On Wednesdays We Wear Pink

Originally posted on 1.12.11 on Alex Elizabeth.

Worn on Wednesday 5 Jan 2011

These are back photos from before the snow.

On Wednesday I went to Pottery Barn for euro shams.  I ended up getting mismatched ones, one of which is from the faux sheepskin collection.  And I might have to go back for the throw.  I got it for my friends as a wedding gift last year and I had a really hard time giving it away!

I wore my oxfords because I ended up with a private yoga lesson Tuesday night.  I was the only one at class and it was kind of killer.  I felt really unsteady Wednesday morning and I actually made the responsible decision to wear completely flat shoes.

Sorry my shirt is doing weird things in these photos.  I almost steamed it but then I decided I liked it wrinkled.  The front is silk and just didn’t want to drape properly when tucked into the skirt.  I like this shirt so much that I sort of want it in the other two colors too… I have always had a problem with wanting multiples of clothes I love!

J.Crew shirt, Anthropologie/Odille skirt, Anthropologie belt, HUE tights, Cole Haan oxfords, LV bag + Coach scarf.

I also made the cookies featured on Stylish White Female back in December.  I intended to make them back in December but ran out of time during the holidays.

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that these are so sweet they actually gave me a headache (and I adore sweets).  A good thing because I can only eat two at a time… a bad thing if I can’t have just two!  I’ll definitely be making these again!  Maybe next time a little less sugar :)

Sunlight Through the Trees

Worn on Thursday 23 Dec 2010 – Christmas Eve Eve

So I forgot about these photos from a few days before Christmas.  I was at the airport at 5am… blah.  Not the earliest flight I’d ever taken but definitely the earliest in a long time.  Usually if I’m up at 4am it means I never went to sleep, it was a bit odd getting up without the sun!  Soo sooooo dark!

For a different look I folded down the top of the my over the knee boots.  And also to make getting through airport security easier, shoe removal in the US ugh.  Scarf removal too, I forgot about my tiny little scarf and I had to go back and send it through to be X-rayed!

Anthropologie sweater, Old Navy shirt (under there somewhere), BGD/Urban Outfitters skirt, Assets tights, Jeffrey Campbell boots.

With Christmas in the Background

Worn on 25 Dec 2010 – Christmas

It was almost a white Christmas!  This is the most casual thing I’ve worn for Christmas in years… well actually last year I might have worn black denim.  But usually I’m fond of dresses.  Although my ideal Christmas (and winter in general) outfit would be a long plaid skirt with maybe a white or red blouse.  I want to wear that sometime in my life, even if it might be a long time coming!  

Sorry for slow posting, and I’m also 200+ blog posts behind in reading.  If you haven’t heard a peep from me that’s why!  A less than ideal social schedule for blogging lately… :(

Anthropologie sweater, J.Crew blouse (underneather), J.Crew skirt, Assets tights, Sofft shoes.  

Oh, also, guess where— same location 25Dec and 26Dec…

More Uninspiration

Worn on Thursday 16 Dec 2010

Sorry for the blogging delays this week, you know, the holidays… Hopefully I’ll have another one tomorrow!  And I’ll use the queue and hopefully hopefully have a little bit more time over the weekend! 

So last week I was having a really uninspired week.  Because this jersey sweater thing is actually loungewear.  And I’ve almost but not quite worn this before.  I went through all of my sweaters due to the sudden actual winter weather… and ran out of everything that wasn’t a sleeveless blouse.  I had a pile of laundry the size of Mont Blanc, seriously.  Holiday stress probably zapping my creativity… that and the abscessed tooth that’s about to need a root canal (please I hope not, I have no dental insurance).  Going to the dentist today, I hope they can try to hold me over until January when I think I will have at least some dental insurance! 

I hope everyone is enjoying time out of the office, but if you’re in the office like me I wish you a slow enough day that you can write a blog post if you want (like me)!

LOFT lounge cotton jersey open cardigan thing, Anthropologie shirt, J. Crew skirt, Target belt, HUE tights, Frye boots. 

Decisions Decisions…

Worn on Monday 6 Dec 2010

So I’ve come to a decision about Tumblr.  I’m moving the style blog off it as soon as I can.  If you stalk my twitter, then you know that I’m getting very serious about WordPress and am alternating between elated and despairing— I am not too good at web page design.  

The good news is that I will be keeping alexelizabeth.tumblr.com as a personal blog!  I love Tumblr but it just has too many issues for me to keep hosting the style blog, this blog is on my résumé.  Also, I don’t think I’ll have the WordPress up until at least January because I may try to create my own theme (yeah we’ll see how that turns out, I have a bad enough time with über simple Tumblr).  

On to what I am wearing: this is a very good example of what I put on when I’m not feeling very imaginative.  And when I’ll be going to a casual dinner party at my friend’s new apartment later.  I don’t really know what I was doing with that necklace, but that’s okay, I’ll consider this look an experiment in black + bold color dressing!  

Francesca’s Collections open cardigan, camisole… I think Victoria’s Secret?, Forever 21 necklace, Assets tights (not the chevron ones but still decently opaque!), Sofft shoes.  

Help: Wide Angle Lens Distortion

I don’t know about you, but wide angle lens distortion is a frequent issue for me.  In fact, it’s probably the #1 problem I have with photos and very difficult to see on an LCD.  So what is wide angle lens distortion?  It’s a form of perception distortion and I think Wikipedia does a better job explaining than me, but essentially it’s caused by the distance and angle at which an image is captured.  If you’re shooting with a normal lens (generally 50 mm for digital SLR) lens distortion will be a lot less of a problem.  I adore my 50 mm, it produces much sharper and better focused images… but it isn’t practical for my style blog photos because I have to be so far away from the camera to get a head-to-toe shot.  So I use my kit standard telephoto lens.  It’s not that good, I know, but I think most of us use these because better glass is so cost prohibitive.

The above photos have thankfully been corrected, but let’s see the original second photo (it’s been cropped and the exposure corrected (experiment with automatic settings gone wrong) but is otherwise untouched):

Whoaaaa.  Yikes.  See the distortion?  It’s my own fault really, I should be more careful not to place the camera badly.  Then I wouldn’t have a tiny little head and a huuuuuge body.  The lens was definitely tilting up toward me when I took this photo, accounting for the majority of of the tiny-head-huge-body problem.  And I was using the 18-55mm at 28 mm, which is definitely at the low end and also contributing to the distortion.

So how do we fix this?

I recently discovered PTLens after downloading and messing around with a bunch of other plugins I didn’t really like.  PTLens is a $25 standalone app (trial version for 10 photos is free!) and plugin for Aperture/Photoshop/iPhoto.  I’ve been using it with Aperture, it pops up nicely within the application.  It’s way worth the money for me, I take a lot of photos of buildings when I’m traveling and distortion is very evident on all those straight lines.  If you take photos indoors and your walls/windows/doors ever look crooked PTLens will save you there too.  PTLens has a database of lenses and their correction calibrations, all you have to do is select your lens and hit OK:

It’ll pick up the camera make and model, and the lens focal length for you.

Just a note: it’s better to work off an uncropped image.  I worked off the original but forgot to get a screenshot, so I reopened the cropped finished image in PTLens and fine-tuned the rotation, giving you the above screenshot.  The grid function in PTLens is far superior than Aperture’s straighten grid (at least to me), so that’s another point for PTLens.

So thankful for this app!  If you frequently have issues with distortion too then PTLens is way worth it!

My First Vintage Dress

Worn on Thursday 11 Nov 2010

Thoughts:  This Anthropologie dress used to belong to my cousin and is from sometime in the 1980s (is that even old enough to be vintage?).  It’s my first vintage piece ever.  There’s a tie at the waist but the overlay fabric is literally disintegrating there so this dress must be worn with a belt or sweater.  The first time I ever wore this dress I paired it with a black cardigan and gold belt.  I think I’ve been wearing it with black ever since, although it’s actually blue and beige underneath.  

I was afraid that none of my photos would come out— these were taken just before 5 pm, which these days is well on the way to full dark.  There was just a tiny little bit of light and while these certainly aren’t the best exposed photos… I’ve definitely taken worse.  

Francesca’s Collections black sweater shirt thing, Anthropologie dress, H&M belt, stockings, Sofft platforms.  

Complements

Worn on Friday 19 Nov 2010

Thoughts:  This is me pre-migraine… I could feel it coming on and you can probably see it in the shadows under my eyes.  Bleh.  I did recover eventually, thankfully.  After a lot of Excedrin and caffeine.  All those beautiful red leaves on the tree are gone too, so terribly sad the storm blew them all away.  

I was very tempted to wear this lace shirt without the navy camisole underneath but it was cold.  And windy.  And the shirt, it’s very sheer.  Although I’m really happy with the quality, it’s much nicer than I expected and that’s saying a lot— it’s from Free People.   I have decent general knowledge of the color wheel (copious art lessons as a child), but I find myself pairing colors more consciously since I started following Academichic.  I think I started following Academichic in the spring so I’m totally positive how I got to that post from spring 2009 but I’m glad I did, it’s a great reference!  

Free People lace shirt, Old Navy camisole, Odille (Anthropologie) skirt, Charlotte Russe belt, stockings from… ?, Sofft shoes.  

Things I Will Never Do Again

Worn on Tuesday 16 Nov 2010

Thoughts:  It was definitely a day for learning what things I should never do again:)  I will never take photos in the rain without an umbrella again.  My hair was soaked and curling within minutes, and my camera was rather waterlogged as well.  Next time I’ll cover it with plastic or something, I was terribly afraid for it but it’s perfectly fine, they really do stand up to a bit (or more) of rain.  I will also never wear a silk shirt with an elasticized belt again, the belt creeps up within a minute after righting it.  And creates odd bunches in the silk.  Remember this skirt from one of my Halloween costumes?  I will never wear this skirt again either.  I wanted to try it out sans costume… and then I discovered it has odd splotches of fading.  Oh well, I guess it will go back to the thrift store.  I perhaps should have attempted a floor length skirt of a different pattern as well, but it can be terribly cost prohibitive.  I don’t like any of the ones at Forever 21 either :(  

Eventually the rain chased me back inside.  I had to dry my hair again.  And my skirt.  

But there is one thing I will do again: go get a soy latte from the bike shop.  Yes, I said the bike shop.  That’s what I did the day I was wearing this.  I went everywhere in this tiny town my father lives in (ran out of soy, no espresso…) and was finally directed to the bike shop.  For a latte?  What?  But yes, it’s true, they have the best coffee in town (organic, fair trade, and only $3 for my medium soy latte).  But shhh, don’t tell anyone or the yuppies will ruin it!

Banana Republic shirt, Charlotte Russe belt, thrifted skirt (Salvation Army), Jeffrey Campbell boots, Anthropologie scarf.  

Long Chain and Leopard Shoes

11.6.10 – Saturday 

I love this necklace and always feel as if I don’t wear it enough for how much I love it.  For some reason I feel like copper jewelry is a little bit harder to wear though, am I being ridiculous?  Perhaps a little, I need to experiment more with my jewelry!  My jewelry collection is extensively made up of light, delicate pieces and this is one of my only more substantial ones.  If you can even call this one substantial.  

So I’ve definitely worn this before.  I guess this is just the fall version, and that one was spring.  Although I’d love to pair a jacket with it this season… maybe I could do a black velvet blazer sometime… 

Buttons (Francesca’s Collections) shirt, Odille (Anthropologie) skirt, A. C. Moore leather ribbon thing as belt, HUE tights, Deena & Ozzy (Urban Outfitters) shoes, ken and dana necklace.