Gray Velvet Dress Pants & FBFF

I'll be in Michigan for the next 2 weeks, which means I will be working in the office. My company is pretty relaxed when it comes to dress code, but I still find myself struggling to put an outfit together. What can I wear that is 'nice' casual and appropriate for work? The office is not very fashion forward so I'm a little reluctant to bust through the doors wearing crazy heels or zany colors. I'm working on my courage.

If i were the king of the ooooffficce, with a woooooof and a wooooof.


This is what I wore on Thursday. Pretty simple. Nothing too exciting. Kinda wrinkly since I sat in it all day and took the photo after work. Please forgive?



What is exciting is the deal I got on these pants!

Gray Velvet Dress Pants: These are from the GAP Outlet. They were on the clearance rack, of course. I was floored when I saw the price tag - look at all the pretty colors! I peeled off all of the tags to see the progression of mark downs. This is how it went.

$44.99 - $16.99 - $9.99 - $7.97 - $4.97.

Love it!

There was a black pair too, but I liked the gray better.

This week's FBFF is about finding the balance between life and blogging. Go to Modly Chic to see other responses!

1. When it comes to prioritizing your life, in what place does blogging fall?
This is a hard question. It is really not a priority over things like family, friends and work, but I have been choosing it over some of my other hobbies lately. I'm trying to find a good balance so I can make some time to spend on (non-fashion) photography, crocheting, reading, attempting to write music and exercise. Yes, blogging has been a really great excuse to NOT work out...eek.

2. We all wish we had more free time to dedicate to blogging and all it entails. What are your tricks for taking advantage of the time you do have to be as productive as possible?
I like to post individual pictures of clothing items on top of an image of me wearing the item. This editing process takes a little longer than simply posting one photo. To make it more manageable I try to plan ahead. On the weekends I spend time taking photos of the clothing items I want to feature in the near future. I log them into a spreadsheet with all of the details (where I bought it, for how much, was it on sale/clearance, etc). When I'm ready to do a post I can easily grab the item image, toss it together with the photo of me wearing it, quickly look up the price, throw down the wrinkled dollar and then pull them all together (using Indesign). A lot of pre-work on the weekends saves a lot of time during the work week.

3. Have you discovered any short-cuts that makes blogging easier or more time efficient?
Sometimes I write my post in a word doc or e-mail draft and paste into blogger when it is complete. I'm not sure why it is more time efficient, but it seems to help me. Other than that, I'm at a loss. I need to read other responses to this question, because I obviously need help with blogging efficiency.

4. Do you have an editorial calendar or something similar that helps you plan ahead?
No, but I'm curious to see how others use an editorial calendar. The only thing I use is my master clothing spreadsheet (mentioned above), but I don't ever plan my outfits in advance. I decide every morning what to wear and try my best to incorporate an item I would like to feature on the blog.

5. If time wasn’t an issue what would you be doing on your blog/for your blog that you aren’t doing now?
Ugh, so many things. There are some DIY projects that I have on the back-burner and also a couple tutorials I've been planning to share...eventually. Crocheting is a hobby that I would like to showcase on wrinkled dollar, but I haven't had ANY time to pick up a hook. I would like to post more informative posts with useful tips. Lastly (and most importantly) I wish I had more time to read and comment on everyone else's posts.

I'm done with the next wrinkled dollar spotlight. Look for the post tomorrow!

15/30: Beige Open Cardigan

Lazy Sunday today. So lazy that I showered long enough to sing a full rendition of Part of Your World from Disney's Little Mermaid. Sign of a good day? Yes, I think so.

Tired Sunday is usually preceded by fantastic Saturday and yesterday was no exception. We went to a Wine & Vinyl party. Joe and I collect vinyl so this was right up our alley. Great fun.

This morning we took care of one of the items on our Bloomington Bucket List. For those of you who don't know, we are only living in Bloomington temporarily while Joe is working on his MBA at IU. Since his graduation is quickly approaching we are trying to hit all the places we love one last time, as well as checking out places we never got around to visiting. So anyway, today we had brunch at Le Petit Cafe, a family owned southern French bistro. You basically get what they are serving that day and they bring it out course by course. Some highlights today included cold strawberry soup (kinda like yogurt), cheese pastries, mushroom quiche, hard boiled eggs in a tomato puree and some dessert with blueberries. I'm not sure what it was, but it was yum. And they gave us banana bread to take home. I'm stuffed and have been fighting off a nap all day since.

Alright, back to clothes. Here is 15 of 30. I'm officially 1/2 way done!

Beige Open Cardigan: I found this cardigan at the Gap Outlet about a year ago. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly how much I paid, but I'm fairly certain it was under $8.00. Sorry guys, I won't let you down in the future; as of January I've been tracking the price of everything I buy. ;)



Cool location, right? We just fell upon it today while driving around.



Hey check back tomorrow if you get a chance. The plan is to write about my thrifting tips & tricks.

bye.

Gingham Military Flannel

I love Mondays so much more when I don't have to work! Joe and I had a great day together and got a lot done.

Last night we decided to go through our closets and get rid of some stuff. As much as I love acquiring new pieces, I like getting rid of old ones too. My closet usually remains the same size since I typically donate/sell as much as I buy.

We separated our stuff into three piles:

1. Attempt to sell
2. Donate
3. Trash














So, today Joe and I went over to Plato's Closet with our "attempt to sell" pile. They didn't buy much of what I brought, but they did take a summer dress, for which they offered me $3. That doesn't seem like much, but it took $3 off a really cute $8 dress I found. Joe on the other hand did very well, making $44!

The feature item today is something I picked up at the outlet mall on Saturday. It is a little bit more than I usually like to spend for a top, but it is nice quality so therefore worth a couple extra bucks. Plus, I think it has potential as a great layering piece. Here I am modeling while doing some shopping at Goodwill yesterday:



Military Gingham Flannel - GAP Outlet had all clearance items marked down an additional 30%. This was marked at 13.99 so I got it for $9.79! Go ahead and check my calculation, because I did like 5 times. Math is not my forte.



As a side project of this blog I am tracking how often I wear items I purchase. The purpose of this is to determine cost per use. It sounds complicated, but it is basically taking the price of the item divided by the number of times it has been worn. So for example if you buy a shirt for $10 and you wear it 20 times, it is like paying $.50 cents for every wear. Using this logic I can truly see where I am getting the most value. If I pay $20 for a pair of jeans and wear them 85X this year that is much better than buying a skirt for $5 and only wearing it 10X. Make sense? Tracking this information will also help aid in the donation process since I will have a better idea of the items I'm not wearing. You can expect to hear more about this project in future posts, but I thought I would bring it up, because I am hoping to get a lot of wear out of the military-gingham-flannel (quite a mouthful) so I can bring the cost per use down and increase the total value!

Ok, I'm spent. Some great items coming soon - stay tuned!