Where Bloggers Live: Birthday/Unbirthday Outfits and 12 Easy DIY Earrings
- sallyinstpaul
- 20 hours ago
- 11 min read
Welcome back to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live! I am lucky to have joined a terrific group of bloggers who give a peek into the places and spaces where they spend their time.
Today's topic is...My Favorite Birthday, and my honest answer is probably "my next one." But with the recent Alice in Wonderland-themed Style Imitating Art challenges (White Rabbit; Mad Hatter's tea party), when I see the word "Birthday," my mind immediately goes to its under-appreciated counterpart, the "Unbirthday."
Your Unbirthday is simply every day of the year which is not your birthday! Wikipedia does a good job of outlining the origins of the Unbirthday:
In Through the Looking-Glass, Humpty Dumpty is wearing a cravat (which Alice at first mistakes for a belt) which he says was given to him as an "un-birthday present" by the White King and Queen. He then has Alice calculate the number of unbirthdays in a year.
In the Disney animated film Alice in Wonderland, Alice stumbles upon the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Dormouse having an unbirthday party and singing "The Unbirthday Song". Alice at first does not understand what an unbirthday is; when the Mad Hatter explains it to her, she realises it is her unbirthday as well, and receives an unbirthday cake from the Mad Hatter. The scene from the film combines the idea of an unbirthday introduced in Through the Looking-Glass with the "Mad Tea Party" described in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Later in the film; the Mad Hatter mentions this unbirthday party when he is summoned as a witness at Alice's trial. The King of Hearts realises that it is the Queen of Hearts' unbirthday as well, and the trial is abruptly halted for celebration.
When you think about it, it actually feels a bit arbitrary that a person's birthday is the "anniversary of the birth of a person," celebrated on the day of the year you were born, e.g., January 17 of every year. Why couldn't your birthday occur on the day of the week you were born, e.g., Thursday of every week? Then you'd be able to celebrate much more frequently! But if that's too often, how about your birthday being the day of the month you were born, e.g., the 17th of every month? Of course then we would start measuring our ages in weeks or months (which is basically continuing the method we use for babies, after all).
As a celebration of my Unbirthday today, I am sharing 12 monthly outfits of the day from on/around my birth day-of-the-month from the past year (I need to allow "around" my birth day because some months I didn't take an outfit photo on the exact day). Most of these are new to the blog, but a few are ones you may have seen before. I am featuring the DIY earrings I wore with each outfit because for the past year, I've worn a new pair of DIY earrings the vast majority of days! I will do a photo round-up of all the earrings at the end so we can see a little collection of Birth Day of the Month DIY earrings and see what styles of earrings are most popular for me to make in this little sample (I am pretty sure I already know what the top style will be, and you might know it too).
April Birth Day - New OOTD
My work from home routine in recent years means that bare legs season starts distinctly earlier than when I commuted into work: it used to be some time in May but for the last couple years, it's started in April. I am surprised by how much I like this "shades of grey" outfit with its pops of peach, coral, and orange! I am drawn to much higher contrast outfits, but I admit that the lower contrast of an outfit like this suits my own coloring better. My earrings are a basic "beads on a stick" stack style with 5 glass beads in shades of coral/orange and black that I made to coordinate with the coral cheetah scarf I'm wearing. My DIY paper bead bracelet set in sandstone coral/grey/gold pairs well with several scarves in my wardrobe that combine a light orange/coral with grey (not this one, but it still works fine). I have layered some long necklaces to hang under the scarf, which is a go-to technique for me when wearing a short infinity style scarf.
May Birth Day - New OOTD
I remember that I built this outfit around the dusky rose cardigan, which was only a couple years old (which is practically new by my standards). The floral scarf with various shades of pink and blue (braided as in Jodie's tutorial) inspired me to combine the cardigan with a chambray top and a navy print skirt. I think the contrast here is also good; it helps that the volume of the light colored scarf is decreased by braiding so its impact is lessoned. It's interesting...I used much cooler, brighter pinks in my jewelry, which can look a little odd in close up but actually works just fine in the context of the entire outfit. The earrings are another simple stack design using 3 "interesting" glass beads with splotches or swirls of color (I made them for a skirt I'm not wearing but the colors worked well here too). The DIY paper bead bracelet set was made to coordinate with this scarf and another that share the white/pink/blue/purple color palette (see page to bead images here with Outfit #3).
June Birth Day - New OOTD
This is an outfit built around the thrifted floral print T that I enjoy wearing but don't automatically gravitate toward routinely. But I really like how it was styled here with the navy pants and salmon-pink cardigan using the simple "road map styling" technique. This warm pink is a good color for me, and I managed to keep the contrast reasonable in the outfit. I also kept the color palette really tight - very matchy-matchy, I admit, but I really like that sometimes. I made both the earrings and bracelet set to coordinate with a bird/floral print blouse with warm pink and navy, hence the earrings having bird charms. (I'm wearing the inspiration blouse in the August outfit below.) This is another favorite easy earring design: make a short stack of beads on an eye pin and add a charm to the bottom. You can see the bracelet details in this post.
July Unbirth Day - Revisited OOTD
I took a staycation from work in July and dressed in exercise/lounge wear every day (unphotographed), so I had to reach down to the 15th for an outfit photo. You may have seen this outfit and Citrus jewelry collection in my post for SIA Going to Market. This color combination is pretty fabulous for me, and I continue to be obsessed with the fresh spring greens in lime, apple, grass, etc. This particular shade of light green has just the right amount of brightness and saturation while still being on the "light" side; it's a clear light green that has been "watered down" but not greyed-out or whited-out. I may literally cry when I have to remove this cardigan from my wardrobe because this specific shade of green is everything...and can be hard to find.
August Birth Day - New OOTD
It can be warm enough in the summer that even I don't wear a topper layer or scarf in an outfit - here is the proof! It's a very simple two piece column of color formula, print version. But I do like to add interest through accessories: layered necklaces, including one of my DIY monochromatic, graduated size bead soup necklaces in warm blue tones; striped knit flats in shades of blue/aqua; DIY paper bead bracelet set in blue/aqua/pink/silver; and DIY stack earrings in aqua, white, and silver that I made for an aqua/white striped scarf.
September Birth Day - Revisited OOTD
Here I'm back to my old high contrast type of outfit, and while this one is objectively "too high contrast" for me, I don't find it overpowering. (It helps when I have my hair looking darker because I've used some product to control the frizzies.) I shared this outfit and the jewelry details in this Thrifty Six "bronzed and browned" post. I will say that I really loved how these subtly mismatched earrings turned out! I need to remember how fun it can be to put shaped beads on wire and connect them with a loop so that they are articulated and move freely.
October Unbirth Day - Revisted OOTD
I previously shared this outfit and jewelry details in this Style Imitating Art post. This outfit has an overall "too dark" value to it, but the low contrast definitely works well on me and I love the forthright autumn vibes without wearing the most obvious warm autumn colors. Burgundy/wine and black work well for fall and make a nice cool-tone alternative to the plethora of oranges, rusts, olive greens, mustards, etc. that rule that season. And these earrings! I mean, they rabbits on them so how can I not love them, right? (I actually liked these little bunny charms so well that I placed an order at Michaels to get small sets of them in four different colors.)
November Unbirth Day - New OOTD
And here's what happens when I let myself be drawn into wearing a very high contrast outfit. It's not terrible or anything, but yeah, the ivory cardigan really stands out against the navy print blouse and olive pants a bit more than would be ideal for me. (If I had a brown cardigan, I would have worn that! Lacking a brown one, a cardigan/jacket in navy, olive, or denim would work well.) But it was fun that this outfit brought both the blouse and the cardigan to my under $1 cost per wear goal. And I did really like the DIY jewelry I wore in this outfit! More about my necklace below. I made the earrings specifically as part of a jewelry set with the necklace using the same light brown and sky blue color palette, though different beads. This was another easy connecting project; the wire wrapping on the top beads looks fancy but I actually bought the beads that way as pre-made links. The DIY paper bead bracelet set in teal/brown/rust/silver is one I created for a scarf with those colors, but it coordinates very well with this blouse and necklace too. The inclusion of the silver leaf charm on the top paper bead bracelet is a happy coincidence since this blouse has a "fall foliage" print!
I made this two piece layered necklace using the Curated Bead Box: Bayou Blues collection as well as some extra beads (and the wooden pendant and Czech glass cross disk focal) from my stash. The box had two shades of blue - this lighter sky blue and a darker blue - and two shades of brown - this lighter brown and a darker brown, so I made two separate layered necklace sets, both of which can match to this "fall foliage" blouse. This lighter one has silver and the darker one (which you'll see eventually) has bronze and gold.
December Birth Day - New OOTD
This is an outfit that made sense in my head, but in reality, the scarf really doesn't work - it's definitely too bright for the rest of the outfit, and may be "too bright" for me in general. This is one of several scarves that are on a mental list to fix (e.g., overdying?), upcycle, or purge from my wardrobe; all these scarves were thrifted so I don't mind having taken a chance on them. But otherwise I liked the outfit, and I have a soft blue scarf that would look great in place of the coral one. The DIY paper bead bracelet set and earrings were made to match a skirt in my closet with a soft indigo/peach/navy color palette. The earrings are a tweak of the old "beads on a stick" earring style with flower shaped beads included in the stack.
January Unbirth Day - New OOTD
Here's another "too dark" but low-enough-contrast-to-look-okay outfit with three of pieces I'd just added to my wardrobe in December: the heather grey top from my mom, the purple-wine cardigan I bought to bring some purple to my life, and another pair of the Effortless Stretch Pants from Kohls, this time in dark grey ("Forged Iron"). I designed these "stick of beads with a charm" earrings to match the burgundy and pink floral scarf I'm wearing, hence the use of the golden flower charm. MY DIY paper bead bracelet set looks like it has the same story, but it was actually made to coordinate with a floral print blouse in black/burgundy/dark red/purple/pink colors.
February Birth Day - Revisited OOTD
This outfit from the Thrifty Six collaboration for February is high contrast but works better than some of the others I've shared in this post. I think it's because the cool shades of bright pink in the scarves, which works well with my skin tone, frames my face and draws attention to it. There is also a balance between the bright scarves and the bright skirt, rather than one bright/light piece that dominates the look. I discuss the outfit and jewelry in detail in the T6 post.
March Birth Day - Revisited OOTD
I love navy and green together, and I think they went together beautifully in this outfit from the March Thrifty Six collaboration as previously shared in this post. The earrings are of the first type that I ever made: beads added to pre-formed earring hoops from Amazon. These are gorgeous little 4mm malachite beads with small gold spacers.
Let's take a look at this sample of 12 DIY earrings from my Birth/Unbirth Day outfits. 6 (50%) are simple stick earrings, aka "beads on a stick," made by stacking earrings on a headpin, creating a simple loop at the top, and attaching an ear wire. It's a dead easy technique that can be quite effective and create an astonishing variety of different earrings as you change up colors, shapes, sizes, materials, etc. 2 (17%) are one step more complicated: a bead on an eye pin at the top attached to a bead (or beads) on a headpin below so that the two bead sections can move more freely. 1 (8%) is a beaded pre-made earring hoop with an ear wire attached. And 3 (25%) are charm earrings with beads on an eye pin with a charm attached below. So as I'd expected, stick earrings are the winner in this sample! With charm earrings coming in second place.
If you can make a simple loop and open an ear wire (just like you'd do a jump ring), you can make all of these designs. I used 20 or 21 gauge wire for these earrings so that a simple loop would be sufficient; the only exception is the wrapped loop on the butterfly beads because my ball headpin was 24 gauge. I used my one-step looper to create the simple loops, but obviously you can create loops manually as well.
Thanks for joining me today for a review of 12 months of Birthday/Unbirthday outfits and the DIY earrings I wore with them.
Next month's topic is What's in My Bag...and this one is interesting because I don't currently have a purse or handbag that I carry around every day since I'm in WFH mode rather than doing the daily commute. Many of the things that would be in my purse are on my desk in my home office instead. So when I go out, I pack some kind of bag with what I specifically need for the outing I'm making.
In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers as they share about their favorite birthdays:
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Are you familiar with the Unbirthday concept? Have you ever celebrated your birthday on a day other than the actual birthday? Do you have a favorite birthday? Did you have a favorite outfit from my round up of OOTD? Did you have a favorite pair of earrings? Do you like higher or lower contrast outfits for yourself? Which kind of outfit likes you?
Blogs I link up with are listed here.