or rubbing alcohol

Firstly, if you bought the earrings from a thriftstore, you need to soak the earrings in some kind of cleaner.  I use the ear cleaner that I got from Claire's when I got my cartilage pierced.  You can also use rubbing alcohol. Once you've thoroughly cleaned the earrings, and the other jewelry, take part of the earring that goes through your ear and hold it up, now you have a good hold for painting it.  Take a neon colored nailpolish, I chose 24/7 by Sinful Colors.  This color is both neon and dries matte.  Make sure to paint in one direction. If it's zigzagged it will look messy. Don't forget to cover the sides.  Once you've painted in one direction, let it dry.  Then paint against the grain. If you painted across, now paint up & down. This will give full coverage and color to the earring.  Let them dry.

If you are using an earring that has a previous color, never fear.  I took this pair of yellow triangle earrings and painted on a base of a light, cool green color by Forever 21.  It's nearly white, so it cancels out the yellow and provides a clean base for the green. If you don't have a color like this, white should work fine.  After letting it dry, go ahead and apply an actual green.  I chose Sally Hansen's Green With Envy.  With this pair of earrings, I decided to use another spring trend- animal print.  I took a paper towel and rolled the earring, still wet, across the towel.  This gave it a snake skin like texture.  You can see the light green and even a bit of the yellow peeking through. I love it.

Do this to any jewelry you want neon and hop on into spring!  This DIY is great because it's incredibly simple, and it's nailpolish, so it comes off!  Just use a cotton ball and nail polish remover and you have your normal jewelry back.  Have a great spring, everyone!

xx,
Emilyann

Because Spring Is Coming...

Winter's almost over (hopefully) but the trends are here to stay!  Perhaps we should put away the darker nail polish colors, and the tights and the blazers, but I'm not quite ready yet, and I doubt all of you are either!  Here are some ways to work winter's trends into your spring outfits.

The left is the winter outfit and the spring is the right in all pictures below.
Also, all outfits were created by me on Polyvore.

Trend #1 - Mixing Metals


This trend was pretty popular on the runway as well as in the real world.  Golds and silvers don't work together?  That's crazy!  They look spectacular together and I'm glad the fashion world finally acknowledged it.  String some bright colored shorts and ribborns around the look.  Make sure to balance out the heaviness of the jewelry with the lightness of the fabric.

Trend #2 - The Trenchcoat

By taking off the sleeves of the trench coats and adding some bright accessories, and giving it an overall more relaxed feel, you can easily take the trenchcoat trend into spring with you.

Trend #3 - Tights and Boots

Tights are almost always practical.  Just change to brightly colored tights to transition them into the spring time! Use boots to give a more earthy effect.

Winter is definitely my favorite fashion month, and I'm not ready to say goodbye to it quite yet, so I'm loving these transitions.  What is your favorite season fashion wise?

xx,
Emilyann

Back-to-school Clothing

Hello all!

My name is Lillian, and I am very excited to be writing this guest post for the lovely ladies of Dressing Room Door.  Feel free to check out my blog over at Frills and Furbelows, I sure would like to hear from you!

I am here to share with you today my clothing buying strategy, and also a (small) portion of my back-to-school- shopping list.

{Know your Style, Inspiration, and What looks good on you}

I love clothing.  I love dressing up, buying clothing, having new clothing in my wardrobe, the art of fashion, and designing and styling clothing. I mean, who doesn't right? And I know, from experience that dark blue makes me look a bit pale, and mustard yellow rarely works on me.  Drop waist?  Not so much.  And those bandage dresses?  For modesty's sake I hope none of you are wearing that.  So from experience we get to know what looks good on us and we find our own comfort zone, right?  That's a good thing.  Find your style, and what looks good on you, and soak it all up.  Look in magazines and blogs to see what new trends you like, so that you can absorb those trends, and come up with a unique look for yourself.

{-} by lilliant featuring a wool cardigan

{Make a List}
This is one of my favorite parts, because I love making lists.  So make a list of the clothing you like, the inspiration that makes you want to dress a certain way, and mull it over some.  Once you make a concrete list you can go over it and see in what ways you can edit.  You can see you already own something, or  that you can sew it yourself perhaps?  Or maybe you can see which items are most likely going to show up at a second hand/vintage/thrift store, at which the prices are lower (score) and the clothing has character.  So make a list.  You won't regret it.  

{--} by lilliant featuring wide leg pants

{Go Shopping}
While I really love the whole process of finding inspiration, making lists and everything, I've got to admit, going shopping is probably my favorite.  You can go into those stores choc full of awesome new clothing (or if you're entering a thrift store... new-to-you clothing) and you can go through the racks, look at the already assembled outfits on the models, and try on all the wonderful clothing you'd like to incorporate into your wardrobe. Awesome.  Go ahead and try new things on in the store, but remember, if you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable in whatever you try on, you're probably not going to wear it at home.  So go ahead and try it on, figure out what you'd wear it with, and make sure you love it.  

{---} by lilliant featuring high heels

So.  Here are some inspiration boards of the things on my "Back-to-School-Clothing" wish list.  Inspired by magazines, tumblr, and the many trends showing up this fall.  

{1}  60's and 70's Inspired: flowy, sheer, braids, moccasins, beads, feathers, denim cut-offs, leather jackets, floral.  Bringing summery into fall.  

{1} by lilliant featuring wide leg pants

{2}  Patterns.  Lots of Patterns: polka dots, ikat, "tribal", stripes, plaid, and gingham

{2} by lilliant featuring flower jewelry

{3}  Texture: lace, wool, knit, jersey, sheer, beaded, sequins, glitter, leather

{3} by lilliant featuring a short pleated skirt

{4} Lots of Jewelry: gold, wood, chunky, whimsy earrings, bright colors

{4} by lilliant featuring kenneth jay lane earrings

So there you have it.  A partial, always changing bit of my Back-to-school Shopping List and Shopping Strategy.    

What's on your list?

 {love}
           {lillian}

Venice Giveaway!

I love giving gifts to people.  The smiles on their faces when they open the box; the excitement of choosing just the right gift... it's just something that I love to do, and so that's why I get so excited about giveaways.  This is my second one on this blog, and they're fairly close together.  However, I just couldn't wait!

As you know, I went to Venice last weekend.  I knew this would be the perfect opportunity to have a giveaway, because who doesn't want something pretty from Venice?!

On the island of Murano, right off of Venice, there are expert glass blowers.  They make lovely creations, and no two are exactly the same.  So, in the spirit of the blog, I picked up some earrings to give to one lucky winner!  I'm also giving another pair away at my main blog, Pasta and Waffles, so you can enter that one, too, for double the chance of winning something groovy.

I will ship internationally, so don't fear if you aren't in America!  I absolutely can't stand it when giveaways are restricted to the U.S., since I'm in Italy.

I'll be giving away these dainty, feminine, classy blue earrings.

How to enter:

• You must be a follower of this blog.  (This gives you 1 mandatory entry.  Don't skip this one, or you'll be disqualified.)
• Follow the blogs of the other Dressing Room Door girls. (+1 entry per blog you follow.  If already following, just leave separate comments telling us of each.)(optional)
• Link to our giveaway on your own blog, twitter, or facebook. Please leave the link.  (+1 entry per link)(optional)
• Tell us what you would wear with these earrings!  (+1 entry)(optional)
• Enter the giveaway on my other blog.  (+1 entry)(optional)
• Please leave all entries in separate comments, so it's easier to go through the list when I use the random number generator.

That's all!  The giveaway closes on April 25th, at 11:30 pm EST.

Ciao!

Style Giveaway! **GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED**

Hey, everyone!  It's Caroline here.

Today I'm giving away a few little things to our subscribers!

We'll have two winners for this giveaway, and the winners will be chosen by a random number generator.  So let's get cracking!

The first place winner will receive:

An E.L.F. (eyes.lips.face) shimmery silver liquid eyeshadow, which is great for a base, an inner-corner highlighter, or by itself, and....

...some individual brown lashes.  When glued on, these just add a bit more natural-looking fullness to your natural lashes.

The second place winner will receive three pretty bracelets:

A three-layer, blue, beaded bangle,

A turquoise beaded and painted bracelet,

and a gold, orange, green and silver bracelet that ties with a bow.

Now that we've listed the prizes, here's how to enter:

It is mandatory that you follow this blog.  Leave a comment saying that you follow it. (+1 entry)  I will verify, so no cheating!

For extra entries:

1. Link to it on your blog and leave a comment with the link to your page. (+1 entry)
2. Follow any of our blogs (Amanda's, Valentine's, Emilyann's, Lizzie's, mine, and Lauren's.) (+1 entry per blog-follow.)  Please leave a separate comment for each blog you subscribed to.  We will check!!
3. Tell us what your most treasured accessory and/or makeup product you own is.  (+1 entry.)

Leave separate comments for each entry.

Good luck!  This giveaway will be closed on March 30th.

-Caroline and the Dressing Room Door crew

**DISCLAIMER:  I am not sponsored by any of the companies mentioned.  All of the items being given away were purchased privately.**