OOTD #35: My Style Staple

Was talking about matching of simple staple clothes with my kin on our way home from church. I have noticed that some of the believers have really great sense of fashion. If I did not take a close observation of their clothes, I would have thought that they are so rich that they bought the entire H&M or F21. 

Then, it is all about the staple items and knowing how to mix and match one item into different styles. Also, outfits that suits almost any occasions.

The color that will make chubby girls look slim and also gives a little bit of glamour will be black. I always love wearing dresses. I am going to coordinate a little black dress from Daily Look's Little Black Dress Collection.

As shopping is the most possible cardio workout that we, lovely ladies will definitely love to do during our free time. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of free time to check out the latest collections in my favourite retail outlets the moment school starts. My only shopping workout will be my fingers. I am talking about online fashion boutique. My eyes caught hold onto KEEPSAKE MORE THAN THIS DRESS from DailyLook.com.

And... I can show you how to style with this dress if you have to many occasions or events in one day. All you have to do is just a little bit of changing.*Dolly Winks*

For Work

Waking up feeling refreshed. You would not want to wear too many accessories for yourself. The early morning first impression is very important. Dressing well and looking good shows how much respect you always give to the people you are meeting the moment you step out of your apartment.

David Thomas Vegan Leather Box Clutch in Black to match it with the black dress and to avoid contrasting with the outerwear you are going to wear it to work as a formal wear. Black is the easiest to style and it would get dirty easily. No one will know if you do not wash your clutches. Woops!

Putting just a few simple and yet elegant staple accessories to the black dress to give it a little pop of colours and add on with a touch of glamor with DL's J.O.A Crystal Gem & Pearl Cuff Bracelet. Do not forget to bring your watch! You would not want to be late for work.

Balance your accessories and purses. Carry your purses with your writing hand, wear your accessories with the other.

Be and look professional at work, an outerwear is a must to have. Do not choose a color that matches your entire outfit unless you want to look like a cat woman.

To make your legs looks long. Wear a pair of heels. You do not need a 5 inches pump. Do not afraid to walk with heels. No one started walking perfectly with heels. So Practice! Practice Makes Perfect! *Thumbs Up!*

Next Stop! The clock strike 12 and it is LUNCH TIME!

For Casual

Only a little bit of change in this look. Can you spot the difference?

I shall give you 5 secs to spot them. 

5 .....

4 ....

3 ...

2 ..

1 .

Answer will be the clutch and the accessories! Did you get them right?!

You only have 30 mins to 1 hour for lunch. You would not want to waste an opportunity to show off your great fashion style. You only have that minimal amount of time to eat and fellowship with your peers or should I say your date at lunch date? *smirk* So at lunch, we wear flats. 

To add on to the spring feel, I have found Leilani Floral Vintage Clutch on DL's wesbite . Hang your small sling bags around you and you would not have to fear about forgetting your belongs or afraid of getting stolen. All you need in your lunch bag will only be: Wallet, car key, phone, travel size make up and of course, tissue. Giving that tough girl's look I found an earrings also on DL's website.

For Off Duty

I understood that we are all hard workers. We work till late and we have dinner meets to attend. #SighPie 

Ladies, touch up your make up and add on a few more accessories to make a little different. As we rush, we tends to be clumsy. So say no no to sling bags to diners. You would not want to hook onto a stranger's chair as you walk to your meeting table. Woops again! So use a clutch. Try to have an empty versatile clutch that you could place inside your car. 

For Night

Take a closer look at the dress I picked out from DL's LBD Collection. The black cutting is just a pity if you do not gets to show of your sexy back with this little black dress.

Step up into this year's trend with latest update from my favourite TeenVogue, Gladiators Sandals are going to rock Spring/ Summer ! 

With a ring on your finger (please do not put on to the wrong finger if you are single) to spice up your hand fashion when you holds up your beverages and cheers!

So how would you style your little black dress?

Good luck and have fun!

Quote of the post:

"Balance your accessories and purses. Carry your purses with your writing hand, wear your accessories with the other."

This spring style challenge is brought to you by DailyLook.com. Check out DL's Elite Box if you would like to test out their clothes for FREE.

Clothes and accessories are screenshots from DailyLook.com picked and styled by me.

Edited by me, using Photoshop CC.

With loves,

Shirley Charlin

OOTD #34: If I have an angelic face...

Bag from market // Necklace from Bicycle.sg // 

Khaki Blouse from G2000 // Dress from H&M // Shoes from H&M

Recently someone I know, said something which I felt really hurtful. Not really offensive but utterly hurt. He actually said: "If only you have an angelic face... " 

(Just so happen, the photo above, I had it caption as "Angel from heaven" on my Instagram)

A photo posted by Shirley Charlin Lee (@shirleycharlin) on Apr 9, 2015 at 8:42pm PDT

I replied rudely, " Ya, then give me money for plastic surgery. I can alter any part of my face as long as I stopped getting judgmental first impression." He replied back," I don't understand what are you saying."

I am always a cheerful and bubbly person in front of some of my friends. I am always telling people that I love my face. Also, you will not be paid to stare at my face. So, if you don't like my face then DON'T LOOK.

How I wish I can be really pretty too. I always tell myself that I am pretty even if the end replies are people calling me thick skinned, ewwww only people like you will praise yourself.

Ya. Cos' I love myself. I want to spread more love. I admit I still rants on my Facebook.

I had never really get many people to listen attentively to me when I talk. I feel very blessed if I have a handful. 

Everyone around me seems to always believe the better looking (erm can I also add on with the word thinner? ) one. If you have read my blog posts about my painful experience from milia extraction since age of 11/12, I really make efforts to look good. Even if so, I got verbally insulted for having white dots appearing on my face. The worse insult was from a student leader. 

She said to the people of her race about "what is the actual cause of my face" from her mother right in front of me, "she is very dirty that's why she have such dirty things growing on her face." 

WOW SO SCIENTIFIC AND SO MUCH LOGIC AND EXPLANATION.

I was never serve politely at most places. 

Even in my workplace, there was that one time, a customer imitated me as I said: " HELLO WELCOME" and also "THANKS YOU FOR COMING!" with enthusiasm. The same customer called me fat and ugly. Verbally said " Ugly people always cause trouble to others". 华文就是“丑人多作怪”

My boss was really bad. REALLY REALLY BAD. He told me that it was all my fault. Whatever, I did was my fault. Is my tone that irritated them, my over friendliness that people do not like me. I am speaking too loudly, which makes people finds me annoying. My facial expression which also makes people feel annoyed. I broke down when I got back home. There was no one for me to talk to and I did not want to disturb any of my closest friends.

What about my mommy? I did tell my mommy that I felt that I was being bullied by customers at work but her reply was; "oh, then what you want me to do? "

Few weeks later, someone else in my workplace asked me to share with a then newbie about my experience working in the cafe. 

HOWEVER, when I told them that I had finished my piece of my sharing, that someone gave me a doubting remark, " Like this only mehh?". Then only she shared with the both of us about this incident that she seemly emphasized on me that she recently saw the cafe's facebook page that there is a customer "complaining" about me. Initially, I thought it was me. I asked her if she remembered the roughly when was the feedback posted. Then she replied," Oh very long ago already." Immediately after work, I went to check on the time and date of the feedback myself on my IPhone. The feedback stated that it was happened back in October. So, I went to double check with the Google calendar that boss created for us to check the availability of shift vacancy.

Guess what? I did not work for the bloody whole day of the post and I know who was working on the weekends of the week. 

I did take it in mind that the customer could have delay her feedback on the facebook page to the next day's NIGHT. I whatsapped my boss and apologized to him before he even reply to my whatsapp messages. (He was on his off day that day.) Boss replied me that the complain was not about me. I repeat, I do know who was working on that week.

FYI, I signed as a weekend staff and the minimum requirement that I needed to fulfill was minimum of 4 shifts per month with more evening shifts than afternoon shifts. 

Readers, you may say that I am just replicating a story from my dreamland but I know what I am saying. I have already thought through as I type out this post.

On the bright side, I do have people praising me and Wan Chyng for being nice and well mannered whenever we meet up for meals. The last time we were praised by staffs at Hot Tomato at Causeway Point. We were both shocked by the overwhelming super polite hospitality. One of the staffs came forward and told us that we are really nice and different from other customers from our age or older. 

---

Sometimes, I will be judged by retail assistants whenever I took size S to the fitting room. Funny as it may seems, there are people who are obviously bigger than me telling me that I am same size as them.

I cried.

I really bought my NIKON D5300 with my hard earned money. I am always thankful for my bosses for hiring me and sharing with me where could I get my DSLR at a much cheaper retail price. But none of my kin believes me. 

Previously, an uncle in Christ gave we twins one of his DSLRs... But I was never given a chance to use it... No one believes me.

They praised her and little brother. They assumed I do not like photography. They assumed that I do not even want to try.

I am angry and jealous.

Then I tell myself to find a weekend job to save up for it. My friends suffers. I did not get to hang out with them even more. I hardly hang out with them. I was afraid that mommy might once again accused them for being a bad influence to me. I kept telling her that they were the once who change their plans without whining so that I could spare out some time to hang out with them and explore. 

I felt drifted away from my friends. I could not catch up with their conversations anymore. 

And there were a lot more that happened. A lot more happened that makes me hate going out. All I want to do is to stay at home as much as possible. Work on my make up skills, hoping that make up would conceal my flaws. 

Occasionally, I will receive emails from readers who turns out to be really polite and positive. Those were the emails that keeps me alive and going. Thanks You. Thanks You So Much.

Sorry that I did not show positive energy in this post.

Please continues to stay positive!

Photos are taken by Alan Reeves

Quote of the post:

"You may say that I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one."

With loves,

Shirley Charlin

How To: Save money when you are a student

SAVE YOUR WALLET, STUDENT!

I am so tired to always be hearing my friends who are overloaded with allowance and still complain about having a lot of lesser pocket money as me. To be honest, I have around SGD$100 for the whole month.

If you're in the same situation as me, here are my tips for you:

#1: You must not feel ashamed to use discounts coupons. 

I decided to write a blog post (which is this) about saving money when you are still a student after I was given a page full of discount coupons from Mr Bean. It became an after- gym routine for me to drink a cup of warm soy bean milk. Yummy. 

Besides that, my group of friends always uses discount coupons too! We might seem like aunties to others, but when it comes to buying the same things at a cheaper price, we get to buy more or save up the extra money for better use in the near future. Who knows? As there's a Chinese saying: "积少成多" (Direct Translation which means "Even small savings can add up") 

#2: Don't force yourself to head out with your friends

I was the odd one out because I was frank enough to actually tell my then "friends" that most of my stuffs were paid by my aunts. Those old friends of mine, whined. When I really don't have the extra cash to head out with them, I merely rejected them and told them the truth. Their harsh replies were the same: "Eh, I thought you said your stuffs are sponsored by your aunt. Means you SHOULD have money to head out with us." 

P/s: I am NOT referring to my ITE friends, they actually understood my situation. They did not say such unreasonable remarks to me.

#3: Maintain yourself with your wants and need

I love to shop. I always tell myself to save up the money for semester break to buy my wants. Before the semester break, I can only buy what I need. You have to discipline yourself. I cannot help you much either. All the best for #3.

#4: Stay healthy

Do not fall sick! Healthcare in Singapore are not cheap! Even if you want to save money for a graduation trip or whatever, DO NOT SKIP MEALS. You have to eat all three meals daily. DO NOT FALL SICK! So exercise! 

I am always called chubby or fat but I am already not afraid to head out to exercise because I do not want to give any money to any hospital.

#5: Don't be embarrass

It is NOT your fault that you are poor or you do not have a lot of pocket money. Just take this opportunity to learn how to work out your finances. Learning how to sort out your money and then apply what you have experience with money now can help you to know the importance about money. Hence, you will learn to spend wisely in the future. 

Hope this 5 tips helps you! All the best and stay positive!

Quote of the post:

"In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. - Matthew 5:16"

With loves,

Shirley Charlin

Pinterest Addiction

Unlocking my IPhone and going straight to Pinterest has became my everyday-must-do list. At times when I have no idea what to wear, I will find some inspirations from Pinterest .

Then recently I created a new board - For School. To sort out the possible outfits that I would wear to school from the other casual outfits.

Follow Shirley's board For school on Pinterest.

How I work what I wear to school. Here are my tips to you:

1. Arrange your own clothes accordingly to category.

I like to hang all of my dresses, formal tops (like white blouses, blazers) and outer wears (like jackets) in to the hanging compartment. 

Hang them in an orderly manner, (for my case, I hung them) from dresses of dark colors to pastels → heavy pullovers → white blouses → blazers → other outwears. Fold basics tops neatly into the divider compartment(s). Arrange them accordingly to its frequency and sizes. Jeans behind, tops with sleeves and shorts in the middle, cami tops or tank tops in the outer most front.

2. Look into Pinterest

After all of the time spent on rearranging your wardrobe you should be able to know what type of clothes you own. Now you may start to find inspiration from Pinterest by typing the key words into the search engine. 

Follow Shirley's board Shirley Charlin's My OOTD, My Look on Pinterest.

Always think about the clothes that you have already own and stop thinking about buying the clothes that you find them cute while you are pinteresting.

3. Always prepare you clothes the night before

This is the main key. No matter how tired you are. Always prepare your clothes or your bag the night before so that you will not get panic if you overslept. 

Follow Shirley's board Favourite fashion on Pinterest.

Follow Me on Pinterest

Quote of the post: "Always think about the clothes that you have already own and stop thinking about buying the clothes that you find them cute while you are pinteresting. -Shirley Charlin"

With loves,

Shirley Charlin