Shoes: Part 1

Okay, I started this blog a while ago, and while I was looking back at it, I realized something important. I've neglected to even mention the most important ligament in the fashion world! Shoes. I think on this blog, there's so much to cover with shoes, we'll go in sections. But before I say anything more, let's take a moment to honor the importance of shoes in our daily lives. Look at this: You can wear the most glamorous, shiny, gorgeous dress to Prom and totally ruin the look with a pair of muddy sneakers. You can be going for sharp look and wear a smart business suit, and then take away the whole point by wearing your fuzzy slippers. (Not that I have anything against slippers.) My point is, shoes are the complete soul of  the outfit. You can throw it off with bad ones, show it off with good ones. SO... you have to be totally careful when choosing the shoes you wear.



      This is the first shoe topic we'll cover: what shoes go with skinny jeans and leggings. Okay, look people. Listen carefully: TENNISH SHOES DON'T GO WITH SKINNY JEANS OR LEGGINGS! It looks weird! I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp, but you just gotta accept it: it doesn't look good. Trust me, I've tried it. It does not go well with ankle length leggings. Nor does it go with skinny jeans. Tennis shoes are comfortable, but they make your feet look fatter and wider because of the cushioning, while skinny jeans and leggings highlight the skinniness of your legs, same with leggings. Do you see how these two items of clothing don't fit? Your tennis shoes almost always make your foot look bigger and your ankles scrawny if you wear it with skinny stuff.
       However, skinny jeans and leggings do go with lots of other things:

                                                                             Flats:

                                                                          Stilettos:

                                                                        Wedges:

                                                 (or basically any kind of heel),

                                                                   Sandals (or flip flops):
                                           
                                             
                                                                   
                                                                  Sneakers:

                                             

  Boots (Ugg boots, heel boots, cowboy boots, dressy boots, even snow boots). This is an example of cowboy boots, but any of these would work:

Pretty much any kind of shoe except tennis shoes. When I say sneakers, I mean cute converse, high tops or low tops, or other slim-fitting  sneakers that don't make your ankles look knobby. Boots are totally glam, same with heels. There are also Toms, the kind of canvas folded flats that cover part of the top of your foot:

         
                                              These also look great with skinny jeans.

If you follow these rules, the outfit can be completely cute. Just remember the thing about tennis shoes!
     

Peanut Butter Balls

      Earlier I said, wrongly, that besides chocolate and toffee the best flavor is lemon. I was forgetting one important factor in the flavor world: peanut butter. The yummy, nutty stuff of life. Peanut butter is delicious. These balls are delicious. Do you see where I'm going with this? The rice crispies give these peanut butter balls a crunchy, crackley kind of texture when you bite into it, and the peanut butter, as always, gives it a yumminess hard to obtain with other ingredients. I recommend this recipe for anyone who's a peanut butter fanatic... like me.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup crunchy (that part is essential... okay, not essential, but pretty AWESOME) peanut butter
• 1/4 cup + Tbsp butter/coconut oil, melted
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 cups rice crispies
• a pat of butter
• 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips
• mini muffin wrappers

Directions:

1)  Mix peanut butter, melted butter, and powdered sugar together in a medium bowl.

2)  Add the rice crispies and mix till they are equally combined. Taste. If you like it really crunchy, add more. 

3) Now put chocolate chips in a bowl with the pat of butter. The butter helps the chocolate to melt. Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring between each stop. This keeps the chocolate from burning or changing consistency.

             Repeat this pattern till it is a liquid, about the same consistency of peanut butter like this:

         

         

4) Finally, you dollop spoons of peanut butter mixture into mini cupcake holders and put a blob of chocolate on top. Cover the peanut butter with the chocolate and spread it around if you have to. (The chocolate on top kind of holds the peanut butter together when it starts to melt later.) Put them in the freezer to harden and take them out and any time. You can cover the plate with plastic wrap or something to avoid freezer burn.

The Final Product:

Christmas Bling

A holiday look is hard to come by. What makeup with what clothes, and which shoes to put with it? We all know there has to be something you can put together to fit the holiday, but where are the right clothes, and for what occasion? With this outfit, we're going for a formally glamorous look.


First, fancy. You want to start with the outfit. Figure out something that looks Christmasy and festive, but not too showy. You don't want to pop too much. One of the best colors to go with is gold. Gold is a formal but chic way to  look Christmasy. If you use bright red or green, even though they're Christmas colors, it can ruin the whole formal thing.

Now, lace is a good way to go when being formal. It's pretty and fab. White lace also goes well with lots of different things. And guess what, we're in luck, because lace is totally in right now. You can use almost any fancy shoe choice with a dress like this. Flats, boots, heels. I went with boots, giving it a western accent:

          To top off the western look, you can add a denim jacket (that's not too casual or sloppy):

Now makeup. You want to choose makeup that will compliment you, but also compliment the outfit. You might like right purple eyeshadow, but does it really go with the outfit? You have to be careful. After you apply your usual foundation and blush, you go to your eyes. First, the eyeliner. Use a color that's festive, but under control. Again, you don't want to use bright red or green (especially red. You know what, just to be safe, never use red around your eyes). A good suggestion for a color is a deep, understated green, that's noticeable but not dramatic. Also, make sure the shade you use doesn't clash with anything on your outfit. If you go green on the eyeliner, you want a calmer color for your eye shadow, something like a sparkly gold or bronze that gives it a little bling. We used shimmery, metallic gold that was somewhat neutral:

One of the rules of makeup is that if you go bigger on the eyes, you go smaller on the lips. A great shade of lip gloss to go with this makeup is a glimmer pink with a hint of gold that doesn't look too flashy. It goes with your eyes but doesn't distract from them. Also, it gives your lips a really cute accent:

Add some bling with fashionable jewelry. You don't want to put silver and gold together, so if you wear gold, wear gold jewelry. I chose off white earrings that match the lace of the dress, outlined with a base of gold, because gold looks great with lace:

Pearls (especially when sparkled up with little jewels) also combine fabulously with lace, because it has the same creamy color:

 I didn't wear a necklace because this certain dress has a collar, but generally, if you wear a necklace with lace, you might want to choose a delicate chain that matches the delicate fabric. Not something really chunky and heavy.

Finally, hair. Really, you can do anything with hair. Poofy hair looks good with the western look, tied back with braids or twisted strands in the front. Hair long and down looks nice with lace, so I recommend using that to your advantage (you can see the twisted side):

                             

   

In this photo you can see how my hair is kind of big and poofy:

 The finished formally fancy look (sorry, me and Ella were just messing around, and this is the only complete picture of my outfit):