Loop Looks

Jacket – Forever 21 (similar) | Shirt – Old Navy (similar) | Jeans – The Limited (similar) | Sandals – Unisa via 6pm.com (similar) | Necklace – The Limited (similar)

Would you believe I haven’t worked a Friday in two weeks? No wonder I was struggling with someone to wear when I was picking out my outfit for this week’s Casual Friday. Take two Fridays off and you can’t remember how to dress yourself. Thank goodness I could resort to my Friday uniform of a striped shirt, jeans, and a jacket.  Keeping everything in a neutral color pattern sure helps as well.

I also apparently forget to check the weather. When I put this outfit together and took pictures my brain was still stuck on the nice warm weather Chicago had this weekend and earlier this week. Hence the sandals and the photo sans jacket.

Hahaha, that’s funny. Today I will not be removing my jacket and I’ll be swapping out my sandals for my nude heels. Even though this outfit is inspired by Stripes and Sequins she is apparently more hardcore than me to be wearing sandals when it’s still a tad bit chilly. Also, I totally could have swapped my current purse for my previous red one and included that bit of color. But I’m lazy and hate swapping purses. Just when I remember where I put everything in my current purse, why would I switch to another one and have to relearn where things are??

Am I the only one who prefers to wear closed toe shoes until it gets warmer? Do you have more than one purse?

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Jacket – J.Crew via ebay (similar) | Shirt – The Limited (similar) | Jeans – Express via Poshmark | Shoes – MIA via Macy’s | (similar)

Today I am not in the office. I’m in the car headed to Urbana, Illinois to get ready to run 3.1 miles this evening and 26.2 miles tomorrow. But, I always feel better and more alive when I throw on a classy jacket with my jeans so even though I’m not going to the office I decided not to dress like a schlub.

I probably would wear this outfit to the office, though. A tweed jacket always classes up an outfit and this J. Crew one especially seems made to take a jeans and a shirt outfit to the next level.   Jill at Good Life for Less is the one who inspired me to purchase this jacket because I loved the way it made her simple outfits look amazing.

Oh, by the way, I also took Monday off work so my hope is to share my marathon outfit and story with you then. Fingers crossed it’s a good one!

Enjoy your weekend!

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Blazer – H & M (similar under $35) | Blouse – The Limited via Poshmark (similar) | Skirt – Banana Republic Outlet (similar) | Shoes – Eric Michael (similar)

Full disclosure: this photo of me in a bright pink blazer on a sunny day was taken on Sunday. Because today? It’s raining. Again. Also, it is almost May and I’m still wearing hosiery. There is something really wrong with this.

Actually, you can be honest, there might be more wrong with this outfit than the fact that I still have to wear hose. For some reason (I think it’s because I’m currently “enjoying’” being a woman if you catch my drift) none of my clothes feel right this week. Probably a mistake to wear pencil skirts right now, huh? Ladies, can you commiserate?

And now that you’ve gotten way more information about me than you wanted you can go back to your regularly scheduled Tuesday. I’ll be over here tugging down my skirt and trying to figure out if I should unbutton my blazer or not. Thoughts?

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Cardigan – Nordstrom Rack (similar) | Shirt – The Limited (similar) | Pants – Target (similar) | Shoes – Anne Klein | Scarf – H&M via Poshmark (similar)

When these pants debuted on my blog Jen told me she had actually bought the same pants!  After yesterday’s mind-meld of both wearing our striped blazers (totally not planned, I promise!) and the fact that we own the same pair of pants I feel we were destined to find one another in the blog world! And, of course, that meant I had to wear these pants at least once during our Mutually Inspired Series.

I took my cue from the comfy but fun pairing of patterns and textures that Jen put together and the fact that not only did I have the exact same pants, but I had a ridiculously similar striped long-sleeved shirt and, of course, a polka dotted scarf. Here’s Jen’s original outfit. Crazy that I basically had all the same pieces, right? I know this is more of a copycat than an inspiration, but I couldn’t not.

I think this is the perfect outfit for a slight casual outfit. The textures and patterns keep it from being boring and you could easily do this with just about any mixture of colors. Alternately, if you needed to be more dressed up, you could swap the cardigan for a blazer and the striped t-shirt for a blouse like this one. In fact, I just might do that in the near future!

Tomorrow is the last day of the Mutually Inspired Series! I’m sad to see it end. Especially because I had even more outfits of Jen’s that I wanted to recreate. And if you haven’t clicked over to see what outfits of mine have been inspiring Jen you need to do so right now!

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Blazer – J. Crew (similar) | Shirt – The Limited (similar) | Pants – The Limited (similar) | Shoes – Bandolino (similar) | Necklace – The Limited (similar) | Earrings – Stella & Dot via Poshmark

On Day 2 of the Mutually Inspired Series, my nautical-themed outfit echoes Jen’s post “Working the navy” where she paired her navy blazer with stripes and gray pants. And, of course, red shoes!  Without Jen’s influence I probably would have just put on gray shoes and moved on. But the red shoes add some fun color to an otherwise neutral outfit.

Since I have a professional association meeting today I wanted to dress up a bit. But pairing this blazer with these pants is a bit more fun than wearing a regular suit, don’t you think? Or maybe I just look like I’m going to a Navy event.

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Shirt – Macy’s (similar) | Sweater vest – The Limited (similar) | Jeans – The Limited (similar) | Shoes – Bandolino (similar) | Necklace – Overstock.com (similar)

Welcome to the first day of the Mutually Inspired Series where Jen from Librarian for Life & Style and I use outfits one another has posted in the past to create new outfits for this week!

My outfit today comes courtesy of Jen’s post “Purple suede and pattern-mixing” where she paired an argyle sweater with a pinstriped button-up, jeans, and suede shoes.  Since I’m working from home today I got to wear jeans, too!

Here’s the amazing thing: everything I’m wearing today I’ve had for YEARS. Seriously, this shirt is older than my college best friend’s marriage. I know because there’s a picture of me wearing it the day she got engaged.

Same shirt, back in the day

Just goes to show you that there are certain items and patterns that just never go out of style. Are they trendy? Nope. Just classic. Argyle sweaters and striped oxford shirts and two of those patterns.

Now, don’t forget to head over to Jen’s blog to see which of my outfits inspired her today!

P.S. Full disclosure: I took all my outfit photos on Sunday since it is supposed to rain all week in Chicago. My rain boots will be getting a workout this week. But I promise I really am wearing these outfits this week!!

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Shirt – The Limited (similar) | Scarf – JF&A Show (similar) | Jeans – Express | Belt – Target | Boots – Macy’s (similar)

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m off work for a few days. So today you get a weekend casual outfit from me instead of a regular casual Friday outfit! Yes, yes, I know I’m wearing boots with a heel, but flat boots like the similar ones I linked above or even boat shoes in warmer weather would also work with this outfit.  The key here is that I kept the visual interest with the striped shirt and the patterned scarf.

Next week I’m participating in Whitney’s and Franziska’s 5 Days, 5 Ways Link-Up so get ready to see how I’ve remixed pieces in my wardrobe into many different outfits.

Until then, I’m off to enjoy my weekend.  I hope you enjoy yours!  See you Monday!

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Shirt – The Limited (similar) | Pants – The Limited (similar) | Shoes – MIA via Bergner’s (similar under $15)| Necklace – NY & Co (similar under $5) | Bracelet – gift (similar)| Jacket – ZARA (similar)

Today’s inspiration photo from Two Birds is an uber-casual look of flared leg jeans, a simple white blouse, and a spring jacket. Well, like most of the Midwest it’s not spring quite yet here and, as always, I had to make my look appropriate for work.

Source

So, even though I have these pants for sale I decided to wear them anyway since they are my most flared pair of dress pants. I moved the pattern to my shirt but kept the same billowy silhouette.  The red moved down to my shoes and the tan of her jacket got echoed in this bracelet that a friend gave me for Christmas.

Is this my favorite outfit? Not really. Right now my style is much more streamlined. But, again, that’s the reason I love these inspiration Monday challenges. They help me see my closet in a different way and help me understand what I like and don’t like in an outfit.

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Jacket – Old Navy via Threadflip (similar) | Shirt – LOFT (similar on sale!) | Jeans – Express via Poshmark (use code HBAMM for $5 credit) | Scarf – H&M via Poshmark (similar) | Shoes – Sole Society (on sale!)

So many things to talk about today!  Like, mixing polka dots and stripes!  It happens to be one of my favorite pattern mixing options.  Or how about the fact that three of the items I have on today are technically thrifted?  I’ll be honest, thrift stores overwhelm me but Poshmark and Threadflip are so much easier for me to deal with.  Online thrift shopping?  Much more my speed.

And we need to mention that not only is today the last day I’m doing the Take One and Pass It On Challenge it’s also Copycat Friday.  Which means I had to find a look to copy that also incorporated one of my items from yesterday.  Those of you who guessed the scarf were totally right!

Anyway, now that I have this jacket in my closet I realized I could finally recreate an outfit I’ve had pinned for almost 9 months.

Source

Again, it’s the polka dots plus stripes that drew me to this outfit.  My jacket is a little bit more like a blazer, though, so I figured that with my nude flats it made a decent casual Friday outfit.  Don’t have a olive colored or military-esque jacket or blazer?  Try it with a similarly-colored cardigan.  Don’t like to wear stripes?  Any patterned black and white top would do.  Add riding boots and you have a great casual weekend outfit!

With that, I’ve reached the end of my participation in the Take One and Pass It On Challenge.

Outfit 1 | Outfit 2 | Outfit 3| Outfit 4| Outfit 5

I loved showing you how you can remix the pieces in your closet and pair them with other items to make completely different outfits.  I was worried that people would notice I was wearing the same things two days in a row but so far the only comment I’ve gotten was someone referred to my statement necklace yesterday when I was talking about putting together an outfit for an Oscar’s party on Sunday.  “You should wear that necklace you wore this week!” she said.  That was it.

Anyway, it was a good exercise in mixing up my closet.  And gave me hope that if I do a 30×30 challenge I will do just fine!

Also linking up with Texas Lovebirds | Two Thirty-Five Designs

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First thing’s first: have you taken the one year anniversary reader survey yet??

Blazer – J. Crew | Striped top – The Limited | Chambray top – Old Navy (similar) | Jeans – The Limited | Boots – Bandolino (similar) | Necklace – JF&A Show (similar)

In the apartment building where my husband and I live there are three floors of parking.  Jason and I park our car on the second floor.  But after taking outfit photos there last week we decided to check out the third floor to see if there was anything interesting there.  We felt like parking structure interlopers trespassing on floor three!  Of course we weren’t really trespassing.

Turns out that apparently floor three is where all the people with swanky vehicles park.  There were at least two Porsches, a big honkin’ Harley, a Pontiac GTO and this Ducati.  I don’t know much about motorcycles but my husband informed me that a Ducati is an expensive bike.  I just thought it made a good backdrop to my incredibly preppy outfit.

This outfit is also a copy of a photo that has been floating around Pinterest for awhile.

I have no idea what the original source of this photo is (I even used Google Image Search to try and figure it out).  But I do know that many, many people have pinned it or blogged it so my outfit isn’t all that original.  But I’m down with that.  I think it’s great to see different people and different body types copy an outfit so you can see what it looks like on everyone.  And, of course, unless you have the EXACT same pieces as the original outfit you’re going to put your own spin on it.  And that’s the whole fun of using a photo to get inspired.

I never would have worn this many layers before seeing this photo but now that I have it’s a look I’m enjoying.  Especially in the winter when layers are key to keeping warm!

Linking up with 235 Designs | Texas Lovebirds | Long Distance Loving

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