Florals for Spring? Groundbreaking.

Outfil Details:

Top-Ross

Shorts-Vintage men's jeans, cutoff

Belt-came with a dress

Sandals-Teva

Inspired Xplorations: Dark Makeup Transformation

Stephanie describes her personal style as classic, feminine, and simple. She usually wears light or bright colors and minimal makeup.  As a hardcore lover of cardigans, she often jokes about dressing like a teacher. Bold looks just aren't usually her thing. Her daily makeup routine takes 10 minutes from start to finish, and if she's going out it merely doubles. In the last several years that I've had the chance to get to know her though it's become apparent that her light, bubbly exterior doesn't always match her sinister sense of humor !

I've done Stephanie's makeup on several occasions for dates, nights on the town, or just for fun. Usually I try to stick to her comfort zone and make her look pretty while still keeping it natural. It was actually over a year ago that we came up with the idea to do her makeup in a much more intense way to see how she liked it. I was dying to try an extreme look on her because I knew she could pull it off! Finally, she let me transform her into the gothic queen that lurks within.

Here is the result.

The beautiful Stephanie - makeup free

Once I completed her base, brows, and contour we snagged this picture. We were both loving this look on her!

The final look

Stephanie said she really enjoyed stepping outside of her comfort zone makeup-wise and felt like a different person once she saw her transformation. She even said she liked the finished look more than she expected to! Now she wants to learn to contour. I feel like a proud mother.

Thanks for reading!

XOXO

Outfit Post: Today is Canceled

I decided to draw inspiration from urban trends as well as classic country-western style for this look. One of my favorite things to do with my outfits is to combine things that don't seem like they would go together, and somehow make it work (at least in my opinion).

In a way, this outfit is an expression of who I am, a combination of country girl and city girl, trying to make it all work together; trying to have the best of both worlds.

I used pieces like the basic black "dad hat," the mirrored sunglasses, and the black/white graphic tee to grab the essence of current urban trend, meanwhile the plaid shirt, fringe bag, bandanna and booties all pull together for a rural feel at the same time.

I will leave info about the specific pieces I'm wearing below, but keep in mind I'm a bargain shopper and most of these things come from outlet stores or were on clearance when I got them.

Hat- Walmart

Bandanna- vintage

Plaid shirt- Mossimo, Target

Graphic tee- Electric Pink, Ross

Jeans- Levi's

Booties- Carlos by Carlos Santana, (buy here)

Rings- assorted

Sunglasses- Fantaseyes 

Bag- Moda Luxe (similar here)

Lip color- Unicorn Blood by Jeffree Star Cosmetics (buy here)

All images courtesy of Carissa Northrup

Thanks for looking!

The Rebirth of Inspired Xpression

  I'm sure you thought Inspired Xpression was dead. Even I thought so for a while. I stopped blogging when I went through a dark time in my life, and not the fun, spooky kind of dark. I always wanted to get it going again,but I felt blocked.
  When I first created this blog, I had a vision for it. I wanted to showcase the fact that fashion can be inspired by anything- art, music, nature, literally anything. I wanted to juxtapose the inspirations and their expression through fashion. Often though, my inspiration was something hard to explain, and even more difficult to display visually on my blog. I would often see people around me, and take an element from their look to incorporate into my own, but I never got a picture of them. Or I would find a new song, or see a glimpse of something somewhere that inspired me, but once again the only image I retained was in my mind, or it wasn't even visual at all. So my blog turned into something else: a display of my personal style. It was something people could take inspiration from, but I still felt like I wasn't showing my inspiration, and I struggled to figure out how until ultimately...I gave up.
  Another hindrance I encountered was that I wanted to illustrate the variety of looks that one person was able to create, but many of the photographers I was working with had their own vision, which makes perfect sense-photographers are artists.  I started to become trapped in one look, and deep down it wasn't what I wanted, it was only a part of it. It is a lot harder to share your vision when you're in front of the camera than behind it. Especially since I am not a model. I don't want to be. The main reason I was the one modeling the looks was simply that it was easier that way.
  Don't get me wrong, I was absolutely in love with some of the results from the shoots I did, and some of the blogs I posted, I just wanted more, and I felt trapped in a cycle. I wanted to post more often, and it didn't make sense to me to arrange a photo shoot and shoot for several hours each time I wanted to give my readers a peek at a look. And honestly, I just didn't have time for that.
So the new direction of my blog will be less focused on my style, and more on my inspiration. I have purchased a camera and I am going to start doing personal style features on individuals whose style I find inspiring. Having a camera of my own should allow me to post more often too, which I am very excited about. I will not be an amazing photographer right off the bat, so please bear with me while I hone my skills.

I am looking forward to bringing Inspired Xpression back from the dead, and excited to make it better than it was before. I hope you'll be along for the ride with me.

Thanks for reading. 

XOXO

Photo courtesy of BV HUTCH

Denim and Leather

Shoes- Jeffrey Campbell

Leggings- Forever 21

Denim Shirt and Eagle Necklace- Nordstrom Rack

Hat- 40 to 5

Leather Jacket- June (from Nordstrom Rack)

Hat pins-various

All photos courtesy of Ivan Mrsic.

View his tumblr and flickr 

Polka Dots and PBR