for her pretty sissy.

I told you guys a few weeks ago that I was starting my guest stars adventure with my lovely older sister. She's a tall girl with a teensy little waist, so I thought a high-waisted, pleated skirt would look great on her. I got the inspiration from these pictures of Olivia Munn and Lea Michele from Instyle.com:

 

I also wanted to get my sister into a pop of color, because she lives in NY and has an aversion to all things bright and cheerful (haha, half joking). I wanted her to wear whatever we got over and over again though, so I knew I had to tread lightly. We went outlet shopping with our step-mom down in FL, but ended up with 11 pairs of shoes instead of anything for this blog post. I take that back, we got 1 Kate Spade necklace in a beautiful deep purple (space truckin. One of my dad's favorite albums. Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about.....no one? Ok I'm done.) color.

So, I went shopping alone in Chicago to find the perfect skirt. I actually saw and bought the H&M skirt for myself before I put my selfishness on the shelf and remembered it would look great on my sister too. And you can't beat the basic color-blocking. I headed over to Old Navy to find a top, and found the black & white printed tank for $20! For the pop of color, I settled on a zip front cardigan in teal, also a steal at $16. Did I mention the skirt was $17?? A whole outfit for $50. I'm the winner AGAIN!

She tried everything on last weekend when we saw each other in Ohio, and wore it to work this past week. She could wear a paper bag and look gorgeous, but I'm loving this look on her. What do you think?

 

 

skirt: H&M. top: Old Navy. cardigan: Old Navy. necklace (worn as bracelet): Kate Spade.

for some ch-ch-ch-changes.

I was tooling around the dashboard of my blog the other day, making a few updates, and I noticed that my first post was back in March- making this my sixth month! I started to think about the projects and challenges I've done so far, which ones were successful and which ones not so much, and what I wanted to do on my little blog next.

My favorite posts so far have been the Vegas cut-out dress search, the 10 in 10 challenge and of course, the day to night leopard print project. Why? I really love the satisfaction of buying something and making it into tons of different outfits, and many of the pieces I bought for the 10 in 10 and leopard print projects I've already worn time and again (the BR orange dress, J.Crew green silk button-down, Loft animal print shirt and J.Crew leopard print skirt have been around the block). These projects have also helped me greatly improve my budgeting skills, mostly because now I feel a sense of duty to create new outfits with project purchases- to share them with all of you!

So, I'm going to continue on the challenge route, hopefully once a month, and continue to create as many outfits as I can with pieces bought for a challenge. I'm also going to introduce some very lovely guest stars to lauren goes shopping! We're going to agree on a budget for their outfit, each choose an inspiration picture and then hit the shops together. The idea is to get the guest star out of their comfort zone, the same goal I had in mind when I started this blog. First up is my beautiful sister Erin, and we'll be shopping together on our family vacation in FL next week.

Hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing weekend, and thanks so much for reading- it's really nice to have a (self-invented) purpose for my frequent shopping trips.

me and the seester, guest star to be!