30 Things Learned in the 30 for 30 Challenge

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

Week Four

Week Five

1. Style does not equal fashion
2. I like to wear jeans - a lot (half of my looks are in jeans!)
3. I wish I had exchanged one shirt for another pair of shoes
4. I love, love, love belts
5. I will always dress casually on the weekends
6. A strapless dress can be worn a myriad of ways, making it surprisingly versatile
7. A bright red dress can be intimidating to wear, but with the right elements it can become wearable
8. I LOVE to layer
9. I think that there are more outfits I could have created out of my items
10. Dressing for the cold is difficult to do stylishly (the cold saps all creativity out of me)
11. The blogging community is AWESOME (I already knew this, but it just reiterated it for me)
12. Attempting this challenge is a whole lot more fun when 337 other girls are doing it too
13. We style bloggers need each other to inspire creativity and ideas for outfits (or at least I do!!)
14. No shopping for a month is hard
15. No shopping for a month during Black Friday and all of the requisite holiday deals is harder
16. One of my items only made it twice into the challenge - and I thought it was going to be one of my more versatile pieces (my denim shirt)
17. I discovered some more awesome style bloggers who are now new favorites - Hello Monkeyface, Linley of Dwelling and Telling, Joanne of Sidewalk Chic, Kendra of Closet Confections, Good Girl Gone Blog, and scores of more (you can see them in my blogroll sidelist)
18. Tania, Kyla, Jamie, Sarah, Sydney, and of course Kendi continued to prove their style prowess.
19. I will stretch my straight hair for many, many, many days (hint - you can tell I've washed my hair that day if its curly or if it goes straight the day after being curly)
20. Taking pictures EVERY day is kind of hard - especially on days when you don't feel like it or aren't particularly stylish (but you're trying to get through a challenge so that you can regain access to your closet) or you run out of time (or daylight) to take some good pictures (ie, sorry for all the indoor pics)
21. I generally like to smile in my pictures - even if it gives me a double chin sometimes.
22. I got to "wear" bare legs 3 times (thank you Virginia fall)
23. I really want a purple pencil skirt (here and here)
24. Some good necklaces can go a long way
25. Heels can be worn with socks
26. Cardigans and blazers are my best friends
27. My bank account likes it when I don't shop (even though it still somehow manages to go down...funny how that happens)
28. None of my coworkers noticed me wearing the same items multiple times
29. I like to be dressy some days.  But I also really love to be casual on others.
30. It's all about the accessories.

If I had to pick my 5 favorite outfits, it would #s 1, 2, 11, 12, and a tie between 15 and 23.

And a big heartfelt thank you to all of you who have followed me (and thank you to all the newcomers) and for all of your kind, supportive comments throughout this whole challenge.  Like I said yesterday - I am really proud of myself for making it to the end of this.  I really did miss my shoes a lot, but other than that, I enjoyed the creativity that this forced me to use in coming up with a different outfit each day.  You can totally tell how I am feeling about a day (uber-creative or just comfy-casual) by my outfits.  There are definitely probably some outfits that I would not have posted, but because I wanted to do this 30 days straight, there are some duds thrown in there - but I also think that reflects the reality of daily dressing.  We all have some winners and we all have some losers.  And (surprising to me) by limiting my closet, I feel like I actually increased the ease in which I got dressed each morning.

Now - What in the world am I going to wear tomorrow!?!