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2 Moods in 1 Travel Capsule Wardrobe: Start with Art – Poem by Bunya no Asayasu by Hokusai

As of 7:36 Central Time today, I changed the downloadable file that many of you purchased. I understand that the first file was NOT downloading at all! I'm so sorry... If I could avoid these computer-ish snafus, I would!

love,

Janice

July 9, 2020 The Kids Can Canoe All Day... And the rest of us can hike, or go with the kids, or sit on the shore and watch...

She thinks this is brilliant - the 3 families will distance from each other for 14 days; the house is plenty big enough. It will require some vigilance to make certain that the children understand what's required, but they've been pretty smart, so far...

Knowing that they're going to be there probably 'til the first of September, she wants to plan carefully. ... View the Post

How to Build a Travel Capsule Wardrobe by Starting with a Bracelet – June 2020

July 2, 2020

Yes, it's July, but we never got around to the beautiful June bracelet!

In all fairness, our beautiful jewelry designer is having to deal with getting stones and beads delivered, which isn't uncomplicated under our current circumstances. We can easily forgive things, these days...

The Moon Will be Full... And that's all she really needs to be motivated to go to the cabin for the weekend!

She's going to be dressed and in the car anyway because she has a doctor's appointment. Some things do NOT wait for the lockdown to end...

Nobody else much wants to come with her - even at the cabin, they have to be careful about not socializing closely with the other people who live around the lake. THAT means that ... View the Post

Start with Art: Door to the River by Willem de Kooning

June 26, 2020

She knew, as soon as she saw it, that the door lead to where she wanted to be...

Some other day - some other season - she knew that she would include the blue, and the darker browns and greys, in her wardrobe. But for now, for the summer, she wants lightness...

When her sister called her - at the very last minute! - to invite her to the cottage for the weekend, she knew that she had to go. She was dressed for a meeting, but decided that getting on the road was more important than changing clothes.

Besides, she knew that dinner on Friday night, at the cabin, was always pretty special! Her sister can really cook, her sister's partner is a whiz with wine, and all of the kids know that this is an important part ... View the Post

Start with Nature: Revisiting the Common Shelduck by Dennis A. Jones

June 5, 2020

In the dead of winter, four years ago, we visited with this heroine when her friends invited her south for a long weekend to get out of the cold... I'm SO smitten with the color palette; if I were to start over, I admit that brown leather goods would tempt me!

Drive Down! Her friends have invited her back...

"We've on this kick where we have full-blown dinner parties every night. It's been the same gang of us for the last few months; we could use a new guest!"

Why yes, she DID find a matching print blouse and skirt, at Uniqlo....

"Since you've been quarantined for a couple of months, and so have we, can we assume that we're safe for each other?"

"My brother and sister-in-law are ... View the Post

Rescuing a Forgotten Garment: Print Sleeveless Tunic

June 4, 2020

Today's interesting warning - if you're wearing a mask frequently, be ABSOLUTELY sure that you're washing both the mask(s) and your face every 5 minutes or so. I currently have a really painful broken-out face from mask irritation. It's both ugly and sore...

But let's look at helping one of our friends get some good use from a beautiful garment, eh?

This isn't the exact tunic, of course, but it's sleeveless, and includes the colors royal blue, black and white, just like our friend's tunic. So I'm hopeful that any advice I can think of will be useful!

With a little bit of thought, this top could be worn for most of the year - I know it's odd to think of wearing sleeveless things in cooler weather, but stick with ... View the Post

Adding Accessories: Coastal Image by Theo van Rysselberghe

May 22, 2020

Since we're having so much fun with accessories (oh yesterday was AWESOME...), I thought I'd go back and take a look at this beauty; it couldn't be more different from yesterday's wardrobe:

For me personally, I'd need another pair of shorts or 2, and maybe a dress? But this is so pretty, I think I'd manage!

Let's look at a stack of outfits to see what might be either useful or decorative! First up, sandals, earrings and the "always important for summer" tote bag:

I seldom show belts, but a simple gold belt would be lovely with so many of these outfits:

For those of us dealing with hair that's a bit over-grown, a gorgeous barrette is unmissable:

I love the endless softness of pale yellow and ... View the Post

Rescuing Forgotten Accessories: The Botanical Blossoms Scarf

May 12, 2020

Another heroine decided to dig into her accessories and unearth an under-appreciated beauty!

She knew that, when she bought it, she was thinking of bright, cheerful warm days, when she wanted to be as vivid and happy as the flowers...

So she decided that she would wear this scarf twice a month until the end of the summer. Maybe it would just be tied to the handle of her handbag, or worn in her hair, but she wanted to start using and enjoying it!

It might be warm enough to wear sleeveless tops, if she has her cardigan close at hand:

One would hope that by June, she will be able to wear shorts! At any rate, that's her plan:

By July, she plans to wear dresses fairly often. (yes, she discovered how ... View the Post

Accessories! Start with Art – The Visit by Marie Laurencin

May 8 2020

I couldn't resist coming back to this painting, and to the wardrobe based on these colors!

First, let's look back at the spring wardrobe with a core of grey and white garments, and then a few accents in blue and pink (including that blue cardigan that keeps catching my eye!):

I'm looking for accessories that are somewhat "soft" in feel, to compliment the softness of the colors here, and also for things that will look good with more than one outfit...

For our blue dress, I wanted a scarf that our heroine could wear around her shoulders (although of course she has her white cardigan that will be perfect for that!), and some earrings that also were organic in theme. Silver sandals will be useful with pretty much ... View the Post

Start with Art: My favorite puppy’s Life by Fiona Rae

May 7, 2020

The capitalization of the painting is the artist's; artists see things in ways we hope to learn, some day...

While there are quite a few really fun colors in this painting, any heroine worth her salt knows that you've got to limit yourself a bit, at least at the start of a wardrobe "build."

First up, our wise heroine decides to make certain that she has a solid base for her wardrobe in navy and white:

Her heart was SET on hot pink and purple... but the marketplace of clothing didn't really help her out much!

This is one of the hardest parts of putting together any wardrobe - deciding that you KNOW what you want, but then finding that your lovely dreams are not readily available in the retail ... View the Post

Start with Art: Yellow Calla by Georgia O’Keeffe

May 6, 2020 The Need for Zest... She's doing fine, really. But she does acknowledge that only being able to go outdoors every few days, in a mask, hurrying to get errands completely and back to the safety of her home, has caused her to feel... muted.

Not that she doesn't love her grey and white core wardrobe! But the need for a bit of zing, a touch of excitement, or the jolt of an unexpected color, is beginning to be felt in her heart.

So when she saw this, she was smitten!

It wasn't too difficult to distill her spring and summer color palette from this gorgeous painting:

She's going to indulge for warm weather, this year. She still has to be on a camera conference call at least once a week, and she often has to stand ... View the Post

Start with Art: The Visit by Marie Laurencin – grey and white and relaxing…

April 29, 2020

When she saw this painting, the first thing she thought was that the poor woman on the horse will NOT be invited in, because she's got to stay 6 feet away from the other women...

But she also thought that the colors would be idea for her wardrobe!

Now that her employer has become the last company in the world to start doing video meetings, she realizes that she needs to look a bit pulled together, and calm, and in control. At least from the waist up!

So she isolates her colors for Spring...

And then she pulls together her core Weekly Timeless Wardrobe in grey and white. She loves grey, but finding grey clothes in warmer weather isn't always easy!

She realizes immediately that she has a lot of ... View the Post

Accent a Black and White wardrobe with Magenta Purple and Green Sheen

She Doesn't Want to Go... to this week-long "professional development" seminar. She's made it clear that she's not the right person to go, and that there are other members of the staff that are MUCH better suited to attend.

Worse yet, the weather there is uncertain, and nobody seems to know how dressy this whole shebang might be...

So she has her own plan... She's going to very quietly do her own thing, in colors that might daunt a less annoyed woman!

She will be perfectly appropriate, and will behave impeccably. But a little bit of acid green from time to time is going to be her way of showing a bit of... ire, shall we say?

She understands that she will, in fact, probably have a great time. And she's going to ... View the Post