I thought I’d share the thrill of having an inspiration board. I hang mine between my closets (yes, closets, but they are both very small) in an alcove with my jewelery. This (above) happens to be my current fashion inspiration board, and this month featuring mostly bright colors, many of which I found in Vogue, as well as as few tags and logos from places like Target and Urban Outfitters. (A fashion inspiration board doesn’t always have to include photos of clothes because “inspiration” can come from anything. I hung up the Jenna Malone photo in the lower right hand corner because I like the style of the photograph, not because I particularly like the clothes.) I like using magnets because they make it easy to switch images, but a bulletin board or sticky-tack directly on the wall works, too!

I bought these bright pink, pointy, graffiti-ed high heels for $15 at a little store in Cape Cod. I don’t know who made them, but I would buy another pair in a second if I could find them. They’re like a work of art, more comfortable than you might imagine, and always get some kind of comment when I wear them. (more…)

These glasses are $160, but I think even $20 too high a price. Get similar version for $7 on the sidewalks of St. Mark’s Place (NYC).

Low-budget shopping is all about creativity! Basic neutrals — like jeans, kakhis, and woven tops — are always findable for a bargain, but the true mark of a shopping crafts(wo)man is if she can put together a fashionable outfit for less than $50. (Lucky for you, I do it everyday.)

1. Re-define cheap. Not fall-apart-in-three-wears cheap, but $5-for-all-of-this?! cheap. You can get a sweater for $10. You can get shoes for $5. And you will.
2. Have a budget and stick to it. If you can only spend, say, $50 a month then you’ll want to get as much bang for your buck as possible, and you’ll be forced to shop as inexpensively.
3. Shop sales racks. Make a bee-line for the super-sales racks and be prepared to hunt and pick. I’ve gotten $1 sweaters at Gap. I’ve gotten $3 leggings at American Eagle.
4. Shop at the end of the season. If you like to wear your clothes right when you buy them, it’s hard to shop out-of-season, but most clothing stores have some accelerated version of time, so you can buy super-sale summer items late in the summer when retailers consider them out of season. Other amazing times to shop: after Christmas in January and after Fourth of July. If you really like the capture as much as the kill, then try shopping in February. A lot of items are picked over, but this is when you can find items at Gap, Old Navy, and other retailers for cents rather than dollars (seriously).
5. Ignore labels. Who gives a crap what the label says? (Unless you want to know where it was made or what it’s made of. These are fair questions.) Imagine the $5 JC Penney shirt folded neatly on a lead table at Banana Republic. Does it make you want to buy it more? Then buy it because no one can even see the label but you, and you can only see it if you’re looking. (With clothes, it actually is what’s on the outside that counts.) (more…)

As the comments and conversations about my outfits grew and grew, I decided I need to get to the bottom of the hullabaloo, so I started taking pictures of my clothes every morning. What did I learn? Sometimes, I go a little overboard with color. Sometimes, I miss the mark. Sometimes, I actually hit the mark with a delightful quirkiness that others simply call weird.

All of my outfits are featured in a single Flikr set. You can view the images as a slideshow, or as a large group with more detail, or you can click on each outfit individually to see my what-not-to-wear-esque commentary or look at tags noting where I purchased each piece. (more…)