A Beginner's Guide to Thrifting

In today's economy, spending a lot of money on new clothes isn't really an option for most people. Personally, I shop pretty much exclusively at thrift and secondhand stores like Goodwill. Some might find the idea of wearing someone else's clothes unappealing, but I mean, just wash it before you wear it and everything will be fine. Also, ethically, shopping at thrift stores is kind of the only way to guarantee you're not giving money to companies who use sweat shop labor or are just overall super corrupt. Anyway, as awesome and fun as thrifting is, it can be pretty overwhelming if you're just starting out. If you're like me and find yourself having sensory overload in big department stores or any shopping experience really, thrifting can be a welcome relief from the pushy salespeople and flashy advertisements, but it can also be tricky to find the treasures amidst the inevitable trash. NEVER FEAR, I'll get you through it.

Top 10 Thrift Tips

How to Have the Best Thrift Shopping Experience

1. If you're new to thrifting, start out going on weekdays and earlier on in the day:
It's a jungle out there, especially on weekends which can often be when stores like Goodwill and The Arc have specials (50% off day at The Arc is my JAM but it can get crazy).

2. Learn the lay of the land:
Most secondhand stores are split into sections based on gender and clothing type. Secondarily, the racks will be roughly organized by size and if you're lucky, color. If you're new to a store, take a few laps around it before you dig in to the racks so you can map out a game plan.

3. Don't miss out on the accessories:
I personally get everything from shoes to sunglasses at thrift stores, but if you're a beginner, start with the belts and jewelry sections. They're usually set off pretty distinctly from the clutter (jewelry often in a case by the checkout counter, belts typically to the side of the clothes racks).

4. If you're shopping to save, avoid the more selective "vintage boutiques":
While they'll have an undoubtedly tempting selection, they're also charging for the service of picking out the clothes. That means an item that would normally be $6.99 can go for upwards of $30.

5. Don't be afraid to trust your eye/gut:
A lot of times a pattern or color will jump out at you but the shape/fit is all wrong once you take a second look. I like to pick up that stuff anyway because you never know how you can DIY it into something awesome. I've made dresses into shirts, shirts into scarves, the possibilities are endless.

6. Keep your options open:
I've found some of my favorite items in the men's section, maternity section, you name it! Don't be afraid to branch out and see what's out there.

7. Check out the book section:
I've found countless treasures for my bookshelf, but also a ton of children's books with amazing illustrations that I like to use to collage.

8.Take your time:
Thrifting is about the experience. Half the fun is that every item you find will be a diamond in the rough.

9. Get creative and the magic will come:
A thrift store is all about the endless possibilities. One time I found an entire collection of Gustav Klimt prints for ten bucks and a couple antique looking frames. Now my sister's apartment is beautifully decorated! Open yourself up to all the possibilities and all sorts of amazingness will come.

10. Know when to call it a day:
If your feet are achey and you can feel the grump coming on, get yourself to the checkout register, you're experiencing thrift overload.

Check out the rest of my lens on Squidoo for links and more!

FASH MATH: Grungy Prep School Edition

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(Eloise + Margot Tenenbaum) ÷ Angela Chase = 

Coat: Goodwill (buttons from Michael's)
Corduroy dress: The Arc Thrift
White Shirt: Sierra Trading Post
Belt: The Arc Thrift
Tights: Delia's
Combat Booties: The Arc Thrift

I'm pretty much obsessed with this outfit and want to be buried in it. First of all, CHECK OUT DAT COAT! It's faux fur and super snuggly, and you can't really tell from this picture, but I sewed the sparkly buttons on myself. I had Xander (the boif) take pics for me as we were walking around campus on our way to lunch. I think the field with the fall colors and mountains in the background kind of captures that boarding school rebel vibe I got going on. Now that I've died my hair red, I kind of channel Angela Chase in everything that I do, but I was really feeling her today with those shoes and the corduroy dress. Have you guys ever seen anything as cute/tough/awesome as these combat booties??

For a height-challenged gal like myself, a little lift is always appreciated, especially when it's a clunky, easy to walk in lift. I really don't know if I'll ever take these off. They go with literally everything. 

I definitely swiped my color scheme from Eloise with the white on black jumper/dress thing. I used to read those books all the time and fantasize about hiding in elevators and of course those mary-janes! I was originally gonna rock a pair of my own for this outfit, but my closet is an abyss and I came across these, which tickled me even more since they definitely rough up the look a bit.

Here I am trying to look snooty, a la Eloise and chilling in my trippy dorm room.

I think the Margot inspiration kind of speaks for itself with the coat. When I saw it in Goodwill over the summer, I almost died right there between the mom jeans and the wedding dresses. I had been looking for a Margot coat forever and this one is just too spot on to be real! The original buttons were uggo-tastic and I knew they had to go, so I picked up some way appealing sparkly ones (I can never say no to sparkle) and remedied the situation super easily. Living in Colorado, you learn to never turn down an awesome/warm coat for $9.99 because real stores charge way (I mean WAAAYYY) more for stuff that's only a fraction as cool.

Check out the rest of the pics. What do you guys think of my math skills? Does it add up to you too?

RA! school spirit...

Please excuse my blank stare.

Secondhand Fantasy Land: Zine Edition

So for those of you who look at this blog that AREN'T my mom and my sister and therefore don't know everything about me, I'm a junior at Colorado College where we're on the block plan (as opposed to the semester plan). That basically just means that we take one class at a time, for three and a half weeks each. There are upsides and downsides, but it's definitely my preferred way to learn just because you can get so in depth into the class and just in time for you to get totally sick of it, you get to move on. Anyway, the point of all this is that my first block of the semester was pretty much the most amazing thing evereverEVER and it led to the creation of my first zine! The class was called, "Creativity: Theory and Practice" and it was taught by two amazing professors, one from sociology and one from poetry. It was basically all about the creative process and how it fits in (or doesn't really fit in) to society. Every day we would do some sort of creative exercise and have class discussions about all the different texts we read. In lieu of a final we all wrote research papers on some aspect of the creative process and complete our own creative project of our choosing. The best part about the whole thing was how open-ended it was so we could really make it into whatever we wanted. Creative projects ranged from interpretive cupcakes to postcard puzzles to defiant graffiti - it was just unlimited awesomeness. I wish I could show you guys all the incredible things people came up with! I can't do that, but I CAN share my project :). This blog has been a great place for me to express myself creatively and also a big part of me developing my own style philosophy, hence it was the perfect inspiration for my final project. It sucks because I feel like clothes can be the greatest form of expression, but a lot of the time we just buy the shit that stores or brands want to sell us. Anywayyy this zine is just my answer to that and hopefully it'll be the first of many! So without further adieu, here is Secondhand Fantasy Land - The Zine:

I hope you enjoy and if you want to contribute to any future zines, please let me know!!! And if you want to see the pages bigger, click HERE!

Love Cats

Many sorries for the lack of posts, I'm living in a house with no internet for the summer and I can only steal my school's network from the front yard if I'm reaalllyy lucky. It's like the 1990s or something. I'll be back to civilization soon though, I promise.

Anyway, this post is all about cats! Mostly because of this outfit:

Isn't the cat shirt fantastic??

shirt: Goodwill
skirt: Zara
mary-janes: Goodwill

I took these pictures in the awesome two room suite I've been living in while I take this summer fiction workshop. Definitely more to come on that and my thrifty interior design tricks.
The cat theme also continues with some of the incredible photos my boyfriend Xander took on his African Safari earlier in the summer. He's somewhat of a feline fanatic like I am.

Isn't he amazing? And a great sport :). He dressed up as "love cats" with me last Halloween because a) we're cheesy, b) catz rule and c) that awesome song by The Cure.

That may or may not be a wolverine wig on Xander's head and I may or may not have drawn on his nose and whiskers with eye liner...Can you crack my code?

And now I will leave you with that oh so wonderful song I dedicated an entire costume (and blog post) to:

Roadside Flowers

Roadside Flowers

by Billy Collins

These are the kind you are supposed
to stop to look at, as I do this morning,
but just long enough
so as not to carry my non-stopping
around with me all day,
a big medicine ball of neglect and disregard.

But now I seem to be carrying
my not-stopping-long-enough ball
as I walk around
the circumference of myself
and up and down the angles of the day.

Roadside flowers,
when I get back to my room
I will make it all up to you.
I will lie on my stomach and write
in a notebook how lighthearted you were,
pink and white among the weeds,

wild phlox perhaps,
or at least a cousin of that family,
a pretty one who comes to visit
every summer for two weeks without her parents,
she who unpacks her things upstairs
while I am out on the lawn

throwing the ball as high as I can,
catching it almost
every time in my two outstretched hands.

Dress: Vintage Laura Ashley from The Arc Thrift Store - $6
Belt: Goodwill - $2
Shoes: The Arc Thrift Store - $5

So on Monday I started my summer course, "Beginning Fiction Writing." So far it's been amazing, even though I'm not really comfortable with fiction yet. My professor is the brilliant Steve Hayward who actually just came out with a new novel, Don't Be Afraid which you should all check out. He's hilarious and I'm so lucky to be learning from him! So far we've just been doing relatively short exercises, but next week is our "wildfire" week where we have to write 1,000 word stories for every day and have them workshopped by the whole class. I'm super nervous, but I think it will be a great experience for me.  The other day we were working with super short fiction, including six word tragedies and "twovels" or twitter novels (under 140 characters).

My six word tragedy: Stale apricots were his last meal.
My twovel: Ian pulled a fist full of tictacs from his pocket. He dropped the pellets into his mouth and chomped down. She didn’t his deserve halitosis.
And here's my zeugma, which is a rhetorical trope where a single verb modifies multiple objects, one of which is inherently more metaphorical than the others: 
He was stuffed full of hamburgers, french fries and bullshit.

I found this amazing dress at The Arc a couple months ago, but it was floor length when I bought it! Thankfully I have no problem hacking up my clothes, especially when they only cost $6! It just has such an awesome shape and pattern that I just couldn't wait to have it altered before I wore it.

And here's the gorgeous house I'm living in for the summer. It's HUGE and has a ton of random passageways and stair cases that lead nowhere. It's pretty sweet.

However Much I'm Falling Down It's Never Enough

Does shit ever happen in your life that makes you just completely disillusioned with humanity and this whole mission of life we're all on? Something that makes you doubt if any of it even means anything at all...Sorry for the downer post, I just need to pity myself for a little bit if that's okay. Hopefully The Cure and a pretty red dress will cheer me up.

Dress: Goodwill $5
Belt: Goodwill $2
Shoes: Goodwill $4.50

I'm really in love with this red, floral, button down dress I got at Goodwill the other day. It's so comfy and casual but I could easily dress it up too. I wore this outfit running around town and to dinner with my dad and it was perfect for both occasions. YAY Goodwill, you're always so good to me.

OH YA and let me just obsess over these black sandals for a minute. MMMM..... Okay done :)

Here's The Cure playing the song I have on repeat at the moment, Never Enough.

Out Of The Ash I Rise With My Red Hair and I Eat Men Like Air

For me, creativity is this huge intersection of all my different passions and inspirations. Even though fashion is a total separate entity from things like poetry, music and art, I'm constantly finding all those other mediums sneaking into my outfits.  Now that I'm studying English and poetry on a more serious level, some of my favorite writers are always dominating my brain (and therefore my closet). 

Shirt: Antique Mart in Colorado Springs - $6
Skirt: American Way Thrift in Claremont, California - $4.50
Belt: Goodwill - $2
Heels: Forever 21 - $25

This outfit was inspired by the incredible, brilliant, tragic,  Sylvia Plath,
one of my biggest influences.

Sure she was beautiful and stylish, but she was soo so so much more than that. Some of her critics call her self indulgent for her deeply personal work, but they're just fucking haters! She was a serious scholar, and at one point even a professor of poetry. Her writing is not only technically skillful, but also so passionate and detailed that it takes on a relatable and even universal nature. 

This is one of my favorite poems of all time, it's about her struggle with depression and suicide:

Lady Lazarus
by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it-- A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?-- The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. What a million filaments. The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot-- The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call. It's easy enough to do it in a cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: 'A miracle!' That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart-- It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Ash, ash-- You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-- A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.

Rebel Girl You Are The Queen Of My World

Some people think of feminism and fashion as mutually exclusive, but I like to think that one is just an awesome extension of the other. To me, feminism is all about not letting all of society's rules and expectations dictate my actions. It's about seeing past the bullshit and finding ways to be and express yourself in a world that would rather you just shut up and wear some Abercrombie. The riot grrrl movement of the 90s spawned some of the most badass women that serve as awesome inspiration, but none more than the one and only Kathleen Hanna. As the lead singer of Bikini Kill, she screamed and belted lyrics like, 

"We're not gonna prove nothing nothing
Sittin around watching each other starve
What we need is action/strategy
I want I want I want
I want it now.
I believe in the radical possibilities of pleasure, babe.
I do. I do. I do. "

loud enough that they were impossible not to hear. She smashed stereotypes with her unapologetically girly style paired with her badass ability to rock out and I will forever be in debt to her fucking awesomeness. This outfit goes out to all the rebel grrrls out there :).

I figured my adorable pup Spazzy was the only accessory I needed for this look.

Dress: Goodwill $5

Combat Boots: Charlotte Russe $25

Puppy: Heaven PRICELESS

Oh and for the record, Kathleen Hanna was also bffs with Kurt Cobain and drunkenly wrote "Kurt smells like teen spirit" on his bedroom wall which inspired the song...Yeah she's the shit.