A most excellent dress for summer day at Farmers Market (bargain style)

I have several great summer dresses that haven’t gotten much play in recent years. I was determined to wear them this summer – and not “wait” for the perfect event. I wore this to the local weekly Farmers Market one hot July day. I found this dress, a Ronni Nicole, at Ross two years ago marked down to a shocking $3.49! I’d have been attracted to this print any time but the price and the fact it fit me clinched it. It’s polyester/spandex but better, it has a long zipper in the back (shift style dresses are notoriously hard to get into – and out of – and a zipper is awesome). The dress is short but not too short for comfort.

I found this great hat on Amazon last March for $4. They key to finding Amazon bargains is taking advantage of the price range option. Supposing I want a hat, I might start with looking at all hats $5 and under. If I don’t see much or nothing I like, I might then bump my range to $6 and under. (A side benefit is that you’re less likely to get/feel overwhelmed by options.)

The rule of thumb when wearing a loud print like this is not to lay on a lot of accessories; basically to let the print, in this case dress, “do the talking.” I wore a few complementary pieces. I found the watch on Amazon last year for $6, the cuff bracelet, a ringer for the green in the dress, was a rummage sale find, and I made the earrings.

 

Most of my shoes are flats and since I was going to be walking around flats made sense. These sandals, which I found at a thrift store for a couple bucks, are Active Air, a brand I never heard of; I googled the name now and found only Clarks Active Air sandals. Hot diggity! Clarks, which aren’t cheap, have a good rep. No wonder I like them so much.

Since the day I wore this look, I found Crocs sandals on Amazon for $13 which, honestly, is about the most I’ve ever paid for shoes! I’ve never had any Crocs but I like these a lot. They also make me about an inch taller while still having all the virtues of flats. They’d also work well with the dress.

 

This outfit was easy to pull together and I loved the whole look.

“…and then we ran over it with a car and left it in the trash for a couple days.”

I was shopping in Ross ( “Dress for Less”) the other day when I saw this tag. I had to take a picture.

 

Full disclosure, I bought it! It wasn’t as bad as described, it was very soft, super cute, and marked down to $4. And really strange (to me)? Children’s X-Large.

 

Sadly, I did not come home with that wonderful tag; it must have come off when the cashier removed the anti-theft device. So excellent I took the picture in the store when my only intention had been to mock it!

Share the brilliance! (and the pretty good stuff too.)

I had to share this gorgeous sunflower. It’s not mine; it’s in a yard I walk by occasionally. I posted it on a local community Facebook group and someone came back with the name Teddy Bear Sunflower. I’ve never heard of this before and I’m quite enthralled! It kind of reminds me of those little dogs that look like teddy bears.

Short Thought 214 (crazy)

I’ve come to the conclusion that when people live with or in crazy for too long they often lose the ability to see it for what it is. So when someone else comes along and takes issue,  pointing out that whatever is going on isn’t normal or sane or healthy, they will typically balk, resist, or defend. Either living that way is all they’ve ever known or somewhere along the way their vision became skewed.

Cobbling together a new watch!

I never used to have/wear watches, not for many years, but then I picked up a few inexpensive ones from yard sales. As with most things (accessories) I like to have choices. But for some reason the bands seem to break in short order. So now I have a couple watch faces lounging about with no occupation. I found a purpose for one that has suited me well, attached right on the outside of a purse.

Five years ago I bought this inexpensive bracelet online.

This is how it looked

I soon realized the peacock stuck out too far for my taste and I was never going to wear it. So I broke the peacock off the bracelet and glued it to a pin.

But then I had the bracelet part doing nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. It had potential. But I didn’t know what. The bracelet is hinged and opens & closes which I thought was so interesting. It’s not high-end but it wasn’t ready for the garbage.

The other day I got an idea to attach one of my watch faces to it. I had the perfect one. All I needed was wire and pliers, both of which I had.

I wrapped skinny (high gauge) wire around the part of the watch that holds the band and over the bracelet. I did the same at either side of the bottom.

 

It looks great!