Some that I forgot to post after I made them...

A summer (maybe more fall or spring, that in-between weather that is great for layers) outfit, playing around with colors and textures. I had trouble with my proportions in this one, sorry. And its hard to see everything I added here because of all the layers. I just really wanted to show the effect of how it looked put together, rather than having the layers next to each other and separate.  Its very gypsy-inspired, and I would wear this, most definitely.

An outfit with no options, no accessories, completely simple and causal and amazing. I rarely make ones like this.

A summery outfit inspired by black crochet and the fact that I do not abandon my black in the summer. This is one sexy beach or summer outfit, yes?  I love the layering of two bathing suit tops and then the skirt and belt. And the shoe options work for people like me who can't do heels then for folks who CAN do heels. 

Here's one I just did tonight, enjoy :)

Red Lace

So I've started a different type of collage that, to anyone else, will look exactly like any of my others. These are done specifically for me, my style, and are made ONLY out of the things I am actually capable of buying and GOING TO buy someday soon.  This makes it immensely more fun for me. Since I can't purchase them yet, I can sort of "play dress up" in a sense like I would if I actually had them. 

I've also been designing my dream closet, which I guess is probably very sad and pathetic. I've been making basic grouping collages of which items I would actually buy to put IN that closet. :)  I wont show those in this yet though. This one is for my newest collage, which I'm in love with. This dress is everything I love about lace. Romantic, elegant yet comfortable and casual enough to pass for everyday wear. Its unique, sooooo me, and completely fills this niche of style that I apparently fit into at this point in my life. I guess my styles have reflected different eras of my life...and I am SO READY to get the clothes that truly reflect the "era" I'm in right now. I'm an adult, yet still young, much more sure of myself, comfortable in my life and very much in love and happy and content - yet still passionate and a pinch of ambition and adventurousness in there too.  I'm no longer hiding in all black and angry clothes, I'm not trying to fit in a pin-up niche, I'm not jeans and t-shirt teenager girl, I'm not trying to be overtly sexy to get attention, I'm just ME! Which is a wonderful feeling, I must say.  I've always ENJOYED fashion as a form of art my whole life, just in love with the textures and colors and gorgeous diversity fabric has to offer as an art form, but I've also always used clothing to hide behind or to attain some goal before. Now I can truly embrace it as an artistic expression of myself. And its exciting. I can't wait to REALLY get started, and toss all those clothes from years of just "making do" or forcing myself into a niche I didn't belong to.  It will be truly liberating to have clothing that completely and utterly speaks of who I am.  Maybe thats silly to most people, a lot of folks would say that you dont need clothing to express who you are, and see clothing as a shallow thing to love. But thats them. This is me. I certainly am myself whether my clothes express it or not, I know that. But I FEEL FANTASTIC when my clothing can show the bits of me that I can't say out loud. When I feel like I'm wearing a piece of art and I look down and see the most gorgeous fabric or design or color and it fills me with the same joy I get when I go into a Art Museum and see the most beautiful paintings. My reactions are the same.  And when something just fits me right, and I look good, I feel ten times more confident and I'm not sitting there worrying the entire day about the fact a zipper is pinching me or I have to pull my pants up every five minutes or something is on the verge of making me flash everyone around me. I prefer to feel good in all ways about my clothes.  Its certainly not the only thing in this world I love, or that expresses me, or that I get excited about. Its just one little aspect of my life I prefer to enjoy instead of stress about or ignore completely. Why not find joy in every part of life? Love the food you eat, love the place you live in, love the world outside, love the clothes you wear, how you look, the people in your life, the hobbies you have, the skills you were blessed with.  Love it all! This is just one way I do that! I have enough in my life thats full of fear and pain and disappointment and anger...I prefer to take up every inch of space that those AREN'T occupying and fill it with joy and passion and love.  
Yeesh, sorry, that turned into a rant.  On to the collage!!!!

I'd kill for this one

I'm in love with this next collage I did tonight.  I want this outfit soooooooo bad.  A touch of gypsy, a touch of sultry, some badass and some AWESOME. 

Brown Leather Obsession

I found a wonderful website for steampunk-y corsets, and it led to me making a brown leather overload outfit.  Its not technically "steampunk" really, I don't know, I just like it. I leave a couple options for shoes. Kinda clusterfucky but its a 3am creation so give me a break!

Lace Country

A little country, a little bohemian, a little earthy....  I adore this outfit.  I would wear this 100%.  Another random pick creation. This one was fun :)

Where Silly and Sophisticated Meet Somewhere in Simpleland.

This one is something I did in another "blind pick" for a random collage, and It was a little harder than usual. I love shirt dresses like this, they have this after-sex appeal of wearing your lover's over-sized button down shirt....But then theres this cutesy scarf with animals on it. Damnit. So...I tried to balance that whimsical touch with sophisticated sexiness and then another whimsy...another kind of "kitten heel" haha.  Kinda fun, kinda odd, and even a little boringly simple, eh?  Enjoy :)

Two More for Kicks

I spent some time de-stressing and these two collages were the randomized results. I just closed my eyes, double clicked somewhere in my massive file collection, and whatever Dress came up, I made a collage for. These are my two resulting collages!

Obviously Summer-y. Lots of Shoe options. I can't do the wedge heels really so I tossed in some me-options with flipflops and boots.

An any-season outfit. Dress up or down.. Lots of comfy blacks and greys. I would love to own this, its very similar to what I'm wearing today, actually, with the greys/blacks, such and so forth.

Simplify

Heres two more collages I've done recently. I'm trying to simplify my outfits, less options, just one item per collage not like "HERES ALL THE SHOES EVAR FOR THIS DRESS" which I often do. I think that its hard for others to follow my pattern of thinking with those. So heres me trying to simplify my outfit collages to JUST ONE OUTFIT, no options.

Firefly

Just wanted to post this collage I just made featuring this absolutely AWESOME firefly themed t-shirt dress. I adore it, I adore this whole outfit.  Here you go!

A Day and Night Out on the Town

So for a change, I want to post some pictures of me. And clothes. More specifically, some outfits I got to try on while out on the town with my friend Michelle, and loved enough to take pictures of. I gotta say, I forgot how absolutely IN LOVE I am with the Buffalo Exchange store in Portland. I can't get over how much I love their clothes. Just some secondhand store with high standards (when your trying to sell that is - that's why we went there in the first place and they turned down every item!!!) and the most unique selection of any store...ever. Unique, but wearable in the real world. Its like everything you'd see everywhere, but with that one touch of character that makes it like nothing you'll ever see again. Its hard to see in the pictures a lot of the details that make these dresses what they really were, but that's okay. Here's to hoping I'll just go back and buy them soon!!

After I pay back Michelle for the things I DID get though. She got me a few items I felt I couldn't live without. Which of course I could've. But. Well. You know. Its a girl thing. A girl-in-the-midst-of-shopping-euphoria-thing. But thankfully 90% of the items there are below 20$. Which is another reason I adore that store. CHEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
Woo. ......ok.

I don't normally like stripes, but I looove green and it had such a nice fit, cut, feel, and detail on the bust. Michelle picked this one out and I really hated leaving without it. Perfect summer dress. Almost a sweater-like material too, and I love sweater dresses! 

I adored this dress. We thought it was a shirt at first, but it turned out to be more tunic/dress-y. I don't normally do white, but this might've changed my mind. I loved the lace, the filigree, and the arms (sexy, yet arm-hiding? YAY)

Well, don't mind the look on my face but....Heres another dress. I love olive green, I love thin cotton, I love wrap dresses. Nothing more to say than that.

I want to say this was my favorite, but its really hard to choose. But this might be my favorite. I was totally suprised how good  this looked on me. ANOTHER GOOD PICK BY MICHELLE! And thank goodness I had just to happened to bring my belt along. Hehe.  Also, theres the suede fringe vest. A wonderful hippy-vest that I also fell in love with. It was a little bigger than I'd want, but it looked good. I was worn. Was it better being a little loose, or is fit more important? GUH!

And these...these are the ones I tried on at the local Free People store, which btw, was extremely small, and had POOR selection. But they were pretty.

My Style

I made a collage recently that was inspired by my sudden realization how freaking diverse my wardrobe and style is. The things I'm attracted to, style wise, are so many, and are often things that no one ever can like along with another. People can get confused as to what kind of person I am. Which is silly, once they get to know me. I'm just me. I just really REALLY love the artistic freedom of physical appearance. I love pretty much everything, or can at least appreciate it and why others like it. I can go into leather and metal and black and badass....or a rainbow of colors in a sundress with feathers and lacy accents and not a stitch of black. Then theres my appreciation for "business" wear, sort of, a nice pair of slacks with a nice silk shirt and a great blazer....And then there's the "british look", which I adore.  I love the punk, I love the mod 60's look, the hippy 70's look, the leather clad 80's, and the classy curvy 40-50's.  Even the 20's. I love the burlesque look, the rocky horror picture show sex-crazed look. Also turtleneck sweater dresses with thick tights and tall boots. Trench coats to bomber jackets....military to medieval....Renaissance and steampunk....'City' or 'Portland' look.....outdoor and country.. ..And of course jeans and t-shirt is always good.   I take a little bit from all of it and apply it here and there in my everyday. Its all me. I don't always do it pure one way or another, I'm always a combination - just some days I'm way more one thing than another. A lot has to do with how I feel, how the weather is, what I own at the time, what my mood is, what the event is.  A lot of time people call me a "pirate" or a "gypsy" or "dominatrix". I got confused for a goth kid in highschool because I adored black for various reasons - 1. made me look slimmer with my sudden weight gain, 2. I was having problems with overactive sweat glands so my armpits would stain anything that wasnt black (horrible!!!! so glad thats fixed!!!) and 3. I thought it was awesome, I felt powerful and comforted in black. Then I dyed my hair black because the red dye I tried first turned out pinkish and shitty, and it was the only thing to cover it up. Also didn't want to look like a little girl anymore. I wanted a big change - and I certainly got it. But yeah, no one's really pegged me down into one style because I'm really all of them. If you see me every day you get a better sense about it. If you were in my head or if I could afford everything I liked, then you'd get it perfectly. But......that isn't so. So people around me are often confused.  Oh anyway, heres the damned collage, with a few outfits put together to symbolize a few of my "styles"  And below it is an example of one style I enjoy...but cannot really wear anymore. Heels are really hard on my body with the EDS. I can do smaller heels, but these babies just screw me up. FUCKING HOT THOUGH.

Not A Collage This Time!

Christmas and Birthday have come and gone, and I've gotten a few pretties I can alternately feel ridiculously happy and unbelievably guilty about. Yay! Heres some pictures :)

Obviously I'm on a "brown" kick. Theres also a small grey pair of ankle boots not shown here. They have no room on my little shoe shelf. But you get the idea. Got those with the brown ankle boots, which are ADORABLE and can only be worn for a small amount of time....but they were on sale and a gift from my mother, who shouldn't have, really. Then the bigger ones with better tread are my extremely comfortable every-day boots that work pretty well for outdoors. The tall with terrible tread are just for fun....and are the only non-zip or tie-up tall boots that fit over my fucking calves!!!! So an impulse buy of pure excitement. Also on sale (they pretty much all are, I rarely buy it if its not on sale).  The only ones that weren't on sale were the Keen weather boots, made of real leather, fit like a dream, and are the most comfortable thing I've ever owned, EVER. Here's the black, which I wanted originally, but they didn't have, and the brown that I got.

I actually had these saved as pictures on my computer for months, and didn't realize they were the same ones I bought for my birthday until weeks after I bought them. Made me happy :) I rarely get the things I save as pictures! What a treat! And I'm totally not buying shoes for awhile. This covers my winter and outdoor shoe need. Waterproof warm leather knee high lace up zippered comfy GOODNESS!! Just what I wanted.  The ones I REALLY wanted though were 300 and I was NOT going to pay that much. They were MUCH warmer and very cute but these were perfect and around 100. So I'm not disappointed at all.  But in the minds of most gals...whatever pairs of shoes we own...are never enough. And I sadly can admit this is the same with me. BUT I'm not buying shoes for a few years I think. I'm set. I've no money to be wasting on more things I don't need. But I'll still have fun looking.... ;)