3 Capsule Outfits with a Small Square Silk Scarf + DIY Bead Soup Earrings

Today I am sharing three outfits from my fall/winter capsule wardrobe that feature the same scarf: a small square silk scarf from Echo that I purchased on ThredUp in 2020. This was one of my high priority wear accessories for my capsule so I have been incorporating it into outfits pretty regularly. This is a classic, always chic scarf style that is comfortable and manageable to wear across a range of situations and in most kinds of weather.

In this first look, I wore the scarf with a casual outfit of blue t-shirt, striped button up worn as a lightweight jacket, and trouser jeans. Many women assume that silk scarves must be worn with dressy outfits, but really, you can wear them with just about anything to add a dash of sophistication. I think the juxtaposition of a silk scarf with more casual items is a really effective styling technique.

This is an easy way to wear any kind of bandana sized scarf: fold on the bias multiple times until you have a long thin shape, then tie that around the neck and secure with a square knot. I like to position the knot to the side for some extra jauntiness. I wasn't sure how the double stripe print mix here would work, but I think it's a lot of fun!

As fall turns to winter, these tweed loafers with the jewel tones and gold against a black background go into my footwear rotation in a big way. I love how they can jazz up a look, and the variety of colors means they work with a lot of outfits. I just adore a snazzy pair of flats!

My daily bracelet stack is my go-to 7 strands of beaded bracelets in 6-8mm size (all DIY except the gold spacer bead bracelet from Amazon). The top and bottom red ones are fairly recent creations made from gorgeous ruby red glass beads with the AB (aurora borealis) finish that gives them the pink, blue, gold, etc. glow. Each of these bracelets is very, very simple on its own, but they come together in a variety of colors, shapes, materials, and finishes to create an interesting stack.

I finished off my accessories with a new pair of bead soup earrings in deep warm shades of blue with gold. The top bead is cube shaped in an electric blue color, and the bottom bead is a larger faceted dark warm blue bead. According to my personal color categorization scheme, these earrings are in the range of my admiral blue and cobalt blue colors. They stand up well to the other vivid blue tones in the outfit.

My second outfit is a business casual work-appropriate outfit with a warm azure blue pullover sweater layered over a matching blouse and paired with that workplace staple, the black trouser.

This time I folded the scarf in half from corner to corner to create a wide triangle, draped it around my neck, brought the two pointy ends together, and tied a small square knot. This creates a draping kerchief look. As is my typical practice, I combined the scarf with a long necklace to break up the expanse of sweater and add a vertical element. This is also an opportunity to add some sparkle and shine from the metal jewelry. I know the palm/monstera is not a traditional fall/winter motif, but I just find this gold/silver pendant so useful to wear when I am mixing metals in my outfit. I really should make myself a gold/silver nature-motif pendant necklace for each season. A flower for spring, the palm/monstera for summer, a "falling leaf" for autumn, and a snowflake for winter!

Yep, the sparkly tweed loafers make another appearance! You know, with the striped scarf and "plaid" shoes added to a solid top and black pants, this is really just a variant on the Print Scarf + Animal Print Shoes outfit formula I shared at the end of last month. I had mentioned the possibility of substituting another kind of print or multi-colored shoe/boot in the formula, and this is one example of how that could work.

Haha, speaking of snowflakes, my paper bead bracelet set (which I made to coordinate with the striped shirt in the first outfit above) has a pretty silver snowflake focal bead so at least that is seasonally appropriate. I don't have photos of the original paper but I remember a couple of them: the top tube bead bracelet was a red plaid fleece dress from a Christmas Lands End catalog and the second-to-last bracelet was Christmas stockings also from a Lands End catalog. So it definitely had a winter/Christmas vibe going from the beginning. But I do wear the bracelet set year round. When I wear this set in summer, I just call it a pretty silver flower focal bead instead; how's that for versatile?

Of course I took the opportunity to create some easy bead soup stack earrings to coordinate with the paper bead bracelet set. I chose beads in bright red and cobalt blue, finishing the earrings with silver spacers and findings. In these earrings, the repetition of the colors served as a unifying element while the differing shapes and materials of the beads were diversifying elements (see Tip #1 in this post for more about that).

My third and final outfit of this post combines several pieces you've seen me wear from this capsule before: the red plaid pants, the silk scarf, and the cheetah Oxfords. I chose a black sweatshirt with a wonderful texture (that doesn't come through in this photos, unfortunately!) to complete the outfit. I think of this as a "dressy sweatshirt" that has all the comfort and ease of sweats in a style that can easily pass as business casual. In keeping with the paper bracelets above, it's Lands End. But luckily this was a secondhand find or I might have been tempted to buy it in every color...you know?

I styled the scarf the same way as in the second outfit: kerchief style paired with a long pendant. This one is a real favorite of mine to wear when I want a long gold necklace that's got some real sparkle to it. It was a crazy $1.80 ThredUp find that I've already got down to an 8 cent cost per wear!

I think it's the subtle repetition of the slightly tan color from the plaid pants, as well as the more obvious repetition of black, that makes this print mix such a happy one for me.

I decided to go with a stack of chunkier bracelets so I have only 5 instead of my typical 7 here. There are two stand-alone paper bead bracelets: the black and white one made from the cover of an art supply catalog (I just LOVE this one) and the black and gold one made from a thick fund-raising insert in an alumni magazine. I usually cover up the text on paper when I make bracelets, but the "A" on that bead escaped my notice until the beads were glazed and the bracelet was made. I have decided that I'm OK with that because clearly the golden "A" represents the 4.0 GPA I got in my masters program, haha.

Why yes, I did make another pair of bead soup earrings in blue and gold! I found four pairs of glass beads in similar shades of blue but different shapes to create my stacks, and I broke up the blue beads with gold spacers and bead caps. I think these have a very nice visual balance to them. The blue color of these earrings is lighter and more neutral in tone than the other pair, falling into the "cobalt-cerulean" rather than "admiral-cobalt" range of my color categories. They also have a somewhat more delicate appearance.

The only new item from the capsule I added in this post was the jeans from Outfit #17, circled in bright pink. But I definitely stuck to the capsule color palette, just substituting a different blue pullover sweater and black sweatshirt for the pieces here.

Here is our updated accessory capsule after 19 outfits (not including the extra color modules). We are up to 12 bracelet sets, 16 earring pairs, 14 necklaces, 7 scarves, and 11 pairs of shoes. I forgot I was going to organize the accessories by color for this post, but maybe I'll remember next time!

Do you like wearing silk scarves? Square scarves? Small scarves? Do you save them for "dressy" outfits or do you wear them with a wider range of outfits? Do you have any fancy sweatshirts? When you like something, are you tempted to buy it in multiple colors (or, gulp, every color)?

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