no brainer.// a review & coupon code!

i love fashion.
ever since highschool, i have just loved anything and everything that has to do with fashion. i think i spent about 90% of all my babysitting money at target or forever 21. 


i always have loved vintage, bohemian, girly styles. and i love color. my closet was beautiful, fashionable and i had the money and time to make it that way. 

this is me in 2008, wearing one of my favorite outfits.

if you know me now, you might be surprised to know that i loved fashion so much that i was strongly considering a career in fashion merchandising and that i helped design my formal dress my jr year in high school. you would probably be surprised to know that i never left the house in yoga pants and sweatshirts.  



fast forward 6 years. 
add getting married and working at starbucks full time.
{which equals a lot of sleeping when not working, not a lot of getting dressed. and wearing the same clothes to work every.single.day. for nearly 5 years.} you could say that my style started to get lazy. i would only wear actual real clothes on date night, or to community group and church. otherwise it was hoodies and jeans. 

a hoddie & although you cant see it - i was just wearing jeans.

then throw in a pregnancy. 
i thought i would be a stylish pregnant lady. 
in fact, i dreamed of it. 
but instead, i was a large, tired, pregnant lady who wore a lot of tank tops, yoga pants, and hoddies. unless i was at work, wearing stretchy pants, and giant polo shirts. sounds cute huh? 

this is actually my favorite photo of my entire pregnancy.taken by my sweet friend, Heidi. 

then after i became a new mama - all my fashion sense went out the window. like 100%. i had this new body that i didnt love or know how to dress. i just started wearing a lot of leggings, dresses and black, black, black. anything that i bought, i would buy in black. or sometimes grey - if i was feeling adventurous. my brother even told me on a few occasions to "read a magazine." 


as my little lady grew, so did my closet. it grew into comfy long sweaters to hide my crazy postpartum body, yoga pants, and long shirts. instead of embracing my body and my sense of style. i hid it. all of it. until earlier this year when i fell upon hayley and the no brainer wardrobe. 

this sweatshirt is literally hated by my husband. and the reason i need this book.

i had been reading tweets about this beautiful hayley and her sweet blog, the tiny twig. so i went and checked it out. i am so glad that i did. ladies, this blog is filled with inspiration, passion, and beauty. if you havent already, check it out - it is so worth it. 


about the same time as i started reading her blog, she came out with this amazing little e-book that changed my life. its called,  the no brainer wardrobe. sounds amazing, right? thats because it is. i promptly bought her amazing book as soon as it came out and read it in one day. it has literally changed the way i get dressed in the morning. because of her book, i have downsized my closet- keeping only what i love, what matches my style, what fits, and what is practical. donating, swapping, or consigning the rest. ( & working on turning a too small t-shirt into a pillow for my couch...) 
the book is broken up into 4 sections - the starting point, building your wardrobe, the 'how-to's', and the real no brainer.

only about 3/4 of my wardrobe before i read the book.

 


for me, the starting point chapter was helpful because it gave me that extra push to go through my closet and purge. most of what i have put into my 'no' pile are things that i wore in highschool. those are items that are 6 years old, not my style, and made for the body of a 17 year old, not a 24 year old mama. so far, i have done this purge 2 times since reading the book.


the next section is about how to build your wardrobe. which might have been the most exciting part of the book for me. hayley encourages you to use pinterest in an amazing way - by making a pin board of not just things you like in fashion, but of things that you would actually wear. doing that has saved my life. it has helped me to define my style, and helped me to know what pieces of clothing to purchase, and what to get rid of. i downsized the size of my closet by nearly 50% - and now only buy things if they are a style that i really love, not just something that i think is "cute".

my wardrobe pin board. you can follow it here

the biggest, and best takeaway that i got from this book, was to dress with confidence. which is something i never did before. i would hide behind long bulky sweaters, and zip up hoodies. and now? i just recently bought mint green pants, and cut myself some bangs - things i have wanted to do for a long time but never had the courage until now. 

remember how i said that hayley was sweet? well she is also generous too. like, really, really, generous. she is giving 15 of my readers the chance to buy a copy of her e-book at 50% off! considering this fabulous book is only $8.00 to begin with, you can not afford to not buy this book {half price or full price for that matter!}


on the side bar of my blog there is a direct link to purchase "the no brainer wardrobe", once you get to the site, you can use the coupon code hisstory to get the 50% off the price. remember though - only the first 15 downloads are half off - so dont wait! 

let me know in the comments if you bought the book, and what you think about it! 


happy friday & happy reading friends!