Playing in the closet

So while my son and husband were out spending time with Granny, and While I was SUPPOSED to be folding laundry (don't worry I got it done, well,  it is in process) I stayed home and played in my closet today.  Usually I don't take pictures of every combo, because it is tedious and ridiculous for me to do that, but I thought maybe I would today to record a little bit of my process.  I purposely withheld the FINAL OUTFIT that I came to because I will probably wear it Monday and don't want to be redundant.  I absolutely DO NOT plan every outfit this way, but I had the time today, and its fun sometimes to be completely unproductive.  These elements are things I am playing with in anticipation of spring. Some are working, some are not.  Some I thought were working but now that I see them in photographs I am not so sure (top Skirt looks too big or boxy or something, and not sure if the mix of black and brown leathers work either.)

I am in desperate need of a hair cut and color, so I hope to do that and video tape the cut tomorrow.  In the mean time, Happy Weekend!

COMMENT OF THE DAY:  Today's pic was difficult since there were so many VERY sweet comments!  And a lot of new blogs for me to check out!  Thanks so much for stopping by!!

 my name is lauren. said...

i just rediscovered your blog...don't know how it slipped my radar for so long, but i'm glad i found it again so i can follow all of the lovely fashion inspiration you have to offer.
i may or may not have just gone through the last.... oh ....maybe 10 pages of your blog. you are absolutely beautiful and a complete fashion inspiration. the way you pair things is so fresh and lovely. and i actually adore the first outfit in this post. the juxtaposition of the leather skirt with the floral and the unexpected bit of brown leather. i think it's perfection...but that's just me.

so glad to have (re!)found you! xo
{Lauren}
thelittlethingswedo.blogspot.com

Lots to cover!

I got home from my pole dancing class last night to find these GORGEOUS new tights waiting for me!! OH MY GOODNESS!!  They are my new FAVORITE TIGHTS EVER!  I got them from WeLoveColors.com along with two additional bright colored tights (will debut soon!) Can I just tell you that I have been lusting over tights from this company FOR YEARS!  Before I ever even knew what a blog was, when I just wore jean all the time, when colored tights were a fantasy of mine, I had the ad from Lucky Magazine (the one with the girl wearing blue tights with an orange dress!) cut out and pasted in my inspiration notebook! To finally own a few pairs is a dream come true for me! (its the simple things really!) These ones are called Nylon Tights (metallic) Silver and Gold Rain.  They are the best tight I have ever owned.  I took these pictures last night while I was still glowing! 

Tips for a very successful pole dancing class:

1. Cowboy boots with a sturdy heel
2. Daisy Dukes
3. Split of Korbel Champagne 
4. Christina's Pole dance disk (Scroll to the bottom of this post to win this compilation disk!)
5. Dim lights
6. Red lips

That did it for me.  I felt like a rock star last night!  I have to build more upper body strength but I have mastered the keys to this thing!  I bought 6 more classes though to make it second nature.  I have no idea if these skills will ever come in handy, but it is nice to have a special talent tucked up your sleeve.  

Now on the subject of lists, I have very graciously been given some pretty sweet blog Awards! They all mostly require the same things, A list of facts or single word answers to a list of questions.  I think Awards like these are cool for getting to know bloggers, but since I sort of Ramble on about myself all the time anyway, I thought maybe I would just talk a little about each person who awarded it to me.

Haute Mess Award from Annie at Time enough for Drums.

I met Annie on Chictopia before she had her blog and was immediately drawn to her adorable glasses and sincere comments! She loves vintage and is creative and fresh in her styling.  Thanks Annie!

Kreativ Blogger award from Perfecta at Another Fab Day.

A quote from this stylish woman ""Every piece in your wardrobe should make you feel Fab and carry a story. Mine do." Very Well Said! She blogs in two different languages and is an expert at layering! Thanks Perfecta!

Your blog is fabulous From Jolie at Senorita Fashionista.

Jolie is a Very fashionable woman and a very talented Makeup artist to boot! She gives reviews and tips for make up application and shows things that inspire her as well as her own style!  Thanks Jolie!  

Kreativ Blogger from DIRTY HAIR HALO.

Every time I get a comment from this girl I get a little squirm in my tummy and feel like I just got a short, cool note from my hugest boy crush in Middle school.  NO, she does not look like a middle school boy.  She has MAD style and makes me literally laugh out loud when I read her blog.  So yes,  Thank you insanely hot girl. 

Over the Top award from Corie at My Taste Indeed.

Corie not only has an amazing personal style and a killer Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction Hair Cut (which she does HERSELF!) she also is a very grounded, down to earth, wise and philosophical person.  Thanks Corie!

Best Blog Award from Tiny Quirks.  

This girl is completely adorable, a student, and a very sweet sister!  She has a very nice blog cataloging her outfits (layers leggings, ruffles) and her search for the perfect prom dress.  Thank so much Sweet girl! 

So, according to all of these awards I am supposed to grant awards on to like 50 other bloggers or something crazy like that! (I am not into arithmetic) That is like my entire blog roll!! Instead I am  going to do a big giveaway.  Hope you are not mad.  I am giving away 20 copies of "Christina's Pole Dance Disk" a compilation of songs you can't help but love ranging from songs by Wanda Jackson, to Bob Dylan, The Beatles, the Stones, Micheal Jackson, I mean the list goes on!  And they are all VERY danceable songs you can play while you take your outfit photos for your blog, or for a cool dinner party!  To win simply be one of the first 20 people to EMAIL ME at secondskin19(at)gmail(dot)com WITH YOUR MAILING ADDRESS!!  I can't stress the address part enough!  I will send a confirmation email to let you know you made it in the first 20, and may send more depending on turn out! 


TIME STAMP 1:05  only 4 disks left!!
TIME STAMP 1:37 only 1 disk left!!  But if you were too late, I will still send you a disk if you send me a self addressed and stamped envelope to me first!!  Email me for specifics! Congrats to all the winners!  They went quick ya 'll.  


COMMENT OF THE DAY:  

 Christen said...

I need those tights. No joke, I need them. They are quite possibly the most awesome tights I have ever seen.
And can I just say that I adore you even more now that I know you are taking pole dancing classes? You might be the coolest person ever. With the most awesome tight ever. :)
(Sorry for the silly comment, I'm in a goofy mood *smile*)

Our Niche

I bought this shirt with every intention of selling it, but when I put it on to style it I had a complete change of heart! I LOVE everything about this shirt, the slouchy Mock Dolman Sleeves (its actually a huge men's shirt) the wrap look of it (the volume allows me to cross the front panels over and tuck them in) And that PRINT!  I  paired it with this suede belt in similar tones (I found at Goodwill a while ago) to just take it to that level.


My skin program is really working!!  I cannot even believe it!  Though I really do credit this peaceful feeling in my body to most of the progress.  I have also been dry brushing my whole body before taking my showers (it kind of hurts), then applying a gradual self tanner (not to my face) which is giving me nice results all over.  Great for pole dancing class!


I was so surprised to hear how many of you suffer from skin problems.  WOW! It is very prevalent isn't it.  I guess the thing that makes me happy is that I have NEVER noticed it on you guys.  Not even a little. And most of you said you didn't notice it on me either, which makes me think that we are a community of people who are not looking for flaws in each other! We just appreciate that we are all normal people with  dressing nice hobbies!  That is cool to me.  I have been telling everyone to start a blog lately.  I am like  "oh you like to write, you should start a blog! Oh you are into knitting, you should start a blog! You collect hairnets from foreign countries, START A BLOG!"  I just think it helps you tap into subcultures and niche groups of people who have common interests and since I live in a very small town, this task can be somewhat difficult in real life! 


Speaking of small towns, I ran into this girl Kodi at my grocery store a couple of days ago.  She is a clothing designer I have worked with a few times at my previous job and so much fun and cool and amazing! We chatted a bit and she went ahead and started her first blog last night!  Electrik !  I am so happy for her!  Her clothing line will soon be on Etsy too!  The internet is magic.  


COMMENT OF THE DAY:  The answert o this question is some old safari movie with Sofia Loren and Grace Kelley I think?  Grace had like a huge white mens shirt and she just crossed it over and tucked it into Safari pants.  It was years ago but I have always thought it was genius! 

 barefootandvintage said...

could you be any cuter?! i mean, really...
as usual, great outfit! i definitely dig crossing the front panels...what made you think to do that?

compare and contrast

I have been wanting to show you this girl for a really long time.  Her blog name is Meggstatus.  Her blog is Another day to dress up (her camera has been broken for some time but her supplemental images are gorgeous none the less!) . Her style is so her own, mixing menswear styles with very feminine details, wears hats almost all the time, and has given me so much inspiration I can't even stand it.   I have seriously dipped into her archives (sadly not as deep as I wish!!)   Her style is my trigger for making menswear a real player in my wardrobe this spring, summer and forever.  Interestingly enough, I watched "Public Enemies" last night with Johnny Depp.  It was set in the 1930's and is the story of John Dillinger's final fall.  VERY well dressed men! (small side note:  I sold these shoes to a very lovely girl who asked me to style them for her before I sent them!   Hope this is helping you out!  High waist trousers "HOT", socks with short skirt or dress "Femme", cuffed tight pants with loose silk and vest "casual")

I also went to my very first pole dancing class last night!  This is my theory:  The thinking brain is a very shitty dancer.  The brain that speaks in my head doesn't know how to plant my right foot and swing the left leg around, use that momentum and spin.  It doesn't even know left from right until I prepare for The Pledge of Allegiance.  Apparently, just as every penguin has their own heart song, every woman has her own dance walk.  You cannot THINK this walk, you have to feel it.  My primal brain is an AMAZING dancer (my opinion!) It doesn't speak a language, it just feels, anticipates and moves. The primal brain is quiet and shy, and easily drowned out by the over achiever thinking brain. This is why I can dance better 1. alone 2. buzzed or 3. singing along to the music.  These three environments keep the thinker busy or disarms it and lets my primal instincts out to do their thing.

Thursday I am going to simulate at least two elements of this environment.  I am making a CD to bring in with Wanda Jackson's "You Don't Know" on it.  This is THE sexiest song I have ever heard in my entire life. and Wanda Jackson is the epitome of my ideal alter ego.  So raw and rockabilly!

COMMENT OF THE DAY:

 Eliza said...

Thank you for sharing! I am loving her blog...I tend towards girlier pieces (i think because of a traumatizing pixie cut in grade school that left me dreading being mistaken for a boy...), but maybe now I will finally roll up my trouser cuffs and wade into menswear! I really like the idea from her/your first pic of doing a crop top thing with high-waisted pants.

Also, you are a rock star for taking a pole-dancing class. Keep us updated on disarming the thinking brain, please...so far my only dancing successes have required so much of option 2 that I don't remember them :)

10. Be so FREAKING happy!

There are so many things I have ben wanting to address here.  My son is sick today though and home from school so I have to make this very quick while he is chill sleeping.

THINGS FOR THIS WEEK:

1. Get a ticket to NEW YORK!!  BBBBAAAAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
2. Post menswear style and inspirations (I have been thinking about this one for some time now!) 
3. Try tips from other bloggers and commenters about satin pillow cases, natural scrubs, skin clarifying shampoos, body brushing, etc. and report on findings.
4. Drink tea and do yoga.
5. Take a pole dancing class "exercise class" to get closer to accomplishing my Burlesque Fantasy (Tonight and Thursday!! I will let you you know how it goes!) 
6. Water basil plant 
7. Thank my lucky stars that I found these lace up vintage JUSTIN BOOTS at the good will and even though they were marked size 7 they fit me perfectly!! 
8. Accept and re-award a couple of really great blog awards I have recently received (I have not forgotten nor am I ignoring them! Thank you so much girls!) 
9. Make my hair cutting video!  I will try very hard to get it loaded here!  Thanks for the tips!
10. Be so FREAKING happy!!  

COMMENT OF THE DAY: 

Lel said...

Aah, I'm so excited for your hair cutting tutorial! I've been waiting and hesitating about getting mine cut, but if I could do it myself then wow, that would be fab and save me so much. I'm so pleased you are going to NYC :) I had my finger poised to click on the grey pleated trench and then it went! But I'm thrilled you sold them so quickly and can realise your dream. Sending happy thoughts from England, Lel.

before blogging and sleeping braids

Before I started blogging, this was my formula: comfortable tee, boot cut worn in jeans, and my trusty cowboy boots.  Simple, practical, comfortable, classic, a little monotonous day to day, but perfectly fine.  My husband LOVES it when I dress this way now because it feels like such a novelty for me to look so low maintenance.   I am wearing this jacket today to comfort and remind myself that I did keep one for myself.  I chose my Favorite Suede and fur collar jacket and my Favorite trench.  I have more cropped jackets I will list, but I would like to get yesterday's up in the shop before I go into the cropped jacket collection.  I had an inquiry as to where I found all of these coats and where to get more, and the answer, unfailingly is THRIFT STORES.  I purchased every single one of them for $25 (my limit) or less ($9 - $12) at thrift stores in my town.  And there are probably over 50 that I have passed up just based on the principal that my hoarding tendencies disgust me.  It is actually pretty therapeutic for me to let these go and makes me feel like I was just collecting them for people who can't find them on their own in their over picked towns.

Now to the subject of sleeping braids.  I wish I could tell you that they were some really cool thing, but really, a few times last week I put my hair in pigtail braids before going to bed because when I don't (every night practically) I wake up with HUGE dreadlocked mattes in my hair. Like a poor little pound puppy.  It rips and breaks my hair when I brush them out in the morning and interrupts my sleep since it feels like I am laying on a dense patch of dead animal or something.  So, I have been trying to be disciplined enough to braid my hair each night to protect it from harm.  Thats all.  I have been toying with the idea of doing a video of me cutting my own hair though.  I am not sure how to load a movie into my blog so if you can tell me how to do it I will give it a try.  I have been cutting my own hair for a few years now and my technique is very easy, I think If you saw you would be able to do it yourself too.  If you have wavy hair that is.  And if you even want the same hair style as me, which you may absolutely not want.  But maybe I will just for fun.  My hair is still mostly wet in these pictures so excuse the fact that it looks a little flat.

COMMENT OF THE DAY:

 Tracy said...

I'm one of the quiet numbers on your counter, but I wanted to chime in today because I have hair just like yours and I sleep on a satin pillow case. I can take a shower at night and style my hair and in the morning it will look like I just styled it. You can get them at any bed, bath and beyond type store.

coat fund drive

This is the last fund drive post and I will be back to my regularly scheduled program of outfits tomorrow.  All of these coats will be listed on Etsy tomorrow for $30 each (I am still working out shipping and doing research with my post office guy tomorrow to figure out the lowest possible rate for both domestic and international shipping)  All of the previous coats and shoes have indeed been listed at an estimated postal rate.  Rates may change tomorrow afternoon.

I want to Thank You ALL SOOOOOOO ( emphasis on so) much for your support in this!  Everyone who took the time to comment, vote, or get Chictopia accounts, you are so very very sweet!  Even the people who are just sort of watching and coming to my blog periodically are really boosting my spirits!  (I have a people counter!! I know you are there!  I don't know who you are or where you are from, but Thank you for coming and really, that alone is SUPER huge for me!! So please know I am even VERY thankful for your watchful silence!) I feel I have to find some way to make it up to you, so I am scheming a huge, multi person giveaway!  I have not worked it all out yet but it will be coming soon!

COMMENT OF THE DAY: I kind of get this question a lot and I feel my photography technique may be a bit deceiving and makes me an optical illusionist.  So if you are asking the same thing to try to gauge if something will fit right, my info is all listed in my policies section on my Etsy.

closet365 said...

Okay these coats are to die for but I'm curious, how tall are you? You always look so tall in pictures, those coats would probably touch the floor on me!

A REAL Tryhard

Tomorrow I will be answering a lot of questions here about sleeping braids, and back yards, and new skin scrubs and what not,  BUT today. . . .  I am gonna be a TRYHARD.    I have never asked for a favor this big from you, but today I am.  You may think I am a shallow, silly, desperate woman after this and never want to read my blog again, but it is a risk I am willing to take.  I know there is some serious shit happening in our world today that requires so much grace and attention.  This is not one of those things and I am completely aware of that.  My intentions are good.  I will tell you that much to try to save any respect you may have for me.  Here goes. . . . phew:

I want to go to New York for the Chictopia 10 Conference.  I want to go BAD.  I have never been east of Arizona (except to fly to the UK once)  and have only fantasized and dreamed of getting to this big city with sky scrapers and subways.  Not only do I want to get there, I am also faced with an opportunity to meet all of these AMAZING girls that I have only virtually met in blog world.  It would be nearly impossible for me to travel all over to Michigan and Tennessee and Texas and Jersey, and every where else you all are, but this one time, all these great girls will be in one place at the same time.  Voices to words.  Faces to names.  A complete transition from the electronic to the real.  This is why I want it so bad.

MY STRATEGY The way I see it, there are two ways for me to get there:

1. Win the Chictopia 10 contest and get Airfare (up to $300) Lodging, and a ticket to the conference.
2. Sell my Precious coat collection to fund the trip.  

I am entering in to the contest TODAY but also hedging my bets since about everyone and their brother is competing for this thing and my chances are slim to none.  All of the coats above will be for sale on my esty shop for $50 each.  I am working out flat rate shipping (I think will be $15).  I will also be listing  my collection of vintage trench coats at a lower price point and showing them tomorrow (all of the boots and shoes I showed a couple of days ago are being listed soon as well).  If I am able to literally sell the coats off my back, I should have enough money to go.  I have been collecting these coats for years and it was making me a bit sick photographing them to sell.  Ask Sweet Chelsea (who has first dibs on the blue one if she still wants it) who has been asking me to show her these for weeks now.  THESE are MY COATS.  And I love them, but I want to go to NEW YORK that bad.

A way I may have a better chance of winning the contest is by getting votes on my contest entry.  If you have a Chictopia account, please vote for my entry, and if you don't, consider getting one, not just for me, but because the connections you can make are endless, the tips you will receive and accumulate about style, photo quality, angles and environment, and the motivation for dressing up will increase exponentially as will your blog readership, or courage to start your own blog.  If you do decide to get an account please enter  code SECONDSKIN555 at registration and please vote for the entry titled Chictopia 10 tryhard.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come to my blog EVER and for reading anything I ever have to say.  I Promise to never ask for anything like this again.

{EDIT:   Maya,

Yes! That is all you have to do!! I would have emailed you or gone to your blog but there is no link for me to do that!!! Thank you all sSOOOOOOOOOOO much for not thinking I am a beast! I was worried I just committed blogger suicide! Thank you again!!

Christina Marie}


COMMENT OF THE DAY:  

Delightfully Tacky said...

Oh, girl, I'm so on the same page as you with this. I have no money to get to NYC for the Chictopia10 conference, and what I have I'm saving for my Winnebago journey but I SO want to go! I've never been to any kind of blogger meet up because I live so far away and all of my favorite blog friends are going to be there!
I hope we both get to go! It'd be great to see you there!