How to Dress for Yourself

We have all been guilty of buying something or wearing something just because it was in style or our friends liked it. We naturally want the approval of others, but when it comes to your wardrobe you shouldn't be people pleasing. Fashion, after all, is a form of art that we should be able to express ourselves with. So here are some easy tips on how to dress for yourself and develop a totally original personal style.

1. Ignore everyone else's opinion. This is the number one rule when it comes to finding a personal style that is all yours. It shouldn't matter what they say in the magazines, it shouldn't matter what people say on their blogs, it shouldn't matter what your friends love and hate, because what is important is what you think about your wardrobe and yourself. That's the whole point of this! Dressing is something you should do for yourself, so it shouldn't matter to you if someone hates or loves what you have on as long as you love it.

2. Only buy it if you love it. This seems pretty obvious, but seriously I can't tell you how often I buy stuff just to buy stuff and what does that really do for me? Nothing. I mean sure I have more stuff, but it all ends up being something that I get sick of, that I don't use, or that really isn't that great at all. However, it really saves money and time if you just get the things you fall in love with. And if you're not sure if you love it or not, just leave and come back for it. If you're thinking about it the rest of the day you obviously love it.

3. Incorporate pieces that are important to you or your background. Wear that necklace that your mom bought you when you moved out of your house or those pearl earrings that used to belong to your grandmother or your uncle's watch. Or you could just gain inspiration from things like that, like the little elephant figurine your boyfriend bought you (or maybe that's just me), you could buy a necklace that looks similar to it. Look into your heritage and traditional fashion, gain inspiration from that!

4. Gain inspiration from everything that you love. For instance I love elephants and have a million little accessories with elephants on them. My favorite movie is Almost Famous, so I really love 70s fashion, the more polished side and the more hippie side both. You can gain inspiration from music, from art, from magazines, from bloggers, and just about anything that you love! Your style should be a combination of everything that you love.

5. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Last but not least, you shouldn't be afraid to mess up from time to time! Everyone has those outfits that they loved when they wore, but they look back and think "What the hell was I thinking?!" Don't be afraid to get laughed at, get stared at, or have photos taken of you!

Do you consider yourself fearless with your style or are you more reserved because you're scared of the feedback you'll hear? Do you dress for yourself or for others? Do you think you could dress more for yourself than you do right now? Are you guilty of picking out clothes based on someone else's opinion? I love hearing from you guys <3

A Look at the Next Few Months

As most of you already know from my endless tweeting and posting on the subject I am pregnant. Twenty weeks pregnant to be exact. On top of that craziness I have to work, renovate the house for the little one that's on the way, shop shop shop, help plan more than one event, and keep up with the blog and my social media outlets that are connected. That's a lot for one girl to do, don't you think? And even though it may be difficult at times I'm going to try my best to keep up with the fast pace of things and not stop doing anything that I need or even want to do. It will just involve a lot of planning, pre-writing, and effort. I'm okay with that though! So here is what will be happening in the next few months with my life that will effect the blog. This definitely isn't everything, but I will update you guys if anything significant is happening that will keep me from updating.

• Posting and social media both should pick up around August 15-18, 2013 when my boyfriend goes back to school. Until then I want to spend a lot of time with him.
• Mid to late September I'm maybe throwing my friend a baby shower. In the planning process my activity may slightly decrease sometimes.
• October 2-8, 2013 I'm going to Orlando, FL. I'll probably have some guest posts lined up as well as some scheduled posts that I wrote before hand. If you're interested in guest posting there will be more information soon, but fashion, beauty, and DIY posts would be ideal. Email me your ideas to debbieshapesandsizes@gmail.com
• My sister's birthday and my boyfriend's birthday are on October 11 & 24, so for those two days I'll be pretty absent.
• My baby shower will most likely be in mid October. My boyfriend's sister is probably planning it, but I'm going to have to help her out a lot because it's a handful so again my activity could possibly decrease.

I am thinking about adding a calendar to my sidebar to help keep my readers up to date about what's going on and why I may not be publishing comments as frequently or tweeting back, but I'm not sure how I would do that considering there's no option for it. Sorry this wasn't a very content-filled post, but I felt that it was necessary. If you have any questions or suggestions let me know. Again if you're interested in doing a guest post shoot me an email at debbieshapesandsizes@gmail.com with a pitch.

The Liebster Award

Last Monday the beautiful Adrienne of Late Night Nonsense nominated me for a Liebster award. It makes me so happy to be nominated for something like this, especially after only having had my blog up and running for a week (two weeks now). Unfortunately I have been very busy with house renovations, hair makeovers, boyfriends, babies, and other things so I haven't been able to answer the questions Adrienne wrote and make nominations of my own. I also got nominated by Daphne from Peanut Butter and Chocolate Life a few days ago. This is the only time I'm going to post about the Liebster Award so if I get nominated by anyone else, thank you, but this post is a one time thing.