Time to Try Minimalism: A Project 333 Experiment

As a Type 4, minimalism is something that is supposed to come naturally in theory. In practice, the habits and accumulations of life lead to stuff building up.

I've read the purging challenges of the Mary and Martha book. Sarah Mae doesn't go into any depth about purging your wardrobe, but I felt that was a natural place for me to begin anyway.

I've had thoughts of doing a capsule wardrobe percolating in the back of my mind for some time now, and so I have now begun. I've heard of the 10 Item Wardrobe, but my lifestyle doesn't match wanting to do laundry more than twice a week and my little bit of Type 1 balks at having so few options to rotate through. And as I've looked more at this system, it seems a little confusing to me to only have 10 core items and then extras. So I've settled on an extended version of the Project 333 format. Project 333 means going 3 months with only 33 items, including clothing, accessories, and outerwear. This seems easier than deciding what constitutes a core item or an extra. Project 333 kind of lumps things together and counts everything (except pajamas, workout clothes, and lounge wear, which are all the same for me). I've stretched it a tad. I may be closer to 40 items. I justify this by saying it's winter, so I have an extra coat to count and then I had a hard time narrowing down my jewelry choices.

In choosing my items I used the Vivienne Files All Seasons Packing format as a starting point keeping this post about color schemes in mind. I kept to a concise selection of black, white, cobalt, teal, and red. It's a beautiful thing really. I'm only a week into my 3 months, but I'm still having fun making different outfit combinations.

Here is my new closet and the color palette broken down.

 

So simple and so Type 4. I'm sure more refining will happen and there are some gaps I'd like to fill while keeping a "one in, one out" mindset. But already I'm loving how streamlined my outfit making has become. Dressing Your Truth got me to one level of clarity with keeping only one color family on hand, but Project 333 and pared it down even more.

I really like the Project 333 motto of "Be more with less". I'm hoping to carry that through more of my life in the coming months as I follow through on doing the Martha challenges.

Let me know what you think and Enjoy this holiday season!

Something is Different!

Happy Birthday to Me! In honor of my 25th birthday I made a big change.

I've actually been looking forward to this for about two years. That's about how long I've known about Dressing Your Truth. This is not a total coincidence. Part of having my own DYT course is having a personalized Fashion 101 class, basically. The Type 4 course provides guidelines for what will look best on my Type 4 body to match and express my Type 4 personality in a beautiful way.

These guidelines are actually quite thorough. Everything including clothing, makeup, accessories, and hair are seen in terms of design line, texture, fabrication, pattern, and color and many examples are shown. Now, all Types can have long or short hair. I've had long hair for most of my life. I've even cut and donated it a couple of times. But I'd never gone this short. After DYT, I had the confidence and knowledge to know that I really could do a pixie cut.

So two years ago, I decided that I wanted to give it a try when I turned 25.

Unfortunately, the place I went to get my hair done doesn't have WiFi (weird, I know), so I wasn't able to show them the Pintrest picture of the exact cut I wanted, so I'm not fully in love with the details of the cut that I got. Fortunately I am very familiar with the fact that hair grows and I can get it fixed in a couple of months. Here is the picture of what I really wanted:

Gorgeous, right? The cut, not the color. Sorry, but I don't think I'll ever go blonde. I did however also die my hair when I got it cut. I went darker to an ash-based brown a couple of shades darker than my natural brunette and I LOVE it!!

For such a big change, I've only gotten positive feedback. My babies didn't freak out. Charles didn't really care other than he was happy that I was happy. And everyone else has been really supportive as well. All the compliments are right on point with what I was going for.

The whole point behind changing my look was to turn up the dial on my Type 4-ness and the compliments I've gotten just prove that I got it right. Each Type has a list of great descriptive words and you'd think that people were just reading off my list. my favorites have been, "Chic" and "Stunning". Stunning is actually the "Beauty Code Word" for Type 4 as a whole.

Another reaction I got a lot at the beginning was remarks at how brave I was for going through with such a big change. I don't feel like "brave" is the right word. I feel that I've been "bold" (another T4 word). I think that is the power of the empowerment of the Dressing Your Truth program. They give you all the guidelines and then you are left to follow your (more informed) "Beauty Sixth Sense" in creating your own style.

I don't think you should have to be "brave" to live and dress your truth. That makes it sound that most people are in fact scared to do so. Admittedly, I know that without the DYT program most people are left to guess their truth in a world that doesn't give us great tools to navigate a trend-driven fashion industry. That's why I'm so passionate about sharing this "makeover system" that goes far beyond just the surface appearance.

Currently there is a very exciting sale going on. Until Nov. 22 the courses for all 4 courses are being sold as a bundle for only $100. What an investment! Please use my link to get registered and start learning what Type you are before you buy it so I can get some referral benefits. I'm here if you have any questions or if you want a closet makeover. I'm particularly gifted in being able to sort clothes by Type.

I want everyone to feel empowered to look amazing in their own special way.

5 of My Most "Grat-ifying" Affirmations

Back in September, Carol Tuttle invited her community to join her in focusing on a theme of loving the life you have and using a script of daily affirmations to help you love your life more or to begin loving the life you have if you were struggling with that. I don't do anything with hashtags, but I joined the challenge and that was how I started my day during the whole month of September.

I've decided to take up that script again because I felt that the biggest benefit from going through this list of affirmations was that it inspired a spirit of gratitude. It being November now, this seems appropriate with Thanksgiving coming up and all. Granted, I definitely believe that we should always go about life with a spirit of gratitude, but this is a fine time to give it some extra focus.

Not all of the affirmations listed start with "I love..." which can easily be switched to "I'm grateful that..." but I think each could still be altered to reflect a greater level of gratitude. 

The full list has 23 affirmations. But 23 is not a pretty number in my world, so I've been able to distill that full list down to my favorite five which is much better. (Five is the square root of my favorite number, 25. Yeah, I'm weird like that in playing with number patterns wherever I can.)

So here goes my short list with my revisions to make them into personalized gratitude statements.

• It's as if the universe knows who I am and what I want and things flow to me in such a timely way. 
• I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows me individually and answers my prayers, spoken and unspoken, to bring me the things I need when I need them, even when I hadn't realized I was going to need it ahead of time.
• I am grateful for the spiritual support and the angelic help that is taking care of the details and is making sure that this day is going to unfold in a magical way.
• I am grateful for my angels (seen and unseen) that help protect me ad mine and their help in making my day go smoothly.
• The people who come to me are benefiting from their exposure to me. And I am thankful for all the wonderful people in my life.
• I am grateful for all the wonderful people in my life and I am grateful for the opportunities to grow in my own talents as I go about serving and interacting with them.
• I love connecting with the infinite power and knowledge of my life.
• I am grateful for my spiritual gifts and talents that help empower me in shaping the life I choose to live. 
• I love my life!
• I am grateful for the safe and dependable job of my husband that facilitates our needs and reasonable wants being met and that it allows for me to be at home to be the mother of our children. 

I hope this in some way inspires a greater spirit of gratitude in your own life and I would encourage you to check out the full list of Carol's affirmations and go through this same exercise of making them into your own "grat-ifying" statements.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!