10 Tips for Being Fashionable on a Budget

Photo Courtesy of Packaging Source


We're all feeling the pinch in our wallets right now.  But just because the budget is tight doesn't mean our wardrobes can't still turn heads.  I myself am a major cheapskate when it comes to my clothes.  I don't mind paying a little extra for quality clothing, but for the most part, I won't buy things full-price.  Here are my 10 Tips for Being Fashionable on a Budget.

1. Join Email Newsletters.  Does your favorite store have a website?  If they do, join their email list.  Many store send coupons and sale announcements through email.  It's a great way to be on top of what's going on, what's on sale and get special "members only" coupons.

2. Host a Swap.  I did this with my friends in New Mexico and it was a ton of fun!  Every person brings their gently used clothing, shoes, jewelry, whatever and you swap!  We drew names so everyone took turns choosing an item that they wanted.

3. Consignment Stores.  These are great places to pick up like-new clothing.  I'm a huge fan of Plato's Closet.  I picked up 4 shirts for $4 total the other day!  Some of those shirts were only 75 cents!  They're also great places to get cash for your gently used clothes and shoes.

4. Coupons.  I like the ones that are good for your ENTIRE purchase.  Kohls frequently has 15% or sometimes even 20% off your entire purchase coupons.  Also, Coupon Album is a great resource-it finds all of the store coupons and online discount codes that are available and sorts them and stores them all in one place for you.

5. Shop Online.  This can often be a test of will power, but it can also have benefits.  Lots of places have online-only sales.  Look for places that have easy return policies, though.  Many stores offer free shipping if you spend a certain amount, too.

6. Buy Smart.  Look for pieces that go with items you already have in your closet or that won't go out of style in 3 months.  Look for those classic shapes and colors that you can still wear 5 years from now.  I seriously have shoes still from high school.  If you find a shirt you really love that goes with lots of things, buy it in a few colors.  If you work outside the home and need "work" clothes, look for pieces that can be worn both at work and at home, so you don't have to buy 2 wardrobes.  Shop off season-stock up on sweaters at the end of winter, bathing suits in the fall-when things are on sale!  If you have an outlet mall near you, use it!  Most major stores have outlet centers.  But buyer beware-just because it's at the outlet doesn't mean it's cheaper.  Shop smart!  

7. Buy for Your Shape.  When you're in the middle of losing weight is not the time to go shopping for a new wardrobe.  Of course, you'll need things that fit until you're at your desired weight.  But don't buy things that don't fit-that are either too big or too tight, thinking "They'll fit someday."  Look for things that fit well and flatter your figure.

8. Accessorize!  A necklace or belt or scarf can jazz up any outfit easily and can be used for more that one outfit.  And they're generally much less expensive!

9. Read Your Labels.  Nothing ruins your clothes faster than not following the care instructions on the label.

10. Don't Be Complusive.  Don't just buy to buy.  You should never have buyer's remorse.  Unless you love it, don't buy it!  Know what you'll wear, what you won't and what's worth spending a little more on.  Some pieces are investments-like a good winter coat or a pair of boots things like these should last longer and are worth buying a better quality so that they do.   

What are your tips for saving money while still dressing fabulously?

*This is an example of a Fashion Friday giveaway entry!

Author's Note-I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Gap Outlet blogging program to be eligible to win a $20 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

10 Blogging Mistakes

I found this via West Sac Honey and thought it would be a good thing to share.  It's a post called "10 Blogging Mistakes" from Life With My 3 Boybarians.  

Are you making any of these blogging blunders?

1. Being totally anonymous.

It isn’t necessary to reveal confidential information like your last name or city to establish that you are a real person. But revealing something about yourself lends your blog credibility. As your reader, I want to know what we have in common, what we don’t and what I can learn from you. Introduce yourself in a descriptive about meprofile, or consider having a page or post that tells a little about you.

2. Never showing your face.

How do I know you’re not really a Canadian man? Or a spammer? Adding your photo to your profile or somewhere on your bio where it can be seen is another step in telling your readers that you’re real. In a world when 1:4 blogs is manned by a robot, we want to see your smiling face.

3. Always apologizing.

If you start each post with, “I am so sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve blogged, but I promise I will post more regularly…” then we don’t hear from you? You’ve lost us.

4. Nagging on your family.

Unless your niche is the “angry ex-wife niche”, posts that insult your spouse, your mother-in-law, your co-workers makes you appear untrustworthy. If you need a place to write and vent, consider making a separate, private blog for those journal entries that are better left unseen. Anything you write on your blog could potentially be seen by your spouse, your mother-in-law, your coworkers or any boss – present or future.

5. Not running spell-check or proof-reading.

You don’t have to be a white-hat grammarista to have a well-written blog. But do run spell check and read over your post before hitting publish.

6. Cutesy wootsy posty titles.

Consider your post title carefully. It is the salesman of your writing. If you write a brilliant post and name it something irrelevant, the readers won’t click through. Consider the main topic. Be engaging. Remember high school English? Make your post title a twitter-like, 140-character summary of what to expect in your post.

7. Busy, cluttered sidebars.

This isn’t the TGIF restaurant. You aren’t required to wear 10 pieces of flair. Putting stuff on your sidebars for the sake of stuff is messy, cluttered and makes your readers feel claustrophobic. We don’t know where to look if you give us too many choices. Remove anything that doesn’t aid navigation, help us find your content, earn you revenue, or promote your networking. Streamline your categories, remove dead links, minimize stuff.

8. Automatic Music.

Fergoodnesssakes, if your blog plays music when I arrive, I’m leaving. I haven’t even had a chance to know what you have to say because you’ve just scared me with unexpected noise. Once upon a time this was new and trendy and very few blogs did it, but what happens when everyone can? The blogosphere becomes a noisy, startling, annoying place. Lose the music. Yesterday.

9. Making comments closed or difficult. Being unreachable.

A blog isn’t a one-way street. Allow your readers to engage and respond even if they disagree. Do you have a captcha or word verification on your comments? Why? The purpose of word verification is to limit and filter the number of comments. As a reader, if I see the word verification, I honor her choice to limit feedback and I do not comment. If you prefer comments and open communication, make it easy.

10. Links that don’t tell where they are going.

Click here.

Really? How do I know I want to go “here”…? As a reader, I want to know where the link takes me. Used sparingly, and well-placed in context, a clickable ‘here’ isn’t going to break your blog. But the rule of thumb for links is make it obvious where you are taking your readers.

These are 10 very basic things you can do to improve your blog. Easy enough, right?

I know that I myself am guilty of a few of these.  Hope this helps you!

Fashion Fridays: Shoes!

A few months back, Beth over at the Stories of A to Z hosted a shoe party.  I, sadly, missed it.  I was out of town, thus not having access to my plethora of shoes.  But I didn't know I'd missed it until AFTER I had already taken all the pictures once I got home (I seriously missed it by a day.  A DAY!  I was so bummed.)

So, I have all these pictures of my favorite shoes and even though there's no party, I'd still like to show them off : )  And I will.  'Cause this is my blog and I do what I want : )

I bought these shoes as a joke one year for Halloween.  Joke's on me because I fell in love with them.  I actually wore them to work a few times when I still worked at the bank and even our district manager liked them.

You might remember these from an older post if you've been following me for a while.  These are my Steve Madden purple patent leather ruffle pumps.  My mom got them for me for my 25th b-day.  She's got good shoe taste-must be where I get it.

These are my most favorite black heels.  I love the T-straps.

These pretty brown wedges are from my mother-in-law.  Turns out they were a little too tight for her-darn! :)

 

I inherited these after my Nana passed away.  Even a city girl feels a little country now and then.

 

My fancy gold shoes.  I wear these with my pretty cream and black party dress and I'm working on a gorgeous floor-length cream and gold dress that they will go perfect with-it looks like something a Greek goddess would wear.

My cute studded white slides.  They have just enough heel (not that I don't love me some high, high heels!)  My hubby gave these to me one year for Christmas.

Silver sandals.  They kill my feet but they're so cute, I wear them anyways.

My very worn American Eagle flip flops.  I wear these ALL the time, in case you couldn't tell by looking at them.

I have a serious thing for flats.  I have like 7 pairs.  These are my newest ones.  Navy with white polka dots and bows.  What more could you ask for?

These are both from Charlotte Russe.  The grey ones I got for $4.26 (that was my out-the-door price) and the yellow ones were $9.99.  I wear both of these pairs almost as much as I wear my flip flops.

Oh how I love these shoes!  They make me feel a little retro and I love their dark brown color.  These are from Walmart of all places.  Sometimes Walmart does have cute shoes.

I love everything about these shoes-the color, the big buckle.  Again, from Charlotte Russe.  If you've never checked out there shoes, you're seriously missing out.

I've had these shoes for ages and I still love them.  My favorite part is the bow and the polka dot lining.

Don't forget to enter the two giveaways going on right now!  This is a perfect example of something you could submit for the Fashion Friday giveaway (hint hint!!)  Oh, and to make things easier, I've added a linky to the Fashion Friday giveaway post, so you can add your links there or you can still email them to me or leave them in a comment.  Whatever floats your boat.

Tipping Thursday: Skincare Part VI-Exfoliating

Exfoliating is an important part of any skincare routine and it's not just for your face.  Why, you might ask?  Our skin naturally is constantly regenerating itself, sloughing off old, dead skin cells and making new ones.  But what happens to those dead skin cells?  They just sit there, on top of the new ones.  This can cause our skin to look dull and ashy, or make our skin breakout because our pores get clogged.  Oils can get trapped under the dead skin cells and cause blemishes.  Never pretty.  

Here's how exfoliating helps:  It gets rid of the dead skin cells sitting on your face and helps deep clean your pores, leaving you with soft and rejuvenated skin. You should exfoliate 1-2 times a week-any more than that will dry out your skin, even if you have oily skin.  If you have dry or sensitive skin, once a week or every other week is just fine.  Now, I know you're thinking, if exfoliating is so great, why shouldn't I do it every day?  It'll irritate the snot out of your skin.  Your skin needs recovery time after such a deep clean.  I mean, you did just basically scrape it clean.  Over-exfoliating can cause major oil-overload because your skin is desperately trying to keep up with its natural oil production and you just keep scrubbing it away.  This makes your skin freak out and say "We need more oil STAT!"

When choosing an exfoliator, look for a mild formula that won’t irritate your skin and that doesn’t feel too rough-exfoliating shouldn’t hurt.  I like all-natural exfoliants, like sugar scrubs or seeds.  My very favorite exfoliator is Berry Grand Super Exfoliating Beads by mark.  

It's great because you control the level of exfoliation because you control how much you use.  It's a scent-less powder blend of  cranberry and pomegranate seeds, apricot seed powder and rice powder.  It works with any cleanser-you just mix it right in.  So on days when you need a little extra oomph, just add a little more in and exfoliate away!


Now, I mentioned exfoliating isn't just something your face needs.  This rest of your skin needs a good scrub once in a while, too.  And just like with your face, this isn't something you need to do every day.  Once or twice a week is plenty.  Look for a good body scrub that again isn't too harsh or rough.  If you're prone to body acne or ingrown hairs, look for one with salicylic acid.  Neutrogena makes a great body scrub called Body Clear that exfoliates and clears up oily spots.

Who's That: ImJewelee (and giveaway!)-CLOSED

First things first, thank you to everyone who entered the It's A Hodgepodge Life giveaway!  And thanks to all of the new followers-I'm excited to have you!  Thanks to random.org, we have a winner!

Congratulations to Andrea, who said "I love all of Gay's crosses."  

Please email your info so I can pass it along to Gay and she can send you your prize!

AND this is Scraps and Scribbles' 100th post!  This little blog has come so far!  And it's all thanks to you, my lovely readers!  Thank you : )

Now, on to this week's feature.

I'm pleased to introduce you to Julee, the mastermind behind ImJewelee.  Isn't she lovely?  Simply put, she is amazing.  Here's a little bit about her, in her own words: 

"Hi, I am Julee (ImJewelee ... get it?) and the creator and designer of the XO Brand™ of Designer Jewelry Findings.  Well let me say that I love Etsy and I joined in the summer of 2008, selling scrabble tile pendants. One of mine was even featured on the front page! Then I wanted to use my creativity to design my own line of jewelry findings, so the XO Brand™ was created just for you to use to make your own creations."

I found her when searching for jewelry supplies on Etsy.  Let me tell you, she's got everything you could ever need and more, all at super-reasonable prices.  I'm just floored that she makes her own stuff-she's got everything from bails 

to bead bars 

to necklace chain 

to charms.  

Just look at her sales-the woman has had 7347 sales!  7347!  Incredible!  I love the bails that I bought from her and will definitely buy more.  She's easy to deal with-I had a question about one of her items and she got back to me the same day.

This is what I used her bails for:

Perfection!  Julee, thanks for being so awesome!

Want to win a tile pendant necklace made with one of Julee's awesome bails?  I know you do.  I'm giving away one necklace of your choice from my Etsy shop.  Here's what you need to do to enter:

1) Be a follower of Scraps and Scribbles (this one is mandatory and I'll be checking :P)

2) Check out D Squared Creations and tell me which necklace you'd like to win.

3) Pay a visit to ImJewelee and tell what you like and what you'd create with it.

4) Let your friends know about Scraps and Scribbles and the giveaway-Facebook, tweet or blog-whichever you like-and leave me a link so I can check it out.

Please leave a separate comment for each thing you do-it makes it easier for me when it's time to pick the winner.  The giveaway will run now through Tuesday, May 18th at midnight EST.  The winner will be chosen at random and announced in next week's Who's That on May 19th.

Hand-made Goodie of the Week: Hemp Jewelry

Hand-Knotted Hemp Jewelry

I first made a hemp necklace when I was 14.  We learned how to make them at girls camp.  Oh, those were the days.  Since then, I've learned some ways to fancy it up a bit.  There is so much you can do with hemp jewelry.  They're cheap, easy, fun and fast and a great craft to make with your kids.

You'll need:
Hemp
Beads or charms, if wanted
2 safety pins

What you're making obviously determines how much hemp you'll need.  You'll need two pieces of hemp-one piece that will serve as your base and one that you will knot around your base piece.  The base should be about 6 inches longer than you want your finished product.  Keep in mind that this piece will be folded in half, so it actually needs to be doubled.  In my example, I made a bracelet.  It's about 7 inches long, so my base piece was 14 plus the extra 12 inches-this is for the loop at one end and to tie off the other end when you're done.  The second piece should be abut 4 yards long (if making a bracelet, like I did.  You could even make a child's size choker.  For an adult necklace, depending on the desired length, you'll want to start at about 5 yards and go from there.)

Once you've measured and cut your hemp, fold both pieces in half and knot the end, leaving a small loop.  This will serve as one end of your closure.  Tie a small knot at the end of just the base pieces.  Put a safety pin through the loop and secure it and put a safety pin through the knot at the end and secure it.  This keeps the hemp tight and easier to work with.

Now, for the knot.

Once you've secured your hemp, take the long piece on the left and bring it across your base pieces, making a 4.

Take the long piece at the right, lay it over top of the left piece that you've brought across, then pull it up through the open space between it and the base pieces.  Loop it behind the base pieces and pull it through overtop of the left hand piece.

Your knot should look like this.  Pull tight to close.

Then you repeat on the other side, with the right-hand piece forming a backwards 4 and the left-hand piece looping through.  

You repeat this back-and-forth til you've reached your desired length.

To end, just gather all four strands together and knot.  Cut off remaining hemp.  The knot goes into the loop at the other end and that's how it stays on.

To get the twisted look or to add beads, like in the picture, here's what you do:

Twisted-instead of switching back and forth for your knots, you just pick a side and tie all the knots on that side.  

Beads-to add beads like the clear ones shown above, slide the beads onto the outside strands, tie knot like normal.  To add beads like the moon bead, slide bead onto both inside strands and tie outside strands around bead, using a normal knot (just keep on tying like the bead's not even there.)

You can check out our selection of hemp jewelry in our Etsy shop.  If there's anything you see there that you have questions about how it was made or if you'd like something custom, ask away!

Good Eats and Yummy Treats: Monterey Chicken

Monterey Chicken

This is a favorite in our house and it's oh so easy to make!

You'll need:

Chicken tenderlion (about 2 per person) or chicken breast

BBQ sauce

Shredded cheddar cheese

Bacon (one piece per chicken) or bacon bits-I use bacon bits.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Begin by browning the chicken on both sides.  

Place the chicken on a foil-lined sheet.  

Brush on a coat of BBQ sauce.  

Then comes the bacon.  If using bacon strips, break them in half and place on the chicken long-ways.

Top with cheddar.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Make sure it's cooked all the way through.

Facebook!

I decided it was high-time for a Facebook page.  So if you're a Facebook junkie like me, go find Scraps and Scribbles and be our friend or "like" our page, whatever it is now!  It'll keep you in the know with what's going on over here if you don't get a chance to come visit.  And I might be doing a Facebook-only giveaway soon-we shall see....

Also, there's a Facebook page for our Etsy shop, D Squared Creations, so if you haven't checked out the shop yet, you can do so on Facebook!