2 Light Peacock Blue T-Shirt Summer WFH Outfits + DIY Paper Beads

Today's post is brought to you by this pompadour-sporting Lesser Scaup chilling out in the light peacock blue water of Upper Newport Bay. Isn't this a gorgeous shade of blue?

Also in this shade of blue...a T-shirt I bought for $6.79 at Kohls as part of the same short-sleeved T refresh in which I bought the magenta T I shared last month. I will share two ways I've worn this new T over the summer in work from home outfits. It's very easy to know how to style a t-shirt for weekends and our most relaxed occasions with shorts, jeans, leggings, etc., but I think a T can be a wonderfully versatile choice for the more casual end of business casual/WFH outfits too. (Know your own workplace, of course!) And shockingly, I am NOT layering over the T in these outfits! I know, the two piece outfit is not my bread-and-butter but in the summer, we do what we have to do to stay comfortable, right?

Because the color is just a lighter version of the peacock blue items in my closet, for my first outfit I paired the T with my peacock blue pants for a twist on the monochromatic column of color formula. I like this version of column dressing quite a bit! With only two pieces, a totally matching column of color can be kind of dull (esp. when using neutral colors) or overwhelming (esp. when using accent colors). But when the pieces are the same color in different values, it can look more balanced. And when the bottom piece is the darker color, as in this outfit, it can help ground the look. This top is actually rather long (which makes it good for sleeping in) so I loosely front tucked it along a diagonal to shorten it.

The warm blue column makes a great backdrop for some statement accessories, and both the striped scarf and the DIY white glass pearl/tassel necklace really pop against it.

I decided to get a bit matchy-matchy with my shoes by wearing my white leather sneakers. I had been inspired by Nancy to pair these sneakers with a blazer + jeans outfit last February, but I hadn't yet tried them with a classic pair of office pants/suit trousers even though that trend has been around for quite a while. I don't expect this to be my go-to styling choice for work pants this fall, but I did like the white sneakers with this outfit, so I will keep it in mind as an option.

I had planned to wear a plain headband, but when I saw this one I'd braided from a stretchy scarf, I thought it would add some extra color and low-key print mixing to my outfit. I continued with the white accessory theme with these cute little white butterfly charm earrings.

My daily bracelet stack was built around a set of 3 paper bead bracelets in blue-green tones, white, and silver. (See the page to bead examples for this set with outfit #1 in this post.) I enjoyed how my scarf, headband, and bracelet choices expanded beyond the peacock blue to include a range of aqua, mint, teal, seafoam, and lime green colors.

While the first outfit was a little experimental to me with the white sneakers, this second outfit is a much more typical Sally in St Paul look with the print skirt, layered necklaces, and wedge shoes. I really like the combination of this light peacock blue T with the skirt! The color of the T is somewhere between the teal background color and the warm blue accent color in the skirt, so it blends nicely. Once again I did a loose partial tuck to keep the T from being ridiculously long. (It also helps create an illusion that my waist is perhaps not right beneath my bust; the joys of a high waist/short torso, am I right?)

It's interesting...the blue color of the T works extremely well with this "teal" skirt as well as the "peacock blue" pants above, but I don't think I've worn this skirt with any of my peacock blue items: a heathered long-sleeve top, a striped top, a tank, a corduroy jacket, a quilted vest, and a drapey cardigan. It's not always the case that if color A blends to color B and color A blends to color C that color B will blend to color C...but sometimes it does!

I had a lot of fun putting together my necklaces with this outfit. I knew I wanted to have a substantial #neckmess because a two piece outfit can feel a bit blah to me compared to one with a topper layer. I started with the long multi-strand chain necklace with blue and aqua beads, then looked at my DIY paper pendants to see if I had anything that would coordinate. I found this cute fox pendant that I made by painting the paperboard form with metallic blue-teal paint and adding a fox image I cut out from a catalog. (I believe it was a close-up shot of the fox motif on a piece of clothing from Coldwater Creek.) The fox added a warm rust-brown color to the outfit, which I repeated with the sloth pendant necklace and the freshwater pearl/stone bead necklace (which was made for me by my friend RB over 25 years ago). (See my DIY paper pendant tutorial here.)

My earrings are a pair of peacock blue and silver dangles that I bought at the same time as some of my peacock blue clothing from Christopher & Banks. When I decide to buy several pieces of clothing in a given color from them, I typically do a search on their website for the color name (here, it really was Peacock Blue) to see if they have accessories or even other clothing in that color that I would like to add to my order.

I am wearing my grey leopard wedges (discussed in this pick a shoe color post), which I had vowed to try wearing more often in the warm months because I usually wear them with tights in the fall/winter. The black picks up the black in the skirt's print nicely, and of course I do enjoy having a print mix element to an outfit.

I knew I wanted my bracelet stack to include a peacock or teal color while also repeating the orange/rust/brown colors of the fox pendant. Fortunately I had a DIY paper bead bracelet set I'd made a bit earlier in the summer in teal, orange, blue, and silver that fit the bill. I doubled down on my two main colors by adding two DIY teal bracelets, a DIY muted orange stone bracelet, and a rust agate/silver rabbit charm bracelet that was a gift from my husband. I finished the stack with a rose gold bead bracelet from Amazon.

The top paper bead bracelet with the butterfly charm has a somewhat surprising origin. It will shock no one that I started with a clothing catalog, though that it was this particular page from a North Style catalog is probably unexpected. I liked that the page had a lot of different colors/prints on it, and since I wanted to experiment with adding multiple colors of acrylic paint to the page, the blah neutral background was not a problem. The page looked very different after I added blue-teal, orange, bright pink, and light blue paint! (I really do enjoy painting, but I have no actual skill or talent for it, so painting pages for making paper beads is a great outlet for me; I can just enjoy the experience of painting swathes of color on a surface without having to worry about the result looks like! It's as close as I can get to that carefree "artistic"/creative experience of being about 4 years old again.)

The strips I cut to make 1" bicone beads looked really cool. Notice that I didn't color over the background white/beige in its entirety because I was fine with having a bit of that lighter neutral color in the beads. I loved how the beads turned out! I think the visible paint strokes here and there on the beads adds wonderful visual texture to them, and of course the colors have been shifted to align well with my desired teal, orange, blue color palette (with some Barbiecore pink as a fun bonus).

For the bottom paper bead bracelet, I started with a Coldwater Creek catalog page with a large close-up image of a teal and orange floral shirt. With the small amounts of periwinkle blue in the shirt's print, it was already a slam-dunk choice for my second group of beads for this bracelet set. There was some white text on the page, which I covered up with permanent marker in a green-teal color. These beads came together very easily, and I was pleased with how they looked.

What do you think of this warm "light peacock blue" color? Do you gravitate toward colors in the Blue-Green category of the color wheel? Do you like them more on the blue side, the green side, or both equally? How do you style your T-shirts for not-extra-casual wear?

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