Conservative Trending

Top / Jeans / Belt / Bandana / Watch (c/o) / Flats / Bag / Nails

I’ll always go to the clearance section of any store before I even glance at the new arrivals. Further 50 percent off emails and banners make my hands sweat with excitement. Pricing an online store from lowest to highest gives my great satisfaction. Lets face it, I’m not the biggest fan of spending money on trends. Its easy to see what’s going to go out of style and what to invest in. I like the whole 70s thing that every chainstore is shoving down our throats but not enough to commit to a pair of flared jeans for more than a month. Instead, I add a red bandana and brown cross body both stolen from my mum’s wardrobe and I don’t have to spend a dime.

That’s not to say I don’t like to splurge on the finer things. Timepieces are something I thoroughly enjoy and this year I have managed to acquire quite a few unintentionally. One of which includes this Rumba Time piece. The beautifully cut edges reflect light and create the prettiest rainbow effect on your walls. Unfortunately Rumba Time’s website only ships to certain places. However, you can buy this exact style on ShopBop which I recommend because the shipping is crazy fast even if you live in Australia.

So save those dollars and invest in lasting pieces that your children can steal from you down the road. Or put it towards that holiday you’ve been meaning to take yourself on. Experiences are always greater than material things. Period.

Edit: I have decided to update my sign off with a more personalised touch. Writing Christmas cards and gift tags helped me come up with a new way of spelling out ‘much love karen’. Let me know what you think of it and thank you so much for reading.

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SSCHRISSY

dress /  flats / laptop case

In an ideal christmas wonderland, I would be able to create 24 days worth of content (an SS advent calendar type thing if you will) to ring in my favourite holiday of the year. Unfortunately, time and lack of wifi for the first third of this month got the better of me so with 10 days left until the big fellow be creepin’ I have created a smorgasbord of festive things that will make you say oh oh oh. Oops I mean ho ho ho! Read on to see what I have been up to in terms of decking the halls and how you can give your house that Rockefeller treatment even if you are experiencing 30 degree plus heatwaves on a weekly basis.

NETFLIX & HEAT

I.e. stay horizontal to the ground as you wait for the thunderstorms to roll in and signify the end of yet another 30 degree Sydney day. All the Home Alones are always a classic, Love Actually, Elf and Santa Clause are viewed with greater enthusiasm each year and any Christmas themed television episode is always a delight. I watched Christmas Eve on the weekend which is a 2015 film – very realistic but not the greatest. Vlogamas has also become quite a tradition my favourites being: Zoella, Rachel Jade Annear (Australian), Aspyn + Parker & the Sacconejolys. If you want to feel like a Christmas Grinch, go watch these people. Do it in style with a marble laptop vinyl like mine from CaseApp and get 20% off your next order with the code SMORGASBORDCASE20. 

recipe

BAKE IT OFF

Make like T-Swizzle and have a baking day with your squad. Listen to Christmas albums with some JB on the side because as much as we love to hate the Biebs, we all love Purpose. Was our icing intentionally crafted to look like snow or was it purely an accident? Only you and your friends will know this delicious secret that you will take to the snapchat grave. Great bonding sessions guaranteed. NB: No gummy bears were hurt in the process of building our gingerbread mansion despite the fact that they do look like they are falling off the roof.

pocketprints

MONOGRAMMING IS SO 2015

Personalise your tree with print outs of photographs from the year. If you could do this on a 2 metre pine, it would be the perfect conversation stater piece slash subtle bragging ensemble. Oh yeah .. this quick snap was from the Maldives in early Jan and ah I look so tan here from my 2 week Greek Island escape.

golden wonder bath bomb

TREAT YO SELF

As important as giving and receiving is blah blah blah … you know whats the most important? When the giver and receiver is both yourself. Yeah that’s right hun, you go and spoil yourself silly this silly season. A nice long bath away from all your responsibilities and to treat those paper cuts from over wrapping is a start. Lush knows whats up with the Merry Christmas gift set filled with their most popular Christmas treats: Cinders Bath Bomb, Golden Wonder Bath Bomb, Lord Misrule Bath Bomb, Father Christmas Bath Bomb and Dashing Santa Bath Bomb . If you’re feeling generous, I guess you could give them to friends and family too. Look at those smart cookies, saving you from doing any wrapping.

Products featured c/o Pocket Prints / Lush / CaseApp 

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram @stylesmorgasbord for all the latest #sschrissy updates and I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season! 

P B & J

Introducing the new PB&J that’s the next best thing since old school Peanut Butter and Jelly – Paul’s Boutique and Jacaranda. When I was fourteen, or as we now like to say, a ‘twelvie’, I was a bit obsessed with obnoxious bags like the Juicy Couture daydreamer and the Paul’s Boutique Maisy in a shocking jelly pink. As popular Tumblr, PopCultureDiedin2009 reminds us on a daily basis, the days of velour sweats and Chihuahuas in rainbow monogrammed purses is long gone. Post-financial crisis, we are more thrifty, we crave quality, simplicity, capsule wardrobes and monochrome palettes.

Unfortunately, in the ever-changing consumer landscape, Juicy Couture failed to keep its footing despite growing from a $200 start-up to a $51 million USD company in the space of 6 years.

Fortunately, Paul’s Boutique kept up and rebranded and when I rediscovered their brand two months ago I was pleasantly surprised. There’s a lot of wonderful pieces from their newest collections that would work from the office to a casual day running errands. One of which, includes this black backpack from their 2015 Christmas collection which has been my go to summer bag. I was umming and ahhing between colours and I considered gold just because I thought it would be festive but I settled on black when I found out the inner flap has a bit of gold hidden inside … constrained festivity if you like. The bag is now on constant rotation and I like to style it with high waisted mum jeans, white tees, midi skirts and white kicks.

November is truly almost at its end so if you are looking to do some Christmas shopping, some of my favourite pieces are the Gwyneth Backpack, Maisy Handbag and Melissa Tote Bag. They package everything up real cute so its sure to be a winner under the tree. If you’re interested in seeing more BTS stuff from their holiday campaign, head over to their blog. To see how I dressed up this midi skirt in an older post, see ‘Create‘.

/ Gwyneth Backpack in Black (c/o) / Puma Cap / Forever New Skirt /

Summer Kind of Christmas

Some of my favourite pictures are taken on my Instagram and even though a picture is meant to say a thousand words, I have a few hundred more to add in today’s post! I think I’m going to start doing these monthly, just to give my readers a monthly glimpse into what I’ve been up to starting with the above two shots.

Summer time is undisputedly my favourite season but this year, the magnitude of what it embodies has been multiplied by ten because I get to truly experience it all sans distractions. In the past, its always involved catching up with school work, reading for school, stressing to friends about school and staying indoors far too much. However this year, I’ve been lucky enough to finally be done with school (momentarily) and spend my summer by the sea and pool including Bronte Beach (on the left) and Magenta Shores (on the right). I have two and a half months left before summer ends and I intend to spend as much of it as possible outdoors so if you would like to see more of my daily snaps in real time, check out @stylesmorgasbord on Instagram.

I’ve also had a lot of fun creating flatlays to capture what I’ve been up. I finally received my L’s on Monday so I can learn to drive and I’ve also been getting into interior magazines lately, particularly Belle and Real Living. I’m working with WeWork in the new year to share my creative working space so I hope you guys are excited for January 2015 because the general theme will be fresh starts, getting organised and preparing yourself for a kicking year!

One of the ultimate to do things on my bucket list include experiencing a white Christmas. When the weather is thirty degrees, snow angels, ugly sweater parties and hot chocolates topped with cream and mini marshmallows by the fire aren’t exactly practical. That being said, I have enough holiday cheer to rival Buddy The Elf so I still try to make the best of it anyway. So far, I’ve kick started my Christmas Cookie Bonanza with these amazing Lemon and Pistachio cookies; thrown a one person wrapping party featuring me and Pentatonix’s Christmas album: That’s Christmas To Me and decked the halls like a winter wonderland.

Lastly, when I started Style Smorgasbord, I was quite apprehensive about the nature of blogging in this genre. It’s perceived as a bit vain, kind of staged and those who do it are bona fide narcissists who are fiscally irresponsible and live in a world of excess. I didn’t want this blog to define me as superficial. But then I realised I could redefine what kind of blog I am maintaining and my goal is to start integrating other aspects of what I am passionate about into my blog starting in 2015. I think I’ve also grown a lot this year and that has partly been thanks to the internet. It has really opened my eyes to issues that I was previously ignorant of and also taught me about the kind of privilege I am lucky to have and the power I hold to help the less privileged. So to anyone who’s ever thought that fashion is purely superficial, I hope I can prove you wrong.

PINATA

Its the middle of the week so happy hump day! We’ve also hit the middle of the countdown to Christmas today so I thought I would share with you another Christmas ornament DIY – specifically a miniature geometric piñata ornament! I’ve been seeing huge geometric shaped pinatas  all over the place of late including Real Living magazine which was my source of inspiration for this DIY. Pinatas remind me of  childhood parties and candy so why wouldn’t you want a miniature version hanging on your tree? This is a very simple DIY so let us begin (:

ONE: Download this template and print it out. Then trace it onto a thin piece of white card. TWO: Assemble your geometric shape and attach some ribbon to it with tape. THREE: Cut 1cm strips of crepe paper, lay them on top of each other and cut 3/4 of the way down so you have pieces and pieces of crepe fringe. FOUR: Start gluing pieces of the fringe working from the bottom to the top and working on one face of the ornament at a time. FIVE: Give your ornament a good old trim so its shape is visible again and you are done! EXTRAS: Instead of crepe paper you could make a shiny ornament with thin foil paper and you can also place a bell or some beads in your ornament before you assemble the shape so it rattles like an actual piñata!

FANCY

I’m actually a very lazy person when it comes to dressing. Half of the time I’m in a loose tee and denim cut offs and more recently I’ve also started embracing the normcore that has always been in me by wearing joggers on occasions that don’t involve working up a sweat. The weather has been crazy in Sydney this week – think really hot mornings and spectacular thunderstorms in the afternoon followed by light sun at dusk again.

To combat the heat, my outfit for today is really just a fancied up version of your basic pyjamas. I love this light, chiffon button up because I’ve managed to wear it a million different ways and today I discovered a new way! The sleeves are actually very poofy when buttoned at the wrists but today I buttoned them up and pushed the cuff three quarters of the way down so that the sleeves would flow out in a more boxy manner. Then I’ve actually just got on a pair of monochrome patterned work out shorts and my good old flats as opposed to bedroom slippers because I do have to draw the line somewhere. To carry my stuff, I’ve got a canvas bag because that to me is the lazy bag. Unless, of course you’re carrying groceries in your canvas bags, then you are in fact very hard working and I commend you with many snaps.

If you’re curious, these shots were done at a University campus in front of what my friend and I believe is an anthropology mural with some questionable drawings that we had a good laugh at trying to figure out what exactly they were trying to convey. On an end note, I’d like to say Happy month-versary eve! It has been almost a month since I’ve launched Style Smorgasbord and I just wanted to quickly acknowledge how much your support and love has meant to me! I hope you have enjoyed the few posts that have tricked out of me and I hope to improve my posting schedule over the next month. Until then, have a great weekend – only 19 more sleeps till Christmas which means an ornament DIY coming very soon 🙂

SQUIRREL

“Be like the squirrel girl, be like the squirrel/Give it a whirl girl, be like the squirrel” {White Stripes ‘Little Acorns’}

Considering this is my fifth post AND we’re only a month away from Christmas (27 SLEEPS!), I thought it was time we added some DIY-ing onto Style Smorgasbord. So today, I have a tutorial for some ornaments that I originally saw at Bed Bath and Table. I’ve been seeing a lot of twine kinda ornaments this year so when I saw this ornament in store, it was about $5 and I thought, hey I could totally make it myself! Of course, my take doesn’t produce the most uniform of decorations but I was really pleased with the result! To learn how to make these really inexpensive ornaments yourself using materials you’ll no doubt find in your house, keep reading! Oh and since I am obsessed with Christmas, expect a few more tutorials in the upcoming weeks!

ONE: To begin, take one sheet of newspaper and scrunch it up until it is egg shaped in size. Tape these acorn bodies into shape to make sure they hold together.

TWO: Taking some glue, spread it all over your egg and begin wrapping twine around your acorn, beginning one third of the way down and wrapping it tightly until you get to the base. Hold the base for about 30 seconds and it should stay in place nicely. Alternatively, hot glue could speed up this step!

THREE: Cut off a short piece of twine and attach it to the top of the acorn using tape so it creates a loop.

FOUR: Now this step took some experimenting and I used a variety of materials until I found a really solid one! I ended up using thin cardboard, cut into little semicircles but you could also try paper bags and cereal boxes. Then glue each semicircle around your acorn starting from the bottom to the top. The more semicircles you have, the better it looks!

Five: And then you’re done!!! If you want to make some branches like I did, just go hunt for a few thin but sturdy branches, tape them together, paint them white and stick them in a nice glass vase. Mine’s a maple leaf from a Canadian maple syrup if you’re wondering! I think these acorns would also look super lovely on a traditional tree or strung as a garland above the fireplace. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a lovely weekend!