Navy & Grey April Outfits with Bird Prints + DIY Jewelry

Today I am featuring two recent outfits based on the navy and grey color palette with a blouse and a cardigan with very similar bird-and-foliage prints. They were part of the same collection that I purchased at the same time. It might seem like overkill that I bought both the blouse and cardigan version but since I love navy-based prints (particularly floral/foliage prints) and zoological prints, I haven't regretted this duplication at all. If the huge increase in singing is anything to go by, the birds in my neighborhood have been very happy indeed with the warmer weather we've been experiencing (and persevering through the colder and snowier days we still get occasionally), so I put together a couple of outfits using these bird-themed garments in honor of the start of spring.

My first outfit of the day combines the blouse with a midi length navy corduroy skirt and a dark grey pashmina.

OOTD: 4/2/25

The most shocking thing about the outfit is that I am not wearing tights! I had originally planned to wear navy tights and navy suede ankle boots, but the weather was warmer than I'd expected, so I chose to substitute these navy flats instead. I believe this is the earliest in the season that I have worn a skirt without tights in Minnesota! (I mean, it's a long, warm skirt, but still!)

I also skipped adding a layering piece over the blouse, which made my scarf the "third piece" in this look.

You probably know that I have fun making bracelets - paper bead bracelet sets, of course, and also memory wire bracelets more recently - that coordinate with my print clothing and scarves. Since I have two items with this bird print in the navy, grey, white, red, and pink color palette, it was a given that I'd make a multi-color memory wire bracelet to match. For this bracelet, I used my handy color bead mixes that contain beads of a given color family in sizes from 11/0 seed beads up to 10mm beads (as shown here) and did a colorblocking pattern with 7 beads of widely varying sizes but in the same color group together. I did try to space out the large beads so that they weren't clumped together or competing for space, and even though I didn't execute that perfectly, the bracelet still turned out very well, I think. (It may seem that you can tell exactly where the beads will sit when you add them to the coils of wire, but based on your wrist size and the size of the beads, the coils can stretch out a bit when worn; this means the beads can/probably will sit in different places when the bracelet is on the wrist versus off the wrist. This complicates the execution of bead patterns/placements on memory wire.)

For my earrings, I wanted to play up the birds from the blouse's print so I started with two sweet bird-on-a-branch charms that I'd recently purchased. I made the stick portion of the earrings from red, dark blue, and white beads from my bead soup and attached the charms to the ends where they can dangle. Don't the earrings stand out nicely with the dark grey scarf as the backdrop? (To keep myself organized, I have packed these earrings in with the paper bead bracelet set I made for this blouse in the red/navy/white/silver colorway.)

My second outfit of the day is very much a variation on the same theme: I put together a column of color using a navy t-shirt and navy skinny pants and added a light grey-taupe scarf. Even though this look is extremely similar to the first one in its colors and print (formula: navy bird print on top, navy on bottom, grey scarf), it has a very different silhouette and thus felt quite different to wear. Even though I wore this one only two days after the first outfit, it didn't feel duplicative. I was actually a bit surprised by how much difference it made to switch from a long pleated skirt to skinny pants.

OOTD: 4/4/25

It also helped to switch out the dark grey scarf for this much lighter one that has a hint of taupe to it, and I styled it differently too: worn long with a simple, intentionally-sloppy knot rather than looped to the front with the ends loose.

Instead of matching my shoe color to my bottom piece (as I did with the navy skirt + navy flats), I repeated the color of the scarf in these suede boots to create a bookend effect. To temporarily customize the length of my pants, I tucked the hems underneath the pant legs at my desired point (and because the pants are so slim, the ends stayed in place on their own).

I pulled out a pair of monochromatic earrings made from my bead soup that I hadn't yet worn. Each stick earring has 5 glass beads in a dark taupe-brown color separated with silver corrugated disk spacer beads. The oval beads at the bottom of the earrings are really cool because they have a mottled grey-brown appearance. If you're wondering about my hair-do, which looks different from my usual line up of long-with-headband, ponytail, or dual side braids...well, it was a bit of an accident. I started with the dual side braids, but since the long stick earrings kept wanting to weave themselves into the braids, I took the two braids and tied them in a simple knot (like the first step of tying your shoelaces) to keep them back temporarily. But unexpectedly, the knot continued to hold, so I accidentally had a knotted braided hair-do going on.

Navy and grey are a good pairing of neutrals that work very harmoniously together, and I agree that they can readily form the basis of a capsule wardrobe, but I have to admit that I find the combination kind of boring. I often end up adding a fair amount of accent color to a navy and grey outfit to give it some oomph. So I was very pleased to discover that the presence of a lovely bird-and-foliage print with the small amounts of red and pink was enough to turn the perfectly fine but rather ho-hum navy and grey combination into outfits I really enjoyed wearing.

In keeping with today's grey and bird themes, here is a hardy American robin braving a cold, snowy mid-April day in Minnesota a few years ago. I think birds are really cute when their feathers are all fluffed up - like the avian version of wearing a puffer coat, I guess. (Birds puff up their feathers to trap pockets of air around their bodies to keep warm.)

American Robin in a Snowy Tree - St Paul, MN - 4/12/2020

I previously shared a few outfits with the bird blouse in this post if you are interested in more bird print inspiration.

Do you like navy and grey together? Do you ever wear all-neutral outfits? What colors do you like to add to navy and/or grey? Are you a fan of print blouses/cardigans? What is your favorite print for spring?

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