Clothing Essentials Challenge - Shopping & Trial Run

• Step 3: Once you've looked through your closet, determine if there are gaps you want to fill. Shop carefully!

• Step 4: Try several of the outfit ensembles suggested by the magazine/video article to see how your essentials work together. Last week, while on vacation in a warmer climate, I tried out my spring essentials. 

 
 
 

If all goes well, the next logical step is...

• Step 5: Remove all other clothes from the closet.

Yikes.

 

Clothing Essentials Challenge - Shop Your Closet

• Step 2: The article focuses on a look for spring, so start with your spring clothing. With the list in hand, look through your clothes. It helps to select the scarf, blazer, and a coordinating pair of pants or skirt first. Stay with colors that flatter you and clothes that fit well. I used ivory and navy pieces rather than the suggested white and black. Make sure you choose clothes you love enough to wear for three months!

          Go through the same process to select the basics for your summer, fall, and winter 
          wardrobes. Selecting pieces for fall and winter is a bit more challenging since the article  
          features clothing suitable for warm weather only. For example, I substituted a camel  
          colored wool jacket for the leather biker jacket, long sleeve knit tops for the tanks, and  
          corduroy pants for the shorts. 

          At this point, you have 

• grouped together key pieces of clothing for each season
• identified clothes that do not fit into the four groups and
• identified essential items you lack. 

        

Clothing Essentials Challenge

I love the ideas from the becomingminimalist blog. It suggests ways we can have more in life even as we own less stuff. 

I found the post about cleaning out clothes, however, to be tricky to carry out (see becomingminimalist). 

Even after weeding through, you'll notice that my closet still looks maximum. 

How do we pare down our clothes closets so that we still look "put together"? 

Here's the first step to meet this creative challenge:  

• Step 1: We need a practical guide to help us. Check out this great article from the March edition of Lucky magazine. The article shows you 90 looks (both work and casual) that you can create using a few essential pieces. Take a look at the video on the online magazine - Luckymag.com. 

Buy the magazine or watch the video and make a list of the essentials. We'll use it as a guide only. You want to create a look that's all your own!

Decorate with Family Recipes

College photo of my grandmother- Lovely handwriting!

This idea gives you a creative way to preserve and display family recipes. Here are the steps to honor the cooks of your past:

• Determine the space available to display recipes.

• Purchase small frames. I chose frames with clips which are easy to assemble.

• Choose a recipe from each relative. Hand-written ones gives us a sense of the loved one's personality. 

Little Rosco and Jam Cake

• Cut paper or thin fabric to make a background that coordinates with your kitchen.

• Place the original or a scanned copy of the recipe on the background.

• Add a small picture. It is nice to use a photo of the recipe's author if you have one.

To the right is a "Jam Cake" recipe written by my husband's grandmother. It seemed fitting to use a childhood photo of my husband's father. He must have just loved it when his mama made cake!

Pantry Guest

 A tribute to our guest who wasn't able to stay long.