Striped Black & White Skirt

Skirt - Papaya - Similar(on sale for $10!!)

Sweater - White House Black Market - Similar

Tank - White House Black Market - Similar

Belt - White House Black Market - Similar

Shoes - The Naturalizer:Believe - Similar

I so love this skirt.  Obviously it is black and white, which I adore, but I also really like the horizontal stripes and how they help give the appearance of a bit of hippage!  It has been quite some time since I wore any kind of hip pads at all.  Thus I rely solely upon the clothes themselves to help give an extra bit of oomph to my shape.  This nice skirt, with it being tight at the knees, along with the stripes really helps add to that effect.  Yay.

Oh and did I mention that it is still in use after purchasing it several years ago for a measly $15???  What a steal!!  Yea Papaya has some super cheep clothes, and some of them are made that way as well.  But occasionally I will find something that is quality and inexpensive.

The other thing I like about this outfit is the belt.  It is reversible, so that makes it extra handy!  Honestly, I think it came from White House Black Market, but once I get the belts home and remove the tags to be able to wear them, I often forget where I buy them.  Belts are not like clothes, they don't retain tags of manufacturers on them.  So often times it is my best guess!!  Oh well!!  Maybe I should keep better track of them.  I do have those good intentions, but I rarely seem to follow through with my belts.  Maybe it is just not that important to me!!

Hey.... wanna hear something funny????? I got a message over at crossdressers.com and the person said they saw my blog and liked it a lot.  Later, in a thread this person started I was accused of not being introspective!  Ha!  Like, um, sorry, I thought you actually read my blog!  Uh...not!  When I told Jules about she totally laughed.  My unstoppable introspection over the last 30 years has driven her bonkers!  Funny.  Okay, well, maybe it is just funny to us!  But I seriously found it to be hysterical!  Like do some people even read my blog, or  do they just look at the pictures!

Love you!!

Love yourself!

Love reading comprehension!  Ha!

Outfit for 3-17-2015 - Stripes!

Top - White House Black Market

Skirt - 36 Point 5

Shoes - Taryn

Belt - Mossimo

Overall I think my outfit looks pretty good.  I especially like the shoes!  Do you know how long I have been looking for a nice pair of shoes in a nude color?  For a LONG time!  I ended up spending about $100 on these shoes as I had finally found a pair of mostly comfy nude shoes.  And they are wedges as well, which means that they are fairly usable as shoes I can actually spend the day in.

And on this day I did spend quite a bit of time in them.  Alas as with most cute shoes, after several hours, they did make my feet begin to hurt a bit.  But with going to a department store, the movies, and then to Costco, and walking all around that giant store, I would honestly be surprised if my feet didn't hurt me at least a little!

Okay, so, while I love the fit of this top, the color of this top, the fabric of this top, I just don't know if horizontal stripes on my torso is the best thing for me!  After reviewing this pictures for this post, I kind of get the feeling that the stripes make my torso look bigger.  Maybe it is pairing this top with this skirt.  The skirt is pretty straight and skinny, and I rarely use my hip pads anymore.  So my bottom half looks pretty small, but my top half looks a bit larger.  I don't know, maybe it is just my perception!

Oh and while I was snapping shots, my dog thought he would get in on the fun.  Isn't he a cutie?  I don't think I told you all yet, but I am getting a new puppy soon!  It is less than two weeks away at this point.  I am so excited, and so nervous!  Good golly, a new puppy?  How am I going to do that??  Ahhh....... I am nervous, and excited, and afraid, and happy and.....???????  Oh I hope I can give my new little guy everything that he needs!

Okay.  Love you all!  Thank you so much for reading.

What do you think of the stripes?  Good, not good?  Opinions?

Oh and I am still looking for other folks who are interested in posting their own outfit posts.  What I would be interested in you doing would be to: take at least 1 full photo of your outfit.  Tell us who made what.  And what you like or don't like about it.  Come on people, I am not the only little fashionista out there.  I know you folks love your clothes and outfits, and that many of you look great!  Don't be shy!

Love you again!

Posing for Pictures

 

Occasionally my wife and I will look at pictures of other cross dressers and frequently Jules has commented that the person would look so much better by standing in a different way.  For a little while now I have been taking pictures of myself in different poses so I could demonstrate what my wife is talking about.  Oh and I read once that women naturally pose well for pictures; uh... no.  It is a learned skill, so read on lovelies!

Let's start with the pictures on top.  On the left is my frumpy stance.  Okay, there is my super cute dog in the background, but what about me?  1st - my feet are about shoulder width apart.  Which, even with my killer skirt makes my lower half look very blocky.  I try to keep this in mind even while walking, thus I tend to try and walk with my knees close together and my ankles brushing.  2nd - My arms at straight down at my waist.  This makes my shoulders look extra blocky as well.  3rd - My shoulders are slumped.  Well slouching looks good on no one!  It makes my shoulders look extra big and makes me look less confident.  4th - lastly, my chin is down.  This makes my neck look extra thick and also makes me look less confident.

 

1st - I again have my legs about shoulder width apart.  Well for me, I am surprised on how chubby that makes me look!  Wow, look at that belly!  2nd - My arms are down at my waist, again making my shoulders look extra large.  3rd - Slouching shoulders again!

With the picture on the right I am doing a couple of things that maybe you don't notice.  One of them is I am leaning back a little bit.  This really pulls my shoulders back and decreases their appearance.  So many people think that by slouching people will not notice how big their shoulders are when exactly the opposite is true!  The other thing I am doing in this photo is that I am slightly angled to the camera.  This provides for a more slimming profile.

 

1st - My legs are again about shoulder width apart.  Can you see yet that it is super important to put your feet together when taking a photo?  2nd - my arms are again down at my wised.  Both of these things combine to make me look very blocky!  And very male!

 

1st - again with the legs shoulders width apart.  2nd - the hands at my sides.  Even in this cute dress, the combo of those two things totally screams Dude in a Dress to me!

 

1st - The same problem with my feet being apart.  They are closer together than some of the other photos, but still with having them not be together it just looks wrong.  Like I am encouraging the viewer to look up my skirt!  2nd - the hands at my sides again!

The photo on my right, notice that I am very angled to the camera.  It so emphasizes my skinny!

  

So now with a set of three different photos.  In the 1st I have the same basic problems, my feet are far apart and my hands are at my sides.  In the middle photo, I have put my feet together, which looks better.  But in the last photo I have a little tilt to my hips, a bend at my knee and my hand is on my hip.  Way more girly in that last photo!

Cameras are great, but they also severely suck!  They are not interested in automatically capturing our best sides and making us look great!  They take a snapshot of whatever we are presenting.  And often, it does not look as good as it could.

With just simple things like, putting your feet together, bending a leg a little, putting your hands on your hips, twisting your torso a little, putting your shoulders back, lifting your chin up, those little things will go a long way to making you look your absolute best!

Love you.

Take pictures of yourself!

Be proud of who you are!

Love you again!

Outfit for 10-27-14 - Skirt That Shows off my Skinny

Skirt - ???? (Sorry I forgot and don't have it with me right now!)

Tank - Mossimo

Sweater -

Shoes - Nickles

Jules and I decided to go and get our nails done and it was finally a sort of cooler weather day!  OMG, California is actually cooling off a bit.  Still no rain for the central area where I am, but a day predicted to be in the low 70s?  Wow, now that is cooling off?  Ridiculous huh?

Anyway, I decided to finally wear this skirt!  I had purchased this skirt some time ago, I want to say maybe back in March or April.  It has been hanging in my closet ever since, waiting for a cooler day.  It is a rather thick fabric, and not a good skirt for a warm day.  So it waited.  And finally it came out to play!  Which btw, is some good advice for you for getting a good deal on clothes.  Buy them in the off season and wait for the right time to wear them.  I think this skirt was only about $20!  Which is a steal for such a great item.

Why is it so great?  Well, I like the length.  It is rather long as a skirt for me, but with the longer length I can pull it up higher on my torso, giving me the illusion of a higher waist.  Also, with the thicker black band at the waist, it helps to emphasize my smaller waist.  And there is one more thing that gives it a good skinny look?  Any ideas?????  It is the color blocking.  Having the white on the sides and the black down the middle makes it give me the illusion of being even skinnier than I really am.

One thing with this outfit that I was unsure of was the cropped sweater.  I thought maybe a longer sweater would look better.  But Jules correctly pointed out that with it being shorter, it also helps to emphasize my skinny little waist!  She was so right, so I stuck with it.

Life update-
- Jules has been doing very well lately with her depression.  Looking through her old family photos and trying to sort out where her feelings originated is really helping!  Which is great!
- I have been super busy, as per usual! Have you noticed the blog has really only been updated once per week?  Yeah, a full life!
- My dad has gone into the hospital and possibly will be going to a full time care facility.  I'm trying to decide what my move, if any, will be in regards to that.
- Duck hunting season has opened and another avenue is gobbling up my time!

Okay lovelies out there!  Gotta run.  Gotta go work, work, work!  And the funny thing is all I can ever seem to do is to cross one thing off my list and add five more.  You know, maybe I need to be less motivated!  It is always, go, go, go, go, go!!!  I suppose I can rest when I am ______?????

Love you!

Hope you all are well!

Thanks for reading!

Outfit for 10-21-14 - $150 Jeans!!

Top - White House Black Market

Jeans - 7 For All Mankind

Shoes - New York Transit

My good friend, Vivian mentioned to me one time that I had to try a pair of 7 For All Mankind jeans as she thought they would be perfect for me.  Vivian has a very nice shape to herself and informed me that she couldn't fit it the 7 For All Mankind jeans, and that is what made her think they would be perfect for hip challenged girls like me.

So for my birthday shopping trip, jeans were on my list and I knew that I had to try out those jeans.  Jules was with me that day but she went to another shop and thus I ventured into the 7 For All Mankind store by myself.

There were two younger ladies working the counter, and no one else in the store on that early Sunday morning.  They greeted me and I said hello and began browsing the racks.  They asked if they could assist me.  I told them I was just curious.  They inquired what exactly I was looking for.  I informed them, that I had no idea and that I was referred to them by a friend, and that I had never been into their store before and had no idea what I was looking for or what size I was or anything!

That is when they went into action!  One of them peered at me and guessed my size.  She gave me two pairs of the same jeans and told me to go try them on so we could figure out my size.  I ended up being a 27.  Skinny minny me, huh?  I showed them, and one of them said, I knew you were a 27.  They told me to wait there and they went and grabbed about 8 different pairs of jeans for me to try on.

They were all super skinny!  Not according to the tags.  Some were labeled as flared or straight leg, or skinny, but wow, I knew what Vivian was talking about.  Anybody with a decent sized booty was not going to be fitting into these jeans!  But lucky for me, with my mini butt, they actually showed off what I had.

Of course, after all of the super star treatment, and lots of fitting advice and opinions from the ladies as I was trying on and showing off the different pairs of jeans, I settled on the pair that I thought looked the best.

That was when I finally looked at the price tag and saw that they were marked down from $199 to $150!  Holy crap!  I have never paid such an exorbitant amount for a pair of jeans!  But I looked at my butt again and had to by them! Ridiculous I know!

So... anywho... I wore the above outfit while shopping.  Jules and I stopped at a Macy's to get some more Clinique.  The sales associate complemented me on my nails:

Then we went to a Best Buy where a sales associate complemented me on my sweater and said that he loved the purple with the black:

Nobody complemented me on my awesome jeans, but hey I felt like a million bucks!

So thanks Vivian!  You are the best!  I love having such a great friend that can point me in such wonderful directions!

Alrighty then!

Love you!

Love yourself!

Buy yourself something nice, because you are worth it!

:)

Outfit for 5/12/14 - Hips :)

Top - White House Black Market

Skirt - 36 point 5

Belt - Target

Shoes - American Eagle

This outfit makes me look way more hippy than I actually am.  Which for me is a great thing.  Hips are such a tough thing to create the illusion of.  I have seen some huge hip pad ensembles but they are way too big for my enjoyment.  I have read that your hips should be about equal to your shoulders in width.  Could you imagine hips like that on me?  No, neither can I.

But I like the appearance of some hips at least.  This is primarily created by a few elements.  One - the skirt.  It is tight and stretchy.  Thus it hugs me at the skinniest point of my waist and at my knees.  Both skinny points for me.  Two - tucking the shirt into the skirt.  I generally don't like tucking things in, but with this high waisted skirt it helps to show off the skirt squeezing my skinny waist.  Three - the belt.  The belt helps to draw your eye to the skinny part of my waist and to obscure where the shirt and skirt meet.  Four - I am also wearing very small hip pads.  Five - the pose I have in the picture where I am kind of jutting my hips out to the side.

Jules says that my butt looks super good in this skirt.  So here is what I look like from behind:

I am always teasing Jules because she often says that my butt looks good and I tell her, how could it, I barely even have a butt!!  I suppose this skirt does make it look nice though.  Hmm.... Whatever!!

Okay readers, I hope you had a good weekend and are gearing up for a great week!

Love you!!

:)

My Birthday Party Dress

Dress - Calvin Klein

Sweater - 89th & Madison

Shoes - Nine West

While shopping at a Dress Barn I picked this dress off of the clearance rack.  I searched and searched for other possible sizes, but this was the only one.  I was either going to fit this one, or I would never own this dress.  Jules and I visited the dressing room together and began trying on dresses.  It took me several tries to actually get this dress on correctly, and imagine my surprise when Jules was actually able to zip up the back.  It fit very well actually.

I really like the dress for a variety of reasons.  One is the color.  I really like the colors of it.  I am very partial to black and white, if you haven't noticed.  But it also has that wonderful pop of blue, right in the middle.  For svelte girls like myself, it is in the perfect place to help accentuate my hips, which is fabulous!  A second thing I really like about it is the fit.  It is tight, but not too tight, right above the blue color and right below my bust, which is where it should be tight, right at the smallest part of my torso.  The third thing that is great is that it fits my bust wonderfully.  I actually have really great decolletage in it.  The fourth thing I love about it, is that the bottom portion flares out right where my hips are, which also helps to increase the appearance of my hips.  Just fabu!

But there are two things I don't like about it.  One is that it has no arms.  Here I am without the sweater:

The no arms issue is easily solved with the addition of the sweater.  But it had to be the right sweater.  If it was too long, it would make the slimming effect and the hippy effect disappear.  Luckily I had purchased the short sweater some time back and was waiting to pair it with the perfect outfit.  Like this one!  The only other thing I don't like about the dress is that it requires the right occasion to wear an outfit like this.  It just is not appropriate for say shopping at Costco.  But that was solved when my birthday came and an occasion to wear it presented itself.

Edward and Vivian came over for a little dinner and cake with Jules and I.  Jules is still obviously recovering but she felt well enough to have some friends over.  Our two fabulous friends picked up pizza, to my order specifications, as well as a carrot cake, made especially for me.  It was wonderful having them over and I was super thrilled to have an occasion to wear this awesome dress!  I was only a little self conscious that my bra kept peeking out the top of the dress; oh well, life can't be perfect huh?

How about you all - Will you wear fancy dresses for any occasion?  Or does it need to be a special time?  How about your arms?  Are you self conscious about them?  Are you willing to go without something covering them?  What do you think about mine?  Should I get over my worry about them looking too masculine?

Oh, btw, I turned 42 the other day and two days later it was Jules and mine 17th anniversary of being married, though we have actually been together for 27!

Love ya!

Outfit for 4-14-13

 

Cardigan - Mossimo

Tank - Mossimo

Skirt - Loft

Shoes - Report

I don’t really think the two photos show what I wanted to try and show in this post.  What I was hoping you could see is that by buttoning the top you can tell I have a waistline, and it helps my hips to look bigger.  I don’ think the photos show that very well due to the colors I am wearing, and the slimming effect that black has in photos.  But in real life, it really helps to try and accentuate the skinniest part of your waist.

I have not tried it yet, but I really want a long sweater, kind of tight fitting on the top, and then to wear a belt over the sweater.  I saw the look on pinterest and thought that would work really well to help someone look more curvy.  Part of the thing that I think is odd, is wearing your belt as an accessory, not something to just help keep up your pants. 

In fact, be very, very careful where you wear a belt.  Often when you wear a belt through the belt loops on your pants it unfortunately makes you look bigger than you really are.  The best spot for belts is the skinniest part of your torso.  Which is often much higher than your pants waist.

In real life, buttoning the sweater I wore in the photos helped to do that same thing for me.

Gotta run, love ya!

Love the Skirt!

Top - Guess

Skirt - Guess

Shoes - Report

I may have shown this outfit before today, but I love, love, love it!  The skirt is the greatest.  I bought it not too long ago as a replacement to a similar skirt that I own and really like.  The older skirt was wearing out because the zipper was dying.  It really frustrated me because I love the fit of the skirt and everything was fine with the skirt except for the zipper.  I put the skirt away into my 'to be altered' pile.  But then the last time I visited the outlet mall, Guess had this skirt for sale.  And the thing that I love the most about this skirt, as opposed to my older one, there is no zipper!  Yea!  No zipper to wear out, ever!

The skirt itself fits very nicely as it is a pencil skirt made out of some stretchy fabric that I can just pull up my hips.  I really like the look of a pencil skirt on someone with not very big hips.  With the skirt hugging in at the knees it really makes one look as though they have nice sized hips.  Hips are a difficult thing to comfortably fake with padding so I love it when my clothes give the illusion of hips without large amounts of padding.

This outfit is also good looking on me as the top shows off my cleavage quite well.  Almost too much as a matter of fact.  This particular day, Jules and I were planning on doing some shopping at Macy's, TJ Maxx, and going to a movie.  Once I was fully dressed and I looked at my boobs in the mirror, I almost changed the top as I kind of thought too much boob was showing. But I left it that way, and really enjoyed my look.

Oh, BTW can you tell I got a new laptop.  Yeah, I didn't think it would be obvious.  But I did get a new one.  I finally have left Windows Vista in the past and have upgraded to a Windows 7 machine.  I got an Dell Inspiron ultrabook. and I love it.  I might love the skirt more though!

Love you!

Outfit for the Mall

Skirt - Guess

White Top - Guess

Tank Top - Guess

Shoes - New York Transit - TJMaxx

This past Saturday it was 106 degrees and my wife asked if I wanted to go to the mall.  What do you think I said?  Not much actually, I just got into the shower.  I've been a little non-communicative lately, but I thought that my actions were pretty clear about what I wanted to do.

Being as I knew it was going to be hot as hell, I donned possibly the shortest skirt I own.  I worked my cleavage up and put on some open airy shoes.  Speaking of the shoes, what do you think?

I bought the shoes the last time I visited TJMaxx.  What do you think?  I thought at the time that my outfit looked a little trashy.  My wife reassured me that I looked great.  She also highly complimented my legs.  I would say that even with my feelings about my outfit, I did notice that there were so many worse outfits on regular girls all over the mall.  It is amazing what some people choose to wear.

Anyways, I really like this picture.  I think my legs look great, I look hippy, and I love the rise of boobs!

Thanks!

Even WalMart Clothes Can Be Cute

Black Tank - Bali Studio

White Shirt - Myth NYC

Jeans - LEI

Sandles - Life Stride

This was an outfit that I wore the other day when we went travelling.  It was a car sitting day so I wanted to wear something pretty comfy.  But I challenged myself to wear something that I haven't worn before.  I have never worn the black tank outside of the house.  You can't see in the picture but it is a lace tank top.  I generally have shied away from wearing any sort of lace while outside of the house.  I thought it added a nice touch to this outfit though, so I went for it.

The other thing that I like about this outfit is that I bought the jeans at WalMart.  I wear many clothing items that have a large price tag on them but this pair of jeans cost about 10 dollars.  Notice how hippy these pants make me look?  Well I do, and I got them for about 10 dollars!!

I don't think that it is important where you buy your clothes, I think that it is important that the clothes that you buy look good on you.

Hope you all are doing well ;)

Maximize your hips

It's funny I have been considering writing this blog entry for a little while and just today I looked at already pretty and saw her post from today was about how to minimize your hips.  That is one of the things that I really like about Sal.  She and I agree on this idea of trying to be happy with what you have and using your clothes to help you achieve the look you are going for.

This is a very important thing for men, women, and crossdressers to understand, you need to make your clothes work for you.  You need to get them to help you accentuate or downplay various elements of your body, because it is just so damn easy.

For example, I am often wistful of women with nice curvy hips.  Hips are something that are pretty much impossible to attain through any kind of surgical means, unlike breasts.  But for us crossdressers surgery is not desired anyway.  So how do you go about achieving the look of hips when you don't have any?

Well here is a picture of me while dressed as a woman, wig, top, bra, makeup, but I have on male jeans:

Here is what it looks like with a pair of female jeans, a little hip jut, small (read very, very small,) hip pads, and the right photo:

Here is one from the front while wearing the same jeans.  A couple of things about these jeans help my hips look bigger.  One is their length, they are super long.  Another is the color, with being lighter on the tops and darker on the sides it helps my legs to look skinny and thus my hips look bigger.  Another thing is the tight top I have that hugs me at the smallest place on my waist and flares out on my hips because its not tucked in and the shirt help with a small flip out at the bottom of it.

Here is a picture of me wearing a tight red skirt with a larger white flowing top.  The top being bigger and flaring out on my hips helps give the illusion of bigger hips when it is combined with the the tight belt and the tight skirt.

My last picture here shows possibly my favorite skirt of all time.  It is made by Guess and I love, love, love it!!  Why?  Because the skirt is constructed to help accentuate hips.  It it lightly tight on my waist, flares out at the hips, goes skinny towards the knees, and then flares out right at the bottom.  The skirt itself has such wonderful curves as it just sits on the hanger.  This piece of clothing makes my hips look bigger than anything else I have to wear.  I mean really, look at that hip jutting out.

Oh also some other pointers, jutting your hip out to either side, makes them look bigger, but its kind of hard to walk around that way, it is good for pictures.  Also for pictures, placing your hand on your hip helps them to look bigger also.

I think that what is interesting is how un-hippy I can look, and without really doing much other than wearing a different set of clothes can really make my hips look much bigger.  The clothes themselves can make it look as though I actually have hips!  Woo-Hoo!  I don't have to go through anything more traumatic than picking the right clothes.

An interesting idea in our society is that we need to correct bodily deficits by utilizing surgical procedures.  Don't be unhappy with what you have, don't go through expensive and painful surgeries, just wear the right clothes.