How to Thrift

Anyone who has me as a Facebook friend knows I love to thrift. I post my best findings, 
not to brag, but because I want everyone else to learn how to buy fantastic things on the cheap! I want to spread the knowledge! That's why today's post is how to thrift. 

I'm not really sure how I learned, but it was far before "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Actually, when that song came out, I had tons of people sending me links to it telling me it was my theme song! If I had to narrow it down, it was probably a combination of being around my boyfriend and my sister, who are both fantastic thrifters. 

Why should I thrift?

• Save money
• Find cool stuff
• Find lots and lots of cool stuff
• Save lots more money

"I have some concerns about thrifting"

You might be a little skeptical right now, and I understand. Whenever I suggest thrifting to some people, they're adamantly against it due to a couple stigmas I'll discuss now. 

"I don't feel like digging through tons of disgusting clothes to find one cute thing."

This is a legitimate concern, but think about all the time you spend at Forever 21 or Charlotte Russe digging through ugly clothes to find a cute piece to add to your closet. It's really not that big of an issue! 

"Aren't thrift stores dirty?"

Skirt: $2      Shirt: $2       Belt: $3.50
And it's just as cute (if not more than) as Forever 21!

I'm not going to lie to you: Sometimes thrift stores are icky. But, there are ways to get around this. For beginners, you should start at Salvation Army or Goodwill, and most branches of these stores are clean and organized. They don't sell any personal hygiene or beauty products, and anything kind of questionable, they throw away instead of selling. Most places are clean. Once you get into more obscure thrift stores, they can be a little dirty. In my experience, the worst you deal with is dust and dirt. Let's be real, though- Have you been to the mall? That place isn't exactly in pristine condition either. Yet, that's where a lot of people shop. In thrift stores, there's never mold, never anything rotten, and nothing that's legitimately gross or going to hurt you. If you want to stick just to Goodwill and the Salvation Army, you can. You don't have to go to the thrift stores that are a little bit dirty, so this isn't a big deal either! You can pick and choose where you shop, just like when buying new. 

I thrifted this entire outfit last week.
 H&M shirt for $3, and high-waisted shorts for $3!

"I don't want to buy used, especially clothing."

Why not? What reason could you possibly have for only buying new things? The goal here is to find fantastic things for super cheap, to save money, and have really cool stuff that you'll enjoy. If money isn't an issue to you and you can afford only new clothes, that's great, but you're missing out on some wonderful, used items that you can't ever find anywhere else. There's no reason to not give it a chance. 

If you buy clothing, all you have to do is wash it in your washing machine and it will be completely and totally fine. What could possibly be on the shirt that would keep you from buying it? If it's stained, don't buy it. If it's torn, don't buy it (unless you can sew). If it's ugly, don't buy it. But refusing to buy clothing just because it's used is absolutely ridiculous, superficial, and to be honest with you, it's a little bougie and stuck up. 

If you buy bowls, spoons, or anything you'll be eating off of, just wash it. Bleach it if you feel that's necessary. Stick it in the dishwasher. Bam. It's clean. Good as new.

Some super cute chicken and duck glasses! $2!!

Rhino cup $1!

The thing to remember is that you're buying something that's been used before you, but it's brand new to you. 

Or, you can find an item from the 50s,
like this Chuck Berry record!
You're not gonna find this at an FYE,
but instead at Goodwill for 50 cents

If you want an item from the 70s, you're not going to be able to buy it new, so what will you do then, bougie readers? You can't buy certain things brand new, so you have to get over it and open your eyes to the fabulous, previously owned items available for you to purchase. 

So let's get to it!

The first step is finding out all of the thrift stores in your area. A great site for this is The Thrift Shopper.  On this site, you can type in your zip code, and it'll pull up a directory of all the thrift stores in your area! This is a great place to get started. 

Now what?
At this point, you should have a list of all of the thrift stores in your area. If you're a beginner, you should start at a chain of thrift stores like Goodwill or the Salvation Army. If you're a little more advanced, you want to have low expectations for these stores because they're usually overpriced. What you really want are the smaller, mom-and-pop type of thrift store because that's where the super savings are. 

Before you go to these stores, here are a few tips and tricks to help you out once you're there:

1. Everything is cheaper than buying new, but some deals are better than others. 

Example of why you should always
check the shoes. Pumas for $7!

Beginners going to Goodwill, this is especially the case for you. Goodwill is extremely overpriced relative to other thrift stores. Shoes are at least $6, and the most awful items are $1.99. You may be thinking "Wow, I'd love to buy shoes for $5," but no, you don't. The $5 shoes are awful because rest assured, if Goodwill notices that shoes are from Target or Old Navy, they will charge you at least $10. The $5 shoes are from old women's collections and are mostly awful. Always check the shoe section to ensure that dumb employees didn't put good things there by accident, but don't get your hopes up too high. You can find better deals. Unless the shoes are the most fabulous things you've ever seen, leave them behind, which leads us to my next point...

2. Just because it's cheap, that doesn't mean you need it. 
Yeah, the cow figurine with the smiley face is probably super cute, but do you need it? Really? Ask yourself these questions:

• Where will I put this?
• Will putting this in my living room offset the room so much that my spouse/mother/roommates will want to evict me?
• Is this worth it?

Better example of why to check shoes.
My best friend found
St. Laurent boots for $10! These boots
were originally over $1000!

Consider a Goodwill scenario. The cute cow weirdo thing is $4. Would you rather have a Starbucks frappucino or a cow figurine that's just decoration? There will come times that you HAVE to buy something. It speaks to your soul, and if you can afford it, you should get it. But, sometimes, the line between need/want is quite blurry. Eventually, if you thrift enough, you'll end up with a house full of stuff like I have, and you'll start to regret buying the cow figurine when you need the space for an ironic cat figurine. 

3. Learn to see the potential in things. 
Certain items will appear to be incredibly awful and ugly, but as you continue to thrift, you'll start to see the potential in every item. Maybe you need a new lamp for your bedroom. If you like the shape of a lamp at a thrift store but the color sucks, don't discount it just yet! You can ALWAYS paint the items! This goes for furniture, lamps, and even clothing. You can always cut the sleeves off of shirts or rip the jeans to make some cute, new shorts. A word of caution, however: Don't buy a million things with potential, because these will all turn into projects that you may never feel like finishing. It can get a little overwhelming. This is why you should try to...

4. Thrift with Purpose
Remember the lamp you need for your bedroom? That's a good purpose to buy one. But, you should never buy a lamp that you don't need just because you can. This ties back into tip #2. If you're not careful, you will end up with a living room full of tacky items that don't flow cohesively with the room. Yes, you've only spent about $30 total, but was it really worth it?

$1 Shirt    $2 Skirt    $3.50 Shoes

$4.50 Dress

These are all my tips for thrifting!! The easiest way to learn how to do it is to jump right in and go thrifting! Also, don't forget to check out your local flea markets, estate sales, yard sales, especially any mom-and-pop stores! Those are the types of places you can haggle and truly get some great deals. As you embark on this journey, it'll be tough at first to discriminate between things you truly need. You'll probably end up buying a lot of items at first, only to wish you hadn't because you need the space for something else (ie. my dishes cabinet). But, the skill of discernment will come with time, and soon enough you'll be an expert thrifter like me! Good luck, and find some awesome items!!

The Color Wheel: Learn it, Live it, Love it.

Not to sound like a broken record here, but a lot of my knowledge of makeup and art comes from my mom because she is an artist and she worked at Merle Norman for a while. As an artist, she always taught the importance of undertones and the color wheel. 


What is the color wheel?

For all of the non-artist types out there, the color wheel is a summary of basic colors and their relationships to each other!

For example, take the primary colors. These are red, blue, and yellow. They are the basis of all of the rest of the colors, and you can make any color (except white) using them. 

Then, you have the secondary colors. These are the colors made by mixing two of the primaries together. These are made when mixing equal quantities of both colors.

("P" stands for "primary"; "S" for "secondary")

Example:

Blue (P) + Red (P) = Purple (S)

Red (P) + Yellow (P)= Orange (S)

Yellow (P) + Blue (P)= Green (S)

If we keep going down the list, we also have tertiary colors, which are made by mixing either a primary with a secondary or two secondaries. These colors are somewhere in between the shades of both colors. Check out the example to see what I mean! ("T" means "Tertiary").

Example:

A. Green (S) + Yellow (P) = Green-yellow (T)

B. Purple (S) + Red (P)= Red-purple (T)

Those are both examples of mixing a Primary with a Secondary to create a Tertiary. This leads into why you must use equal quantities of two primaries to create one secondary color. In Example B, if you break down the math on what's happening here, we have X quantity of Red and X quantity of Blue that combine to make Purple. So, when we mix this with more Red to create "Red-purple," we are really creating a shade that is a 2:1 ratio of red to blue. 

However, when creating tertiary colors, it really doesn't matter how much of another color you use to create the new color. It all depends on what color you want!

When you mix two secondary colors, you get a kind of mud, nasty color.

Example: Orange (S) + Green (S)= ugly, nasty brown that has a heavy yellow undertone. 

Warm versus Cool colors:

Every color is either warm or cool. Ideally, the primary colors are neither: They are neutral. But, achieving a pure color is a tough task, so this may not always be the case. Check out this diagram:

If we want to break this down even further, there are warm and cool shades of the secondary colors too:

When you go through the different rows, row 1 has colors that are both purples, but one is warm and one is cool. 

Now that we can see between warm and cool colors, we must make one last important notation regarding tones, shades, and tints. So far, we've been discussing hues, which are the same things as colors. The words are interchangeable. 

Tints- Any color that has been lightened by adding white to it. These create the pastel colors. If you add white to red, you have created a tint of red, which in this case happens to be pink.

Shades- Any color that has been darkened by adding black to it. For example, say you want to make a blue color darker. You add black to it, and you have now created a shade of blue.

Tones- Any color that has been mixed with grey. Something to note here is that mixing a color with grey is completely unlike mixing it with black or white, which doesn't seem to make much sense. Let's compare the different tints, shades, and tones, though, and the difference is clear.

The hues underlying all of the tints, shades, and tones are exactly the same. So, be careful when distinguishing warm and cool tones because the difference in colors may just be a tint, shade, or tone of the original hue. 

Why does any of this matter?

So, right about now, you're probably thinking "I've been doing this since Kindergarten. This is really stupid and obvious. I can mix paint." And, I understand where you're coming from, just stick with me here. All of this was a segway to really understand why we put certain colors in our makeup, and how to attain certain results on our faces taking advantage and manipulating color. 

Colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel compliment each other. Red to green, yellow to purple, and orange to blue are some examples, just to name a few, but you could look on the wheel and make many more pairs yourself. These are convenient because our skin is full of color!

When using the color wheel to choose makeup, while it's true that we want complementary hues, you must be careful because putting red next to green on your eyelids will most likely look somewhat silly and gaudy. You want complementary tones to be on different places on your face. 

For instance, as a green-eyed girl, I use a moss colored green as the main color on my eyelids, and I can also wear red lipstick with it. I don't look like a clown because they're on different parts of my face!

Let's start with the eyes:

Green Eyes

For green eyes, purple is your best friend. How did I get that? Well, if you look on the color wheel, red is across from green, but if I were to put a bright red on my eyelids, I'd look ridiculous. So, you choose colors that have red undertones, like a warm, plum purple. This is why I discussed tones, shades, and tints as well as warmth/coolness of colors. We take the basic red and manipulate it to get some more colors. Let's look at this diagram: 

Red, orange, and yellow are warm colors. Those are the undertones we want. But, we can have purples, blues, and greens that all have red, orange, or yellow undertones. This is where it gets a little tricky. 

Here are the colors that would look best on green eyes. This obviously isn't a conclusive list. 

These are all warm tones that are neutral, earthy tones. I can wear that green, moss colored hue because it has a red undertone. It is not a pure or a cool toned green, therefore it is still warm. These will exaggerate and accentuate green eyes because of the red hue underlying all of the shades. Can you see it? As you can see, we have an oranges, purples, greens, and browns.There is little to no yellow or blue present.

Blue Eyes

Blue eyes are probably the easiest to match colors for because blue is a primary color. When you look across the color wheel, it directly matches orange. This doesn't mean that you should put the brightest shade of orange on your eyelids. You want makeup that has orange undertones. This could be a shade of gold, amber, or even a light shade of orange. The key is to find shades that are warm colors.

If you look back to the colors for green eyes, you'll see that some of those colors overlap with the colors for blue eyes. This is because both eye colors require warm shades of color. But, blue eyes have more options in terms of blues. Blue will accentuate blue eyes, but it will diminish green eyes if not used carefully. Golds will look especially good on blue eyed people. 

Brown Eyes

Brown eyes are a mixture of different tones of the primary colors, so brown eyed people have a lot of options when it comes to eyeshadow and eye makeup! You can pretty much wear any colors. Keep in mind, though, some people have warm, amber toned brown eyes, and some people have a cooler toned brown for their eyes. Either way, the steps for choosing colors are the same as for green or blue eyes! Identify if your eyes are a warm or cool brown, then choose colors from there! 

This is a sample palette for a warm toned brown eye. Also, other variations on brown eyeshadow would look great on a brown eye. There are so many options for brown-eyed people. Almost any tone of brown, gold, and then certain shades of light blue all look fantastic for a brown-eye.

Almay Makeup

If none of this is clicking for you and you're struggling to see the differences between colors, you're not alone. If you'll allow me to nerd out for a second, when I go to chemistry lab, we have to use different chemicals as indicators. They change color and help you figure out the pH of the solution. I was the only one who could distinguish between certain colors, so some people have an eye for it, and others don't see it so easily. Again, though, I grew up in a creative home, constantly around art, so I might be more sensitive to it!

Don't fret! 

If you don't see the colors, Almay has a complete set of eye makeup sets that are perfectly calibrated for your eye color! I have the eyeshadow and eyeliner for green eyes. I highly recommend it. It really makes my eyes pop. If you look at the photo of the palette below, you'll see that it has a heavy warm purple tone to it that is consistent with what we already discussed! The eyeliner that corresponds is a warm purple as well that has grey in it (a tone of purple).

How the color wheel can help your complexion:

Remember how opposite colors on the color wheel complement each other? Well, they also cancel each other out. For example, when you're dying your hair, if you accidentally put too much red in it, you dye green on top of it. I'm sure some of the readers have been through this disaster! Or, if you dye your hair, you're supposed to use color retaining shampoo and conditioner specifically for your new hair color. If you're blonde, your shampoo will be straight up dark purple. Or, you can use purple hair dye to keep the color nice and to enhance it. Same type of thing applies to your face!

Elf Color Correcting Concealer 

If you have dark under eye circles, they're probably purple. Instead of using concealer that's the same color as your skin, you should use a yellow or orange color because that will cancel out the purple! Once you apply the concealer, you cover it with your normal, skin-toned concealer, and set it with your powder! Then you're bright eyed and bushy tailed just like that! 

If you purchase the Elf Color Correcting Concealer pictured, it has all the different hues you could ever need to fix blemishes on your face!

For any zits or things on your face, you should use straight up green concealer. It sounds awful, but the green will cancel it out completely! Then, just like the under eye cover-up, you cover it in regular concealer, then you can put setting powder on top of it and you're good to go. Here's a video from youtube about it for some more information on how to do this: 

That's it, folks!

I hope you've found this post about the color wheel informative! It's really important for all aspects of your beauty routine. 

Sometime in the future I'll talk about how to use the undertones of your skin and the color wheel to choose clothing colors that make your skin look brighter and healthier! But, that's a whole other post! 

Learning Something New: Sewing

I'm going to start this off by saying I LOVE JOANN'S FABRIC STORE. I've been an arts and crafts kinda gal my entire life (thanks my lovely mother who is an artist), so crafts stores are like home to me. Since moving to Gainesville to go to college, I've been seriously creatively stifled. I'm used to driving ten minutes to get to Joann's so I can start a new craft. Not here. We have a Michael's, but that store has never had quite what I'm ever looking for. 

But, a Joann's just opened here last month! I can hardly contain my excitement, and today I finally got to go! 

So what was my excuse for going? 

Motivation for learning to sew!

I've wanted to sew and design clothes my entire life, but somehow I never learned. I got a sewing machine as a present a few years back, but I let it rot in my closet for some reason. But, now that I'm out of the house and realizing how expensive clothes are, I had to learn. 

For example, I love fashion and new clothes, and I love having a full closet of super cute things. But, let's be real: Most people can't afford to get a new dress every week.

Check it out. This dress from Forever 21 is fabulous, but it's $29.80. I'm a college student. Ain't nobody got money for that, especially if I want a million fantastic dresses (which I do, obvi). 

Hence, I have to learn to sew. 

Luckily, my mom had a sewing machine from back in the day that she let me take to my new place here in Gainesville! And, she has a stack of books to help me out. 
And, I have a fantastic book from my mom that outlines basic sewing things! You can never have too many resources! 

1976 swag, ya'll!

My first task was learning to thread the machine. This has been my biggest hurdle for years, as silly as that is. My lovely boyfriend helped me figure it out, though! 

Check out our set up! It's pretty glorious. My mother bought this sewing machine with her own money her senior year of high school. She made an El Vira dress for Halloween with it which I think is the definition of fabulous. 

I feel like I'm a cooler person for even having this on my dining room table. See my stack of books on the right side? Invaluable books, most definitely. 

So, what did I make for my first try?

Here in Florida, it was cold for a few weeks, and my hands froze every single day since I didn't have gloves. I started to make a pair from the sleeves of an older sweater, but since it takes forever to sew by hand, they fell by the wayside. Armed with a sewing machine, I had to finish them!

This is one of em! It's not so great, but I think I did an alright job for my first try ever! I'm just proud I got the machine threaded, so making this glove was gravy! These took literally two minutes, though, which is incredible considering it took forever for me to sew just two fingers by hand. And, the sewing machine stitches are magnitudes better than mine.

This takes us to Joann's. 
Now that I can make gloves, I'm not really sure what the next step to take is. I guess moving on to patterns? My boyfriend and I went to Joanns and browsed fabrics forever just for kicks. Kinda like when we go to Lowe's to look at all the pretty plants in the garden section. While there, we got some of these awesome free guides! Seriously, Joann's is the best. 

Me in a year

My lifeline

My next step is to learn how to read patterns. Luckily, this Singer book has an entire chapter on this very thing! 

I can't wait until I'm somewhat decent at sewing and can justify buying all the pretty fabrics at Joann's. Aisles and aisles and aisles of lovely prints! Once I start getting used to pre-made patterns, I could start making my own! I hope to become Mondo from Project Runway. He's my spirit animal. 

Next Project

Aren't these dresses incredible? I like the green one on the right best! These look a little complicated, though, so I might start with this other pattern I have.

Tell me these shorts aren't just dying to be made! Hopefully it's not too difficult, because these are calling my name. 

I'm extra excited about these patterns because they both came from thrift stores! They're unlike any pattern I could ever buy new. My proof? Joann's didn't have anything like it! You can't beat vintage Vogue, folks. Especially when its only fifty cents from the thrifts. 

That's today's adventure in the world of sewing! Maybe I'll take a shot at making something real tomorrow, but maybe not. It's a little scary thinking of working with real fabric!

My new best friend

UPDATE: I finished my first sewing project the next day after hours of frustration from ripping out ugly seams, drawing out patterns, and learning to wind bobbins. Everyone, meet Herman the Elephant! 

My actual new best friend

Burt's Bees Chapstick DIY

I love Burt's Bees. Who doesn't, right? It's akin to kittens and chocolate. You love it or you love it. Normally I'm DIYing things because I can do it cheaper and better, but I'm recreating Burt's Bees for a whole other reason: They discontinued my favorite flavor. 

Anyone else ever had the clove oil Burt's Bees chapstick? It's phenomenal. It tingles, smells nice, and is super ultra healing like all of their chapsticks are. 

So, to get to the root of this, I emailed corporate Burt's Bees. Here's their response:

Very disappointing. I took to Ebay to find some clove oil chapstick.

This was really disappointing, too. If I want this chapstick, it'd be a million dollars, but I guess on the bright side, it's free shipping...

DIY TIME
Since I'm never getting my paws on real Burt's Bees, I'm making it myself!

RECIPE:

• 3 tbsp beeswax pellets
• 2 tbsp coconut oil (or cocoa butter)
• 1/4 cup sunflower oil
• 8 drops of Vitamin E oil
• 9 drops of peppermint essential oil
• 12 drops of clove essential oil

You also need some chapstick tubes! I went on Amazon to buy an entire bag of these bad boys. 100 for $20! 

DIRECTIONS:

This was super easy to do. First, you want to set up a double boiler in your kitchen. Here's mine: 

Simple method. All you do is place a glass Pyrex bowl in a pot of boiling water and let the steam melt everything! This is very important to do because the direct heat of melting all the oils in a pot will make a huge mess and burn all of your fancy oils. 

In the photo above, I've already added all of my ingredients except the essential oils. Heating essential oils will lead to a degradation of the scents which totally defies the point of doing this at all. 

After it's all melted, add your essential oils! I then used a chopstick to dip in the lovely mixture and test it out. Once it's the texture you like, try rubbing some of it on your lips and see if there are enough essential oils in it for your taste! For example, my chapstick tingles a little bit because of the peppermint, so test it out and see if there's enough tingle for your life!

Here's where I destroyed our kitchen and made a huge mess doing this.

Pouring the oils into the tubes was the most difficult part of this entire endeavor. We tried pouring them into the tubes with a funnel, but then if we poured too quickly, it spilled everywhere. It was a hassle. Invest in an eye dropper if you're going to do this. Seriously. This was an issue. 

FINAL RESULT 

My chapstick finally dried, and it turned out really well! It feels almost exactly how the Burt's Bees clove oil chapstick felt, and I'm so proud that I was able to make it myself! Now I don't have to pay $99 for some tubes of chapstick.