Katie Haller, Author at Thrifty Wife Happy Life

3 Ways to Accessorize a Simple Little Black Dress

October 19, 2017 by Katie Haller

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life | Making the Most of your Wardrobe | 3 ways to accessorize a simple black dress for a special occasion

October seems to be flying by. I can’t believe that it’s already time for another Year of Color linkup post. In case you just started following along, every 3rd Friday of the month I team up with some of my fellow blogger friends to host a link party called A Year of Color. Each month there is a color theme and you can share ANYTHING you like on that color. I always like to share an outfit post, because that’s what I feel I do best. This month’s color is black!

*This post contains affiliate links, which means by clicking on and/or making a purchase through a link, I will receive a small commission with no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!

I can’t lie, I was so excited about this color. Black is always my favorite color to wear. It’s easy to accessorize, you can wear it with anything, plus everyone looks good in black. With that said, I had a difficult time narrowing in on what kind of outfit posts I would do for today. I ended up deciding on one of my favorite wardrobe pieces in my closet…..a Little Black Dress a.k.a. LBD.

In my mid to late ’20s my weekends were filled with going to weddings. All my friends were getting married, and to be honest I couldn’t afford to go buy a new dress for every wedding I attended. I bought this simple empire waist black dress for my rehearsal dinner (similar). Instead of going with a traditional bride rehearsal dinner dress, I played it safe and went with a black dress. I’m so happy I did because I’ve worn this dress on a number of other occasions since then.

Today I am going to show you how easy it is to accessorize an LBD like this.

The first way is a very classic traditional look. I wore black patent leather pumps, rhinestone jewelry and a satin clutch with rhinestones. This is perfect for a more formal wedding. I wore this exact look at my husband’s cousin’s wedding in Chicago a few years ago.

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life- Accessories for a formal occassion

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life | Simple black dress accessorized with rhinstones

Shoes- Ivanka Trump- Von Maur (similar) || Necklace- Target (similar) || Clutch- Jessica McClintock (similar)

For my second look, I chose leopard accessories. I wore my gold sandals, with my leopard clutch and gold jewelry.

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life | Gold and Leopard accessories

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life | LBD accessorized with gold and leopard

Shoes- DSW (similar) || Necklace- LC Lauren Conrad- Kohl’s (similar) || Clutch- H&M- ThredUp (similar)

For my final look, I accessorized with some color. I always love how turquoise looks with black, so I wore turquoise jewelry with my turquoise clutch. For shoes I went with my nude pumps. I think that this look would be great for a destination wedding.

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life | Turquoise accessories

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life | LBD accessorized with turquoise

Shoes- Target (similar) || Necklace- Kohl’s (similar) || Clutch- Hand-me-down (similar)

Hopefully this will give you some ideas on how to accessorize your black dresses and maybe help you out next time your stumped on what to wear to a wedding or special occasion.

I hope to see everyone back here next month for the color Orange. Don’t forget to leave your link below!

An InLinkz Link-up

How to: Distress Your Own Denim

October 16, 2017 by Katie Haller

Today, I want to share my latest obsession with distressing my own jeans. I love the look of distressed denim, but I’ve had bad luck finding distressed jeans that I really love. They are either too distressed or not enough. I feel like the ones that I really like are way out of my price range. I feel like you shouldn’t have to spend $70 + for a cute pair of distressed jeans. That’s why this fall I started looking over some of the jeans in my closet that I never wear anymore and I decided that I would make them new again by adding some holes to them and distressing them a bit. (sounds weird to make something new by destroying them, but hey it’s the style.)

I started searching on Pinterest for how to distress your own jeans and I was confused by some of the articles I found. Some talked about using a cheese grader or sandpaper. Luckily, I was able to find a good video on YouTube that broke it down for me.

So here are the steps I took to distress my jeans.

Step 1: Pick out a pair of jeans that you want to distress. I would go for an older pair or a cheaper pair of jeans that you wouldn’t mind if you messed up. The jeans I picked for this post are a pair of Express jeans that I’ve had in my closet for probably 10 years. They needed a makeover! I recommend that you do some research first on what style of distressed jeans you want. I personally don’t like too many holes, so I kept it simple with 2 holes on the knee and a small hole on the upper leg on one side.

Step 2: I used a white eye shadow to mark where I wanted to make the cut. (I read to use eye shadow instead of a marker or pencil because it washes out easily.)

Step 3: Once you have your spots marked, start cutting.

Step 4: After you’ve made your cuts, use your fingers to fray the material a little until you see the white fibers.

Step 5: Once you’ve frayed the ends, you will be able to see the blue fiber ends. Use a pair of tweezers to pull the blue fibers out. This is the time-consuming part. I recommend you do this part in your bathroom or somewhere you can easily clean it up because it gets a little messy.

Step 6: Once you’re done with one hole, move on to the next and do the same technique until you’re done. I was very pleased with how my second pair of jeans turned out. Now a pair of jeans that I was ready to put in my Goodwill bag a month ago are my new favorite pair of jeans.

I hope that was helpful. Let me know if you have any questions. I’d be happy to help!

Favorite Fall Look

October 13, 2017 by Katie Haller

Hi everyone! I feel like I’ve been so busy lately, but you probably can’t tell by the number of blog posts I’ve been putting out. I feel like I have so much that I want to share, including all my favorite fall outfits. This time of the year, I am always inspired more with my wardrobe. I love it when the weather starts to cool down and I can start layering again. I have so many new clothes that I’ve purchased in the last 2 months, plus I’ve been working with some of my old wardrobe pieces and reinventing them.

For today’s blog post, I’m sharing one of my favorite fall looks. It’s a mix of new and old. I bought a couple items at Old Navy last month for my birthday. I’m obsessing over leopard right now, so I picked out this leopard scarf that is the perfect fall accessory. I also bought this long t-shirt at Old Navy. I like how it fits and it’s perfect to wear with scarfs. My jeans are old, but I’ve been into making my old jeans new again by adding a distressed look to them. (I promise to have a how-to post on that soon!) These were a pair of jeans that I was debating getting rid of until I reinvented them and now I’ve been wearing them all the time. My boots are from last fall. I find ankle boots to be much more practical in the fall, instead of tall riding boots. Don’t get me wrong, I love my tall boots, but they do make my legs hot, especially when the temperatures warm up in the afternoons. My sunglasses are from my glassesshop.com post that I did back in July (post HERE). I love the style of them with the cat-eye frames, which are super popular this fall. My purse is also from last fall. It’s from Last Call Neiman Marcus and unfortunately, they sold out of this style bag, but I did link some similar options because everyone has been asking me about it.

*This post contains affiliate links, which means by clicking on and/or making a purchase through a link, I will receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life || Fall look with black top, distressed jeans, ankle boots and leapord scarf

Shop my closet
Top-Old Navy (exact) || Jeans- old (similar) || Scarf- Old Navy (similar, similar) || Purse- Last Call Neiman Marcus (similar, similar) || Boots- XOXO- Burlington Coat Factory (exact) || Sunglasses- Glassesshop.com (exact)

What are your favorite styles for this fall?

Baby Update- 20 Months

October 11, 2017 by Katie Haller

I’ve been really bad at keeping up with Jack’s baby updates. I meant to do a post for 15 months, then I didn’t get to it so I thought I’d do it at 18 months, but that didn’t happen, so now I’m trying for 20 months. I really love sharing updates on Jack, because he’s the light of my life. Plus, I like to use my blog as a way to look back on memories. I don’t scrapbook anymore, so this is my way of making a scrapbook.

Jack is 20 months and I would like to know where the time went?? I can’t believe that he will be 2 before I know it. Jack is really developing into his own little person lately. He has a great personality. He’s very smart, very serious at times and he just soaks in everything around him. He also loves to laugh, he’s funny, playful and he can be super sweet.

Currently, Jack’s favorite toys are his puzzles, cars, foam letters, books, train and oh yeah… the iPad. I know a lot of people have different opinions on children under 2 having screen time, but I don’t mind it at all. Jack has learned so much from the YouTube shows that he watches. He knows almost all the upper case letters, his colors, shapes and numbers 1-10. I am so impressed with his learning abilities. He catches on so quickly.

Jack has been in child care full time for almost a year now and he loves it. We have had such a great experience with his school. He loves his teacher, his friends and I’m pretty sure that he likes the toys there more than his toys at home. I feel like it’s been so good for him to spend time around other children his age. Although, I am learning that he is really bad at sharing. Apparently he doesn’t like it when the younger baby’s in his class play with the toys incorrectly.

As for sleep, Jack has been sleeping through the night for about 6 months now. Halleluiah!! It was a long first year of getting up almost every 2 hours, but as soon as we got rid of bottles, Jack stopped waking up. Now mommy and daddy can finally sleep soundly, besides the few occasional nights when he’s not feeling good or teething.

Over all Jack is a good eater, but it definitely depends on his mood. If he’s in a bad mood, he throws his food at me, if he’s happy he eats it. He really loves cheese, macaroni and cheese, pears, oranges and milk. He loves his “ma” as he calls it.

Jack is talking up a storm lately. I swear he adds 3 new words to his vocabulary everyday. He says “dada” all the time. He says “mama” when he wants something or is crying. My favorite word that he says is flower “fow fer”. He loves listening to music and dancing. He’s even starting to sing, which I think is hilarious. He sounds like a dying whale or something, but it’s just too cute.

I can tell that 2 is right around the corner, because my little baby boy is turning into a toddler monster at times. He has started these dramatic tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. He screams, throws himself on the floor, kicks his legs and throws things. It’s all a show to see how far he can go. I’ve even caught him watching himself in the mirror during one of his fits. It’s pretty entertaining, but also a little frustrating when you can’t reason with your little human.

Over all it’s been an amazing 20 months! I love everyday of being Jack’s mom. With each age, I feel like somethings get a little easier and other things get harder. I only wish I could slow him down a little bit.

LipSense Review

October 9, 2017 by Katie Haller

Today I’m talking all about LipSense. Have you heard of it? If you are on any form of social media, I’m sure you have at least heard the name or know someone who sells it. LipSense is the long-lasting lip color that will stay on your lips all day long.

I normally don’t wear a lot of lipstick. I like a little color once in a while, but I try to stick to very neutral colors. I love the idea of lipstick, but I’ve always had bad luck with it. Every time I wear lipstick, it always comes off my lips within an hour of applying it.

I’ve been hearing a lot of great things about LipSense, so I was very excited when I was asked to collaborate on a product review of LipSense. I’ve been working with Kristin, who is a distributor of LipSense. She’s extremely knowledgeable about the product. When I told her that I preferred neutral lip colors, she gave me a few options to choose from and helped me pick out the perfect color for me. I ended up going with the color Pink Champaign. Kristin sent me the complete starter kit that includes the long-lasting liquid lip color, moisturizing gloss, and the Oops remover. The complete starter kit is valued at $55.

Once I received my starter kit, I started wearing it every day to work. I really wanted to get a feel for the lipstick before I wrote about it. What I found out, was that these girls aren’t lying when they say it lasts all day. Being a preschool teacher, my makeup takes a beating throughout the day. With LipSense, my lip color never moved.

How does LipSense work?

My starter kit came with detailed instructions on how to apply it. You start off with clean dry lips, then you apply the lip color. You are supposed to start at the corners of your lips and run the wand across, then you wait for it to dry and apply 2 more coats. At first, I was a little worried that the lipstick was going to dry out my lips, but once you apply the lip gloss, it adds so much moisture to your lips that it was no longer a concern. You can leave your lipstick at home and just bring the lip gloss with you when you leave the house.

Is it worth the price?

As you know, I’m the thrifty wife and I’m not one to spend a lot of money on makeup. Most of my makeup products are from the drugstore, but I do have the occasional makeup splurge. LipSense is defiantly a splurge for me. As I mentioned before, the starter kit is $55, however, once you have the starter kit, you can purchase the lipstick Al La Cart for $25. One good thing about LipSense is that one tube equals 4 regular lipsticks, plus it lasts all day. If you add that all up, it makes it worth the purchase. You also have to remember that you are paying for a quality product. I have never had a lip color like this one.

How can you order LipSense?

If you’re ready to make the splurge, I would say go for it! You can go to Kristin’s facebook group Confessions of a Lipstick Addict or DM her on Instagram @confessions_of_lipstick_addict to place an order. She is also offering a special promo code for my readers. Use the code ThriftyWifeHappyLife10 and receive 10% off your purchase.

*A big thank to Kristin who gifted me this product!

Casual Blazer Look

October 6, 2017 by Katie Haller

One thing that I always hear people say to me is that they wish they could be more stylish. When I googled the definition of “stylish” it says that it is to be “fashionably elegant and sophisticated” or to be “neat, confident and skillful”. To me, being stylish means that you can create an outfit and make it into a look. I feel like once you can do that you will feel confident, sophisticated and elegant. I think that most people are overthinking their outfits. It’s not hard to put together a polished look. I know that it can be confusing when you are always seeing new trends, but really you just need to stick to the basics and work with what you have.

For today’s “my closet” post, I recreated a look similar to many of the pins you will find on my Pinterest boards. It’s a very simple look. I pulled my gray T-shirt, an older black blazer from Forever 21, a pair of LC Lauren Conrad jeans that I bought on clearance 4 years ago, my old BCBG black pumps that I bought when I was still in college, a thrifted statement necklace and my black satchel purse. I love this look, because it’s so simple, yet it’s stylish enough to wear out on a date with my husband or to a blogger event. I could also wear it with booties or flats to dress it down a bit.

*This post contains affiliate links, which means by clicking on and/or making a purchase through a link, I will receive a small commission with no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life Gray Tee shirt with blazer, jeans and black pumps.

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life || Affordable fashion- casual blazer look

Thrifty Wife, Happy Life || Affordable fashion- cuffed jeans

Shop my closet

Top- Zappos (similar, similar) || Jeans- LC Lauren Conrad (similar) || Blazer- Forever 21 (similar) || Shoes- BCBG’s Marshals (similar) || Purse- Last Call Neiman Marcus (similar) || Necklace- Savers (similar)

This weekend, I challenge you to be more stylish with your wardrobe. Try to think outside of how you usually wear your clothes and make sure that you feel confident, sophisticated and elegant before you walk out the door.

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