Summer #ootd
Tag Archives: fashion blogger
School’s Out for Summer!
I’m finally getting back to blogging now that I’m in summer mode. I will post soon about more new encaustic paintings, once I get around to mounting them onto the chalk boards. I have a dozen new heart paintings and a dozen abstracted baseball ones that I am loving. They are currently residing on my kitchen table – and on the surrounding counter space. No current plans for exhibiting them as of yet.
I still have artwork up at Kimberly’s Salon on James Street in Eastwood and at Syracuse Yoga down the street on Thompson Road. Not sure what is up next for me, but that makes the journey so special. I made the paintings for a purpose; just not sure what that purpose is as of yet, lol.
If I can get my friends to put up with doing the photography, I will try to post #ootd pics on Instagram during July and August. Although I am usually the one who takes our obligatory selfie when we are all out and about, I am not a fan of those selfie pics where the fashion blogger cuts off her own head or shoots a foreshortened image from above. By not a fan, I mean I really don’t want to do that. So…we’ll see.
Here are some outfits from the past few weeks. Kinda fell off the wagon with posting them here. We were having technical difficulties with the lighting in the classroom. I had to double edit the pics to adjust the brightness, so there are inconsistencies – I guess I will hold to that excuse. We take dozens of pics in a short time and I swear I am always changing out the pose, but for some reason I like this crossed legged thing-a-ma-bob that I have been doing a lot. It feels like the most natural and most comfortable position for me especially when I am wearing a dress or skirt. My go-to vogue. My work colleague Brad calls it my stance.
My new favorite things – Halston Heritage and everything by Rachel Zoe! OMG, I love her! I now own five pieces – two dresses and three tops. I am on her site literally every day. I want more!
I’ve discovered something called the Amazon wish list. It is a public list of things I desire. All I have to do is dream while on-line shopping and perhaps these things will actually materialize in my mailbox on the condition that fairy godmothers/Santa Claus/tooth fairy/Easter bunny/patron saints of fashion do exist. That is wishful thinking at its finest. How cool is this?
I <3 fashion. Love, love, LOVE!!!
Going Gif
Here are my most recent outfits of the day. We take a bunch of photos every day in order to get one decent one out of the bunch. Google photos has been animating the lot to produce these hilarious gifs. You can see how far away Katy is when she takes the pic. We do that to insure I can get my body to fit into the square dimension of Instagram. Should I begin to add these silly things to my Instagram account every so often – just because they are sooo stupid funny or are they just stupid? I have lost perspective.
Tashionista on Fashion
Here are the #ootd Instagram pics that I hadn’t posted (have I?). Oh well, I can’t remember. I haven’t done a fashion blog post in a while. It seems that I may be running out of new combinations and so, we are talking a lot of re-runs.
I just received all the March issues of all my fashion magazine subscriptions. They are so thick with the Spring collections! Makes me desire new stuff. I am loving what Marc Jacobs is doing. Just saw the fashion show on-line. It was cute mini dresses with oversized jackets and mid-calf boots (and funny bowler hats). Loved the proportions. I feel the urge to on-line shop…. Someone should really try to stop me.
Me & Karl L.
These Karl Lagerfeld Paris boots are in heavy rotation right now. They are 2 1/2″ heel – over the knee boots in both blue and black suede. I couldn’t decide which color to get, and you know that meant I had to have both of them. So comfortable, so amazing! They go with everything in my closet. It is incredible how a new item makes everything else that’s old appear fresh again. Karl Lagerfeld Paris definitely gets the Tashionista seal of approval. <3 <3 <3
The Perfect Cardigan
I am all about the cardigan at work. Kind of a Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood thing, lol. I dress in layers and the sweater comes off pretty quickly. We have been running the kiln, so, it has been toasty in the classroom. I’m always donning multiple smocks in order to not sustain paint, Mod-Podge, plaster, clay, oil pastel or the-like messes on my clothing. It is a messy job, but I am doing my best to keep it fashionable. I love clothes. Love fashion!!!!!
Dressing the Part
I am back to work and school! It is fun getting dressed up, not so fun going into a building with no air conditioning, but I adjusted to it within days. And today – it actually felt cold in here!
I spent the summer in exercise clothes, bikinis and shorts. I hiked seven miles a day and did pilates twice a week or so. Working on fitting teaching into my exercise schedule, lol.
As for artwork, I took down my art show at the Sullivan Library in Chittenango, New York, and I plan to exhibit the Talisman paintings in October at the Half Moon Bakery and Bistro in Jamesville, New York. Eight paintings are still on display in the Lawrence Pavilion at Summit Medical Group in New Jersey. They will be there until January, I think, unless the show gets extended.
Penny Santy is showing her paintings in the Chittenango Middle School library! She will give a presentation about them on November 15, 2016. I am planning to do some projects based on her work. Four classes will be doing oil pastels or paintings of cows and bulls as part of my SLO tests.
In addition, I’m planning lessons on George Rodrigue, Jasper Johns, Keith Haring, Wolf Kahn, Japanese wood block prints and Greek mythology. So fun!
Last Licks
Here I am, officially home from the last day of school. I will be heading over to the Sullivan Library in Chittenango, New York in a bit to install my annual summer art show. It will hang through August 2016!
I have many plans for my summer – travel, parties and lots of art shows. I thought last summer was my best ever, so I am really looking forward to all the fun and surprises in store for me in the next two months. I don’t know why I am certain it will be even better, lol, but I get the feeling that my life is getting better and better every minute…because it is!
Here are my final outfits of the day (#ootd) from the past couple of weeks. No more outfit pics for a while since I will be living in Champion sports gear and Trina Turk bikinis, although I just received my new Trina Turk top and am dying to wear it. Lord & Taylor had a CRAZY sale on-line – 30% off almost everything plus an additional 15% off on top!
I love fashion!
Happy, happy summer!
Classroom Tashionista
Here are my most recent #ootd pictures. I am grateful for Katy Conden, my fellow art teacher, work colleague and all around bestie who has been taking such good pictures with my Samsung Galaxy 6. She makes it so fun to vogue it up every morning.
I am getting my hair done more frequently these days. Amanda LaDue at Miracles in Fayetteville, NY is a true miracle worker. She has single-handedly transformed my look. The other day one of my work colleagues told me that I look younger now than I did ten years ago when we first started working at the middle school together! That is so sweet!
It is such a thrill to get such positive responses on Facebook and on Instagram as well, where a lot of other fashion bloggers are giving me kudos, most notably the local fashion sylist, Jackie Terribile (@thesmalltownstylist) She is a friend of my little sister. Jackie blogs about the Syracuse fashion scene and does some guest hosting on a local morning show.
I am a lot older than the typical fashion blogger so, yes, it is all so flattering and wonderful. I am empowered by Madonna’s statement about her Met Gala outfit and the idea that age should not even be relevant when it comes to fashion, beauty and all that.
The above picture was taken by Roberta Mou, the Home & Careers teacher (when Katy was absent one day). Note the kitchen background. I am never normally in a kitchen, lol. I never cook except to make cupcakes once and a while for the art talks we have at school.
I wore this white dress on a day I was demonstrating an India Ink lesson! I wore two smocks. In my defense, I love this dress and I can’t just stare at it in my closet and not wear it once and a while. I am going to an event at the end of the month that has a dress code – resort casual – and this dress is perfect except for the color. It is literally never appropriate to wear white to anything wedding-related unless you are the bride.
Nine West asked to repost the above picture on their website and on their Instagram account. Those sandals are my most recent purchase. They are so comfortable. They come in two other colors – emerald green is one of them. They have a zipper in back and a gladiator style lace-up in front. I love the support this style offers!
The beaded cross necklace – my mother got it from the Indian Village at the New York State Fair in the 1940s. I am in love with it! I built many of my outfits in the past two weeks around this blue, gray, beige and gold color scheme.
Now that the school fair is over, it is pretty much smooth sailing until the end of the school year. Hopefully, the backgrounds in my #ootd pictures will improve, meaning I will start cleaning the room and putting away unnecessary supplies. (Sure I will.) And then before we know it, it will be summer vacation!
Yeah, I guess I am not a typical fifty-something, lol. No cooking or cleaning, but a big yes to a stress-free aesthetic in four-inch heels.
#ootd on Time
Here are the outfits I wore to work from the past couple of weeks. I donned my orange Trina Turk dress on Friday in support of Syracuse University sports (my alma mater). The men’s and women’s basketball teams did well this year. They both made it to the Final Four! There was so much excitement in this town. I watched the last three games at different venues and it has been a blast. Last night, the crowd was disappointed with the outcome, but that energy turned into an amazing night of dancing to the live band that took the stage at Shifty’s once the game ended.
Of course, Mother Nature took the loss a bit harder and decided to give us back our snow!
How crazy is this? It is the view from my back porch taken a minute ago. Yes, just this morning! Funny, because yesterday I was contemplating whether or not I would mow the lawn today….
My 5th graders finally finished their wood sculptures. They are currently on display in the school library. Next we will tackle a slab/hand built clay sculpture. I haven’t done the lesson in ten years, which was the last time I taught 5th grade art, so that should be fun!
My Studio in Art class is working on a mixed-media still life drawing and the rest of my 8th graders are painting their clay projects. They have a choice of metallic paint or fluorescents. The glow-in-the-dark element is soooo fun! One of my students donated his black light to the classroom. We can now check the projects in progress to see if the paint is covering well. Thanks, Joe S.!
The end of the marking period is fast approaching, leaving only ten weeks of school for the year! Wow. It was about this time last year that I got my first cell phone. Yeah, I know! I was living under a rock for the first fifteen years of the new millennium.
Stephanie G., one of my Studio in Art students from last year, was the one who told me about #ootd (outfit of the day). I guess you can blame her for turning me into a fashion monster, lol.
But, of course, I was already coo-coo ca-ca for fashion. It seems as though time has flown by this school year but at the same time… it seems to be standing still. I don’t feel as though I am aging. I actually really love the way I have finally caught up to myself. To my dreams for myself, I mean. Because suddenly, I’m achieving everything the real me has ever wanted.
And in the process, I have found my life’s purpose. Giving visual voice to local artists. Assisting them in any way I can to help them achieve their goals and dreams. Offering positive energy to students – not to persuade them to have art careers necessarily, but to help them fall in love with art, with the arts. And to believe in themselves in the way that they know they can achieve anything they want. That they should not stop working towards a goal until either they achieve it or stop desiring it.
It’s taken me a while to learn this stuff, but time hasn’t actually mattered, if that makes any sense. This journey has been the true gift.
Okay, time to throw on the giant parka and venture out into the April sprinter (winter in spring?) wonderland on my way to a brunch date with one of my besties. But first I need to decide what to wear….