- January 1, 2020
Capsule Wardrobe – Updated
Happy New Year Plannerista!
Thank you for visiting and checking out my blog! This post is especially exciting because I am here to share an idea that I have been working on for a while. As of lately, my intentions, thoughts and plans have been around capsule wardrobe planning! I wanted to share an update of how this form of planning has helped me reach my goals to become a minimalist (with a feminine touch) and to purge my outfits, declutter my closet and find fabulous in everything I wear.
Mind you, my main interest behind this plan is to stop buying clothes, accessories and make-up products that I don’t need, to be more focused and committed to support ethically conscious companies and to liberate my mind, and closet of the unnecessary task to have to pick an outfit every day. As a matter of fact, somebody did the math and those extra minutes that you spend every morning, staring at your closet, add up to hours in any given year. Isn’t that a crazy thought? Time, my friends is some sort of a privilege and I wish to spend mine doing and making room for what really matters and going through a closet full of clothes (and not finding anything to wear) is not how I wish to spend my mornings.
Now, let us put all these plans to work with the steps that used to dig in my closet and plan my outfits.
NOTE: For the purpose of this post, I am only counting work clothes, not workout clothes, outerwear, underwear or bathing suits. But seriously, throw away those old panties, would you?
– Go in your closet and take all your clothes out.
– Figure out which colors are in season.
– Create YOUR color palette
– Put away the clothes that do not fit your palette selection, don’t fit, are outdated, haven’t worn in a year. (you know which ones I am talking about)
– Write down an inventory list identified by garment, i.e. blouses, pants, slacks, etc.
– Hang them back up in your closet.
– At a later date, start filling gaps of items from your inventory and then and only then, go shopping, in case you need a new jacket or skirt.
– Enjoy your new found freedom.
After I purged, it was easy to get a vision of a look that I wish to accomplish and to give me inspiration on pieces that I wish to buy. To clarify, I am not saying NO to buying, I am saying no to buying without knowing what I own and skipping the shopping in my closet, which I find so essential. I am actually saving for a new leather bomber jacket and the savings from last year, were great incentives for my partner, to get me a new bag.
Since I started planning outfits, I use stickers to create the starting point of my weekly capsule wardrobe planning, by using the pants as the main item and then I work building around them. On Sunday nights, I place stickers of the pieces (similar in color and shape of what I actually have) and build possible outfits for the whole week. Other factors, such as weather, work meetings, functions or casual days will impact those decisions, although with stickers, I still know what I have. If you are following me on Instagram, you may have already seen most of the inserts that I mentioned earlier.
Also, ever since I got Cladwell on my phone, I have been using this tool to plan my outfits, since you populate the app with clothes (or similar) that you own, you are essentially basing your planned wardrobe with a great vision of how your outfit is going to look even before you wear it or try it on. With no affiliation to the company, I am very happy to say that this app, installed on my phone, has been a game changer in how I plan my outfits. It is only available for iPhone but what a great tool it is!
To end this post, I wanted to share what I have concluded to be the main part of this process and what is making me very happy and excited about what I am doing:
– Jeans go with everything
– So does leather
– Animal prints can be introduced in the form of a blouse, a scarf or an accessory
– Salmon color is universal
– Pink (Blush) & Gray Tops are the new Black
– Tall Black Boots are universally flattering
– Minimalism is not the lack of something. It is the perfect amount of everything.
Thank you for reading
- November 20, 2019
What Is A Mood Board
I have this question for you: What is a Mood Board? And why do you need one?
Doubtful but perhaps, you haven’t heard about them or seen anything about them but I am here to tell you that they are EVERYWHERE!!! They have rapidly became the new “it” item in the planning world and with more and more of us growing inclined to use them as decorative items insider our planners, I decided to do a little bit of research to share with all of you!
Mood boards have been used by bloggers and creative people for a long time. They are actually an essential tool used by fashion designers to keep track of their creations, which starts with a blank canvas that is used to start pinning images of ideas that will inspire them with their creations for future collections. Their purpose is to provide the designer with visual aid of colors, textures, lines and variations of a concept that up to that moment, was only in their mind and they can bring out to life with a board.
This concept has now evolved into many fields and finally planneristas have caught up with the trend. The concept is to take a compilation of favorite things and make it into a pretty design and create a dashboard, which is the first thing that you will see in someone’s planner. Others are using images that they find on Pinterest and creating “Vision Boards”, which is another variation of the Mood Board, essentially a compiled group of images of things that the creator wishes to achieve in the future.
In my case, I use mine to track my outfits of the month or season, to track my weekend activities and I am now working on a Vision Boards to remind myself of all the things that I wish to accomplish this year, which include rebranding my blog and social media. I keep my mood board, for the weekend in my craftcave, hanging from a cute board that I bought from IKEA. The beauty of creating your very own mood board is that you can change it, switch it around and customize to your exact wishes, desires and plans, depending on what you are looking to accomplish.
If you need help customizing your own Mood Board, please let me know if I can help you! I am now offering custom mood boards for any size ringed planners.
- November 8, 2019
My First Attempt At Capsule Wardrobe
What is this, you may ask? This one is about a concept, that has been going around since the 80’s, when a French boutique owner, came up with the fashion notion that you can create a wardrobe (that you love and works for you) with basic and essential pieces, throughout every season. The point of capsule wardrobe is to learn to love what you own, to minimize your existence, to make your routine faster and easier and to SAVE MONEY!! If by now, you are not excited about this concept, allow me to explain some more: ever since we moved into the new house, I have been debating on what to do with the master closet. I find it a tad outdated and I have been considering the possibility of having it redone, not only to make it look nicer but to customize it with a design that I love. What happened next is that I had to also reflect on the fact that it is messy and cluttered with my clothes, shoes and accessories. That before I consider having it redone, I really, really need to clean it and most importantly, clear out the mountains of clothes, that I haven’t worn in a while and I must remove in order to see what I have. I was tired of getting up every morning and spending way too much time trying to figure out what to wear to work everyday.
To hold myself accountable and to finally figure out what works for me and by the same time, simplifying my morning routine, making room for what matters and saving myself at least 30 minutes every morning because if you are like me, I never have anything to wear. Which also brings me to the fact that I need to stop buying clothes that I only wear once and then they become part of that clutter that I mentioned earlier. Also, it is confirmed that successful people, uniform their style to avoid wasting time in having to worry about little things, like picking an outfit. Please be mindful that I am only using this plan to figure out my work wardrobe. Capsule Wardrobe is not applicable to gym wear, beachwear or accessories. You can definitely work on decluttering those but the nature of this post is gearing toward everyday work clothes for a specific season.
So let’s get to it.
Step 1:
Empty your closet. Yep! Take all your clothes and lay them on the bed or the floor. What matters is that you get to see them all.
Step 2:
Make 3, or maybe 4 piles. I combined the Marie Kondo, Japanese method to declutter, in order to make the following 3 piles:
1. What you love/gives you joy
2. Maybe
3. Nope
You may find seasonal pieces that will not add to any of these 3 piles. Those, just store them or put them away to reassess them, once that season comes around.
Step 3:
Assess. At this stage, you’d been left with basic and essential pieces that should get you started on the process. This is when you look at deciding what else you’d need to complete the capsule. You can either look for additional items and start getting ideas on how you wish your style to be or designate a budget to purchase the missing items that will accommodate the look that you are going for and call this move, an investment.
To keep track of this process, I created a set of inserts and stickers to fit into my planner. I am going to be using these pages to create a visual board of the styles, colors and accessories, that I currently own, so I can start deciding on what I need to get and hopefully stick to my plan.
If if you decide to start a project like this and have any questions, please feel free to leave me a message or contact me directly to info@planningtobehappy.com. And if you are already using this method, please share with me? I would love to hear from you!
Thank you for reading and for following!