Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Project 333

Now that I have officially dropped a size, I've begun to think about what I'm going to wear. I have to admit that I have lived in jeans, sweats, tennis shoes and oversize t-shirts for the last 10 years or so. When we moved from Austin to Arkansas, I was so thrilled not to have to dress up so much (Austin is trendy and more upscale whereas most of Arkansas is laid back to the point of being fashionless). Add to this that we began to homechurch and no longer needed to dress up on Sundays and I became a fashion disaster. Now being overweight, I was already well on my way. Add to that, I prefer comfort over fashion every time and you can see what a poor state I was in.
I pretty much looked like a big rectangle or refrigerator-shape. I also love shopping thrift stores which means I have a big hodge podge of clothing. Even more since I tried to resale on Ebay (I didn't make enough for the amount of work involved). Now I'm ready to pick up the pace a bit since more clothes are fitting. Only two big considerations: I have no money to spend on clothes right now and I hope to be down another size by the end of December. I began by thinking about the colors I would like to wear and putting them in seasons:




  • Fall= Eggplant (purples), Burnt Orange as an accent;

  • Winter=Blacks, Blues (Navy), Reds (deep garnet), Greys (silver) as accents;

  • Spring= Pinks, Beige and whites;


  • Summer= White, turquoise (aqua), bright orange and lime green as accents.

Next, I found a printable http://printables.yourway.net/ for Project 333. I had never heard of this before so I looked it up Basically started as an experiment in living with less, it has helped a lot of women determine what they really need as far as clothing and many say it has helped them not only pare down but determine what their true "style" is. Participants chose 33 items for their wardrobe to wear for 3 months. The rest is packed up or donated. After reading some of the comments, I thought this might be a way for me to determine what I really need in my closet, but it wasn't enough for me to start.

I began to google "basic wardrobe for stay at home mom", the lists were pretty much the same but still didn't help me until I found http://www.365daysofstyle.com/ On this site there is a download that shows how to make 80 outfits from 12 pcs of clothing. Using this as my guide I went through my clothes and picked my "Basic 3" - a pair of jeans (naturally), a pair of black jeans (straight leg), and a white button down shirt.

For my first capsule- I chose a purple turtleneck, a black skirt and a black sweater

Capsule #2 - a grey pencil skirt, a black glitter sweater and a black blazer with velvet trim

Capsule #3- Black lace skirt, Purple/black print blouse, Red velvet jean-style jacket (I was surprised to find the red and purple went so well together-Red hat ladies already knew this)

To this I added a black t, a purple T, a red T, a black V-neck T, a white v-neck T, black camisole, Big red sweater, big navy blue sweater, a little black dress, a red jumper, a blue/black holiday blouse, a holiday sweater, a crochet skirt set

I'm working on accessories: I have a green crochet poncho, an orange scarf, a glittery scarf, 3 purses: orange, black, silver. Shoes: black boots, silver flats, black pumps, brown half-boots and my tennis shoes

I haven't gotten to jewelry yet and I don't have any belts that will work yet. I'm over the 33 items but I think I have limited shoes and purses and they should only count as one and because I live in the south with very wierd winter weather, I think I can justify having more outerwear. I also have a few tops that I wear in the winter as an underlayer so I didn't count these. I'll be spending the rest of the week, hemming and taking in some items- the point of this exercise was to come up with a workable basic wardrobe with what I had on hand and clean out what I can't use--I think I was pretty successful. I have a huge pile to donate and another to ebay, and a lot more room in my closet. I think after wearing these clothes for awhile I will have a better idea of what I really like wearing, and that will be a big help when I start putting together my Spring wardrobe because I hope to be close to my goal weight and will need all new clothes then.If you'd like to find out more about Project 333, you can find them on facebook.

No comments: