Tag Archives: shopping

How to Simplify Your Wardrobe in 3 Easy Steps

by VWKKarol94 Posted on February 4, 2016

An overstuffed closet and a mountain-sized pile of discarded clothing options after each round of getting ready may indicate that your fashion philosophy values quantity over quality. Create a cohesive collection of streamlined wearable looks and kick the chaos and castoffs out of your closet with a simple capsule wardrobe in three easy steps:

Step 1: Out With the Old

Like many of lifes challenges, this situation is going to get worse before it gets better. However, if you clear a couple hours of your schedule and stay committed, the end result will be a closet you can love again. To get a true view of what you need, love, and wear, you need to start with an honest of assessment of what youre currently working with and why you have it.

Take everything clothes-related out of your closet and pile it up somewhere unavoidable now theres your assurance that this project gets finished today. (Seriously, dont skip that part. Its important.) Try on each piece and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does this fit?

2. Do I feel confident when wearing this?

3. Have I worn it in the past six months?

If the answer to any of the above is no, its time to honor that item with new opportunity by donating it. The only exception is if a much-loved quality piece can be tailored; if so, drop it off within the week.

Snap a quick full-length mirror selfie for any outfits you feel unsure aboutthe camera is your most honest friend. Once you have separated the trash from the treasure, analyze what you have left. Your keep pile holds clues to your personal style. Why do these items appeal to you? What do they have in common? A successful capsule wardrobe will keep you comfortably and happily clothed. If your everyday style has an easy casual vibe, a closet of fussy fashionista frocks wont solve your problem; youll just go from not having anything to wear to not having anything you want to wear. Be true to your real self.

Step 2: In With the New

Take a look at what you already own and set aside essential foundation pieces. These are items that every wardrobe needs, like a little black dress, a white button-up shirt, a pencil skirt, nice jeans, quality leggings, black pants and a few fitted tees. Anything missing from the essentials should take priority on the shopping list; these key pieces become the uniform for life and are worth the investment. Buy the basics in neutral colors like black, white, khaki or gray. These items are the core of your capsule collection and become the backdrop for most outfits.

Step 3: Freshen Up

Now take a new look at the clothes you have leftis there an underlying color theme? Pick out a few pieces where you feel drawn to the color or pattern and create your personal style palette. Buy accent items and accessories that coordinate with your capsule collection colors to maximize your ability to mix and match, and easily update your wardrobe seasonally by swapping out colors or clothing types.

If youre adopting the capsule wardrobe approach for its simple minimalism, aim to have approximately 30 pieces. If youre just trying to simplify your morning routine, dont overwhelm yourself with options, but dont obsess over item numbers or perfecting your collection, either. Just like your personal sense of style, your capsule collection will evolve as you do.

The ultimate goal is to create a mix-and-match recipe of your ideal outfit for every occasion, which is easy when the closet is full of coordinating favorites. The most essential part of creating a capsule collection isnt in perfecting the numbersits in making sure you feel fashionable and fantastic wearing each and every piece!

Ashley McCann writes foreBayabout mindful living as a Floridian mother of two. She makes affordable and sustainable fashion possible bybuying and selling her clothes online.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Simplify Your Wardrobe in 3 Easy Steps

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Best Gift Wrapping That’s Not Paper

by CleoLascelles Posted on December 7, 2015

Wrapping paper is one of those things that looks beautifulfor the few minutes a gift is under a tree or put into the hands of the recipient. Otherwise, it’s a big environmental, and sometimes financial, drain. As far as the planet goes, the amount of paper wasted on wrapping is staggering. Stanford University reports if every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields! Worldwide, wrapping paper spending reaches $2.6 billion yearly. That’s a lot of money to throw away.

Here’s a better idea: Wrap gifts in fabric or containers that can be re-used. For example:

* Japanese Wrapping Cloths – These beautiful cloths come in various sizes and in different themes. Some are very Christmas-y, but others feature flowers and Japanese cultural icons. They’re reasonably priced and can be used over and over again.

* Cloth Christmas Gift Bags – These reusable bags are made from 100 percent cotton and are tied with a ribbon made from 100 percent recycled plastic bottles. They’re available in various sizes and for wine bottles.

* DIY Cloth Gift Bags – Make your own gift bags by sewing three sizes of fabric together, pinking the top with pinking shears and then tying a reusable ribbon around the top. Care2 offers instructions on making your own reusable burlap bags herejust dress them up with a bright and colorful ribbon, and you’re done.

* Reusable Grocery Shopping Bags – For $.99, you can get a reusable shopping bag, either grocery store sized or, at a place like TJ Maxx or Marshall’s, jumbo sized. Putting even larger gifts in a bag saves so much time and paper wrapping, and people invariably love having a bag like this to reuse after the holidays are over.

* Towels & Napkins – Cloth towels and napkins are particularly good for wrapping small kitchen utensils, jars of special spices and sauces, organic coffee or tea, or chocolate.

* Holiday-themed Cardboard Boxes – Decorated cardboard boxes come in a variety of sizes and shapes, so you can use them for clothing, games, food, beauty products and more.

* Socks – Whether you use holiday-themed socks or something more practical, socks can make the perfect “container” for jewelry, cosmetics, a small book, a special knick-knack, small battery chargers and other items. Tie them together at the top with shoelaces and you’ve given gifts within gifts.

* Reusable Food Containers – Use an empty (and clean) cardboard oatmeal canister, a stainless steel pot with a lid, a covered glass casserole dish or something else fun and whimsical. It’s fun to try to guess what might be inside such an unusual wrap.

* Bento Box – All of the compartments in a Bento Box make it perfect for cosmetics or beauty products, jewelry, or other small items. Use the stackable boxes for kid’s toys, like items for a doll house.

* Glass Vase or Bowl – One of the loveliest gifts I ever got was a bunch of Narcissus bulbs already set in stones, in a beautiful antique glass blowl. The bulbs flowered and then died, but I still have that bowl, a treasured gift from a good friend.

What’s your favorite eco-friendly way to wrap a gift? Please share!

Related
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10 Gifts That Also Give to Wildlife

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Best Gift Wrapping That’s Not Paper

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You Say You Hate Black Friday. Maybe You’re Just Lying to Yourself.

by AnyaDoughty Posted on November 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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Over the past five years, Black Friday has migrated steadily into Thanksgiving, with each new year bringing fresh examples of big box stores flinging their doors open on Turkey Day. But this year the trend hit the skids. Though Walmart and the other usual suspects will still open on Thanksgiving Day, many big retailers—Costco, Nordstrom, Marshalls, and Home Depot, for example—are holding the line. Outdoor superstore REI went even further, announcing that it will be closed not only on Thanksgiving, but all the way through Black Friday.

Are consumers finally starting to get fed up with the holiday shopping hype? And what motivates some stores to close on Thanksgiving even as others rake in the cash? To find out, I called up Curt Munk, a veteran consultant for big-box retailers and head of strategy for the renowned brand agency FCB Red.

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You Say You Hate Black Friday. Maybe You’re Just Lying to Yourself.

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10 Things to Do Instead of Shopping to Celebrate Buy Nothing Day

by LashondWilde Posted on November 23, 2015

Sure, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. But after giving thanks and gratitude for abundance with family and friends thousands of people across the country head out to big-box stores, malls and online to shop their way into oblivion on the infamous Black Friday.

Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping day of the year, falls the day after Thanksgiving. This tradition has been growing each year: stores open earlier on Black Friday, while others open on Thanksgiving evening to give shoppers a head start. And as shoppers move more online, retail outlets have tried to keep up, offering Black Friday deals all weekend (and even longer) and extra special offers all season long.

But what if we tried to enjoy the spirit of the season without shopping? Welcome to Buy Nothing Day, a campaign started by AdBusters to encourage shoppers to opt-out of the Black Friday shenanigans.

Buy Nothing Day is an international day of protest celebrated internationally this year on November 27 against excessive consumption and the unrestrained shopping frenzy of the holiday season. The website encourages us to take back our sanity by buying nothing on purpose:

“In a world where every inch of the capitalist system is bullying you into submission, can you resist? When advertisers hound you day and night, can you escape? This Black Friday, a massive, absurd, and destructive consumerist machine will coordinate against you for one simple reason – to convince you to max out your credit card to buy shit you dont need so that a broken system stays afloat. So when they say ‘BUY!’, will you say NOTHING!?

Buy Nothing Day is legendary for instigating this type of personal transformation as you suddenly remember what real living is all about you sense an upsurge of radical empowerment [as you join] Join millions of us in over 60 countries on November 28/29 and see what it feels like. Then, after Buy Nothing Day, take the next step for generations, Christmas has been hijacked by commercial forces this year, lets take it back.”

You can choose to be a more conscious consumer on Black Friday/Buy Nothing Day by opting out of the shopping madness (and dangers!) by taking on these 10 things to do instead of shopping.

1. Get outside! Legendary outdoor gear store REI is closing this year to encourage their employees to get outside, and you should too. Nature is good for our body, mind and spirit, so take advantage of the day off and go wander.

2. If you’re going outside, get yourself to water. Research shows that water can help us feel calm and collected, and can reset our brain after stress.

3. Make a gift: Instead of spending your day shopping for the perfect gift, why not make it? Find crafty ways to recycle, upcycle and make the perfect gift for your loved ones.

4. Cook some food: Nothing says love like homemade foods, whether you’re cooking for yourself or others. Do some meal planning or batch cooking, or try out some new recipes for your holiday parties.

5. Learn something new: Read a book about a new topic, try online courses for cooking or language development, or build your skills for food photography (this is what I will be doing!).

6. Practice mindfulness: The holiday season is arguably the most hectic season of all… if you let it become so. Learn some simple mindfulness techniques to help keep you grounded during these months.

7. Plan a trip: Give yourself something to look forward to in the upcoming months by planning a small road trip or an epic adventure.

8. Have a dance party: Most of your friends are probably off work, so why not throw a dance party? Get everybody moving joyfully to boost happiness and celebrate community.

9. Phone home: Whether your loved ones are near or far, give them an actual call, Skype or Facetime to let them know you love them and wish them a happy holiday season.

10. Do NOTHING! When was the last time you allowed yourself to lounge in bed, drink coffee, read the news, or just nap? Taking time off is important to help ourselves truly relax.

If you do choose to shop on Black Friday (or any day), ask yourself a few questions before purchasing an item. Care2 blogger Dave Chameidesencourages consumers to ask10 questions before buying anything:

Whatever you decide to do this Black Friday, choose to do so mindfully to fully engage (or disengage) with the season as you wish!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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10 Things to Do Instead of Shopping to Celebrate Buy Nothing Day

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Friday Cat Blogging – 5 December 2014

by HarveyNowakowsk Posted on December 5, 2014

Mother Jones

In today’s episode of Friday catblogging, Hilbert is trying to prove that he’s a size 12. He was unconvincing, despite plenty of squirming to try to fit his entire body into the shoe box. The result was an interestingly blurred face, but not an entire cat in the box.

In other news, we’ve had to clear off the mantle over the fireplace because it turns out that Hopper can shinny up the bricks and start whacking away at whatever is up there. But there’s more to the story. We figured that Hilbert was a bit too gravity-bound to pose any similar danger, so we were blaming Hopper whenever something got knocked over. But on Wednesday night, during the 9 pm play hour, we watched in awe as Hilbert careened across the living room floor, flung himself straight up the brick facing, and grabbed onto the mantle. He barely made it, and had to chin himself up the last few inches, but make it he did. Nothing is safe around here anymore.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 5 December 2014

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Lefties Earn 10% Less Than Righties

by au87rr Posted on December 5, 2014

Mother Jones

Well, this is weird. Danielle Kurtzleben summarizes a new study called “The Wages of Sinistrality”:

In the data, around 11 to 13 percent of the population was left-handed. And when broken down by gender — that is, comparing women to women and men to men — those lefties have annual earnings around 10 to 12 percent lower than those of righties, Goodman writes, which is equal to around a year of schooling. (That gap varied by survey and by gender, however.) Most of this gap can be attributed to “observed differences in cognitive skills and emotional or behavioral problems,” he writes, adding that since lefties tend to do more manual work than right-handers, the gap appears to be due to differences in cognitive abilities, not physical.

Apparently the cognitive differences were already well known (though I didn’t know about them), but this paper is the first to document the earnings gap. It’s surprisingly large. So if you’re a lefty and you’re doing well, congratulations! You’ve beaten the odds.

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Lefties Earn 10% Less Than Righties

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Can We Please Kill Off the Kabuki in the Press Room?

by QuinnHeavener Posted on December 4, 2014

Mother Jones

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Things are a bit slow this morning, so I want to replay for you a Twitter conversation with CNN’s Jake Tapper. The subject is Jonathan Karl of ABC News, who harassed press secretary Josh Earnest earlier this week over President Obama’s picks as ambassadors to Argentina and Hungary. Neither one has any special diplomatic experience, and one of them is a former producer for a soap opera:

Jake Tapper: meant to give props to @jonkarl for his Bold and Beautiful ambassador questions to @PressSec the other day

Kevin Drum: Why? Is anything really gained by this daily kabuki in the press room?

JT: why what? why is it worth challenging people in power about questionable decisions?

KD: It’s kabuki. Everyone knows the answer. It’s happened forever. Earnest wasn’t going to answer. Why waste the time?

JT: i guess i dont think trying to hold those in power accountable is a “waste of time.” have a great day

Tapper’s point is pretty easy to understand, and my colleague Nick Baumann agrees with him. There’s a long tradition of rewarding big campaign contributors with cushy ambassadorial posts in spite their fairly visible lack of qualification. There’s not much excuse for this, so why not demand to know why Obama is doing it?

But here’s my point. This is yet another example of a bad habit that the White House press corps engages in constantly: faux confrontation over trivia that gets them camera time and kudos from late-night comedians, but is, in reality, completely pointless. Jonathan Karl knows perfectly well why these two folks were appointed. They raised lots of money for Obama. Josh Earnest knows it too. This stuff has been going on forever. But Karl knows something else: Earnest is a spokesman. He’s flatly not allowed to fess up to political stuff like this, and he’s just going to dance around it.

This is why I called it kabuki. If this were actually an important topic where there was some uncertainty about the answer, then confrontation would be great. I’d like to see more of it for truly important stuff. But is Karl’s investigative reputation really enhanced by an inane kindergarten round of “let’s pretend” with whatever poor schmoe happens to be at the press room podium? Is this truly an example of “holding those in power accountable”?

I really don’t see it. Then again, maybe Karl is working on a whole segment about the ridiculous practice of rewarding supporters with cushy diplomatic posts in fashionable countries. Or maybe even a segment asking why countries even bother having ambassadors in high-profile capitals where they serve precious little purpose anymore. If that’s the case, then maybe the questions made sense.

But purely as confrontation? Please. Dignifying this silliness as “challenging people in power” is like calling a mud fort an infrastructure project. It really doesn’t deserve any props.

UPDATE: Hmmm. Apparently Tapper and some others interpreted my initial tweet as referring to the entire concept of the press briefing. So to some extent, this is a misunderstanding. Obviously I don’t object to the general practice of holding briefings (though I wish reporters would boycott all the “background” briefings). I just object to the habit of peppering White House flacks with questions about trivial topics that everyone knows the answer to. It seems more designed to get YouTube kudos than to truly challenge anyone in power.

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Can We Please Kill Off the Kabuki in the Press Room?

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April 23rd Is the Saddest Day of the Year

by KennethDiesendo Posted on December 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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According to Google—sort of—the saddest times of the year are spring and fall. Weird. Click here for the explanations, which seem a bit ad hoc to me. I mean, less light? Then why is winter such a happy time? Not to mention spring. “As it turns out,” the article explains, “lengthening daylight may discombobulate people’s chemical regulatory system.” So….less light is bad. But more light can also be bad. And winter is OK even though it has the least light of all. This might all be true, but it’s sure a bit of a chin scratcher.

And the unhappiest day of the year in 2014 was April 23. WTF? I could understand April 15. But what’s the deal with the 23rd? Anybody got a theory? Am I missing something here?

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April 23rd Is the Saddest Day of the Year

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Good News From the ER: Hospital Mistakes Are on the Decline

by JacelynBoland Posted on December 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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Let’s continue our good news theme this morning. For the past few years, via several different programs, the federal government has been working hard to get hospitals to adopt practices that rein in the curse of “hospital acquired conditions”—also known as HACs. These are things like prescription mistakes, central line infections, slips and falls, and so forth. Today, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released a report showing that HACs have been declining since these programs began in 2010.

The chart on the right tells the basic story. HACs declined a bit in 2011, and then fell even further in 2012 and 2013. By now, they’ve declined by a cumulative total of 17 percent. The AHRQ reports estimates that this represents 1.3 million HACs that have been prevented and 50,000 lives that have been saved. It’s also reduced health care costs by about $12 billion.

Much of this has been due to a laundry list of reforms introduced by Obamacare. So not only has Obamacare provided affordable health coverage for millions, but it’s reduced hospital errors by one out of every six and saved tens of thousands of lives in the process. Not bad.

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Good News From the ER: Hospital Mistakes Are on the Decline

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The Scary Mystery of Angela Merkel Is….Still a Mystery

by Juli34Bfuc Posted on December 1, 2014

Mother Jones

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Last night I got around to reading George Packer’s long New Yorker profile of German chancellor Angela Merkel, and it turned out to be a surprisingly absorbing piece. Unfortunately, that’s due more to Packer’s skill as a writer than to anything he ends up revealing about Merkel. In fact, the truly astonishing thing is that he manages to write 15,000 words about Merkel without really enlightening us in any serious way about what makes her tick. Apparently she’s really that enigmatic. Here, for example, is what he says about why a sober-minded East German chemist, who had never before displayed any political ambitions, suddenly decided to visit a political group that had formed after the Berlin Wall fell to ask if she could help out with anything:

Merkel’s decision to enter politics is the central mystery of an opaque life. She rarely speaks publicly about herself and has never explained her decision. It wasn’t a long-term career plan—like most Germans, she didn’t foresee the abrupt collapse of Communism and the opportunities it created. But when the moment came, and Merkel found herself single and childless in her mid-thirties—and laboring in an East German institution with no future—a woman of her ambition must have grasped that politics would be the most dynamic realm of the new Germany.

Well, OK then. Packer reports that Merkel is smart, methodical, genuinely unpretentious, and “as lively and funny in private as she is publicly soporific.” But her political views? Apparently she barely has any:

Throughout her Chancellorship, Merkel has stayed as close as possible to German public opinion….“The Chancellor’s long-term view is about two weeks,” a Merkel adviser says. The pejorative most often used against her is “opportunist.” When I asked Katrin Göring-Eckardt, the Green leader, whether Merkel had any principles, she paused, then said, “She has a strong value of freedom, and everything else is negotiable.”

….“People say there’s no project, there’s no idea,” the senior official told me. “It’s just a zigzag of smart moves for nine years.” But, he added, “She would say that the times are not conducive to great visions.”

….The most daunting challenge of Merkel’s time in office has been the euro-zone crisis, which threatened to bring down economies across southern Europe and jeopardized the integrity of the euro….Merkel’s decisions during the crisis reflect the calculations of a politician more mindful of her constituency than of her place in history. When Greek debt was revealed to be at critical levels, she was slow to commit German taxpayers’ money to a bailout fund, and in 2011 she blocked a French and American proposal for coördinated European action.

….Throughout the crisis, Merkel buried herself in the economic details and refused to get out in front of what German voters—who tended to regard the Greeks as spendthrift and lazy—would accept, even if delaying prolonged the ordeal and, at key moments from late 2011 through the summer of 2012, threatened the euro itself. The novelist and journalist Peter Schneider compared her to a driver in foggy weather: “You only see five metres, not one hundred metres, so it’s better you are very careful, you don’t say too much, you act from step to step. No vision at all.”

It’s kind of scary, but all wrapped up in a hazy ball of pragmatism that’s hard to get a handle on. Take the eurozone crisis, for example. Over the past five years, Germany has seemed almost spitefully hellbent on destroying the European economy simply because Germans disapprove of the spendthrift southerners responsible for the mess—all the time self-righteously refusing to admit that they themselves played a role that was every bit as lucrative and self-serving in the whole debacle. Because of this, the European economy is now headed for its third recession since 2008.

Does Merkel share this view of things? Or does she recognize what needs to be done but simply doesn’t have either the will or the courage to challenge German public opinion? That’s never clear. And yes, I guess I find that a little scary. This is why I don’t quite get the comparison Packer makes between Merkel and Obama. Initially, he says, Merkel was put off by Obama’s lofty rhetoric:

As she got to know Obama better, though, she came to appreciate more the ways in which they were alike—analytical, cautious, dry-humored, remote. Benjamin Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national-security adviser, told me that “the President thinks there’s not another leader he’s worked closer with than her.” He added, “They’re so different publicly, but they’re actually quite similar.” (Ulrich joked, “Obama is Merkel in a better suit.”)

During the Ukraine crisis, the two have consulted frequently on the timing of announcements and been careful to keep the American and the European positions close. Obama is the antithesis of the swaggering leaders whom Merkel specializes in eating for breakfast. On a trip to Washington, she met with a number of senators, including the Republicans John McCain, of Arizona, and Jeff Sessions, of Alabama. She found them more preoccupied with the need to display toughness against America’s former Cold War adversary than with events in Ukraine themselves. (McCain called Merkel’s approach “milquetoast.”) To Merkel, Ukraine was a practical problem to be solved. This mirrored Obama’s view.

Personality-wise, perhaps, Obama and Merkel are similar. “No drama” could apply equally well to either of them. But politically? I don’t see it. Obama doesn’t strike me as someone with no vision who hews as close as possible to public opinion. It’s true that he can’t always get what he wants, and obviously he faces the same constraints as any politician in a democratic system—especially one who presides over a divided government. But certainly his broad political views are clear enough, as are his political sympathies. He hasn’t been able to change the course of American politics, but not because he wouldn’t like to. He just hasn’t been able to.

So: who is Angela Merkel? After 15,000 words, I still don’t feel like I know. Is she really just someone who’s skilled at keeping her political coalition together and doesn’t much care about anything more than that? It’s a little hard to believe. And yet, that sure seems to be the main takeaway from all this.

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The Scary Mystery of Angela Merkel Is….Still a Mystery

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