It’s been a while since I last mentioned Operation Simplify! (or Simplicity, I can’t seem to find a name I really like~!)

Time to move on to the next stage, which was planning out my outfits for the working week. I find most of my mornings pretty hectic, I tend to stay up far too late (around 1-2am) and find myself struggling to wake up to the sound of my alarm at 6:45am – 7am.

The photo above is my favourite outfit for this week!

To make my mornings just a little calmer, I’ve started planning out my work clothes for the week (only four outfits because the client I’m with currently has casual Fridays!).

My ritual now is every Sunday night, I’ll check the weather forecast for the week ahead, and then pick out clothes for each day to wear and hang them out on a little display rack in my bedroom. It makes each morning just that little bit simpler, and anything that helps me in the morning is worth doing!

Plus I just love seeing this display in my room, it just feels so luxurious, especially on days where the sun rays trickle in Simple luxury!

What do you do to make your working mornings easier?

Coloured jeans really seems to be a hit with both the northern and southern hemispheres this Summer 2012! Earlier this year I only saw them online, but slowly and surely as Australia’s Summer approaches, I see them popping up everywhere! From Portmans to Target~

This was right up my alley, for the longest time I was never much of a dress / skirt sort of person (I’m trying to change!). But before I discovered coloured jeans that one night as I surfing ASOS… (oh wait that’s every night ), all my outfit posts contained nothing but blue jeans! But now, my wardrobe has been completely taken over by coloured jeans I love it! They are fun, lively and are a great way to break out of the typical blue / black / grey jeans that almost everyone seems to be wearing. (not that there is anything wrong with them! I still own 5 blue jeans, they are classics for a reason )

My goal is to own every colour I can Let the smart shopping (and silly poses) begin!

Operation Simplify! はじめ! I mentioned a while back I’ve started a project to downsize my life and try and live in a little more minimalistically. I’m never going to be able to live as minimal as some people I know, that just wouldn’t be me. But I think there are some areas of my life that would benefit from some cleansing, not just to free up the space around me, but to free my own mind. I find personally the more materialistic I became, the more “heavy” I felt, and I think owning less is just one of the most freeing things you can do for yourself.

The project is going to go slow, and take a while, what with everything going on. So I thought a good and defined place to start would be my closet! First, I needed to go through everything I owned (so I knew exactly what I had), and donate anything I definitely without a doubt knew I wouldn’t want nor use again.

I managed to fill up to bags worth of clothes from this first sweep. I also managed to order all my clothes based on colour, what was hang-able, what needed to be folded and define what were work clothes and what were casual I don’t yet have any photos of the last three results because I want to complete the last step before I take any, which is doing a final sweep of the closet and donating whatever I haven’t actually worn for over a year (minus dressy gowns). Once I’ve done that I will gladly reveal all!

One thing I’ve started doing, and this is more my “OCD” nature than anything else, is changing all my hangers to match! I’m strange and get a lot of satisfaction from seeing a line of my clothes, all with the same hanger. It’s the small things in life

Do you guys feel your own life could benefit from a little more simplifying? If so, how?

For too long has my wardrobe been both plain and practical, every time I saw a piece of art (otherwise known as shoes, or clothes, or jewellery or anything I could wear!!) I’d tell myself, no! Only buy what is sensible and something you could wear to work.

Life is too short to be boring, so since I started this blog, I’ve been allowing myself to grow and let my artistic side dictate both my life and appearance. It’s… scary to some degree, being so bold about one’s appearance, not fearing being looked at or stopped on the streets (though you’d think I’d be used to that now as a cosplayer!). But like I said, life is too short

So when I saw these black suede boots I knew I had to have them! They are by Siren, not sure what the name is. The zippers are crazy, love them

Can’t wait to see how artistic I can take my outfits

I’m sad I probably won’t be able to post my photos from Grazia up till later tonight or even tomorrow as I have a wedding rehearsal to attend after work I really should have been more on the ball last night when I got home, but in my true style I love to put things off and watch Family Guy or play Rock Band instead.

After seeing how diverse the fashion was yesterday, I am determined to dress up for the next two shows. Problem is, I realised I don’t actually have any “interesting” clothes.

The problem with being a seamstress is that when I find an article of clothing I love, that comes with a hefty price tag I think to myself, “Oh I’ll just make that”, and on to the already 200+ long list it goes.

I find myself consistently working on costumes for cosplay or photo shoots, so not much time is dedicated to creating clothes for myself And here I am, I have plenty of shoes, hand bags and makeup, but no clothes to wear them with!

Am I alone? Perhaps I should get cracking and finally make a couple of dresses I can use this year. Hmm.

First, my apologies for being MIA the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy toying around with various concepts and ideas, and have some exciting projects in the making! I’m still trying to get used to the idea of documenting everything I do, as in the past I’m use to just doing it!

Around the middle of Febuary, a small group of cosplay friends and I embarked on recreating the Final Fantasy 8 opening scene for an EB Games competition, with a twist. My character was Rinoa Heartily, and you can view (and vote?) for our entry here. We’re the first video list (talk about luck!). I will make a post on the construction of the costume once I get some high res photos of it It was indeed an interesting journey, involving a lot of fabric dying!

The other thing I’ve been working on is a mini studio in my room. I’ve always been passionate about both makeup and fashion, and had originally intended to open two separate blogs, this for fashion and another for makeup. But after a good week of going back and forth with names and whether it would be wise to spread myself over two blogs (and potentially have my content run too thin?), I decided to just merge the two ideas together and bring my love for makeup / beauty on this blog! So be prepared for many more posts on product reviews, “face of the day”, tutorials and much more! I’m very excited

And here’s a little something from my last trip to Hong Kong, a short maxi dress! The fabric is a tad sheer, which makes me wonder whether I would actually wear it out, still~ It fits perfectly, is very summery and all for around $10AU! Market finds are the best

All too often I run into the same problem. I’ll find a piece of clothing that I absolutely adore, it looks perfect! Usually I find it online, so I buy it~ Eventually it makes its way into my arms, I put it on and what do you know? It’s too “big”. The dress that appeared to fall just above the knees on the model is down to my ankles!

Image from Net a Porter.

Since Burberry released this jacket, I loved it instantly! Almost as much as I love their Duchesse Silk Knotted Epaulette Trench Coat. Even if I had the money, I could see this lovely coat coming down to my knees and being rather unflattering.

I doubt I’m the only height deprived individual out there, but man it sucks

And this lovely Cutout Dress is my favourite pick! I find myself really gravitating towards elegant, modern, clean, simple dresses with a twist.

But at $2800AU+ a pop, it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll be taking this baby home