As Ceesa and Jo-Jo get older, our homeschool days have begun to include things I hadn't thought about much when they were younger. Ceesa is on the eve of being a teenager (Mercy, where has the time gone?).
Lately, I have been thinking about what beauty is and where it comes from and how we portray ourselves when we walk outside of the door. We have always told the girls that they are beautiful. But Ceesa recently told me that she didn't believe she was. Seriously? I couldn't believe her. I mean no one has ever told her otherwise. Ever. I even asked her if anyone had told her that. And it is just the opposite, everyone always tells her how beautiful she is, both in her looks and her heart. How could she think that she wasn't? And then it dawned on me...
...the enemy can whisper lies through the mirror even when they aren't through an audible voice.
The mirror often lies...I know, I know...I've heard that saying too, "The mirror doesn't lie." But my friends, it does, it really does. The longer we stare into the mirror, the more hurt it will pour into our hearts. The longer we look, the more that we find things that are wrong with us. The more we look, we start to believe we aren't perfect enough. The longer we gaze, the more things we find that we just don't like about ourselves. I know what you are thinking. I see it with my own eyes, how can it be a lie? BUT. IT. IS. A. LIE. You know how I know it is?
It is simple really! God made all his creation beautiful. Including Ceesa and me and you and your daughters and your granddaughters. And when His light is within us and we choose to reflect that light, our beauty becomes radiant.
Sometimes we choose not to believe this and we try to make ourselves beautiful by changing things about ourselves, our hair and our face. Or we try to attract attention by how we dress or how we act. But none of those things are what make us beautiful. We are beautiful simply because we are meant to be.
I want my daughters to know that, to believe that, to live that. I want you to believe it too!
As I watch my daughters grow into amazing, beautiful young ladies, I realize it is time to address beauty and what it means. So to encourage my daughters and hopefully you too, in the coming weeks, we will be sharing a new series with you! It will be focused on character, home economics, handicrafts, Bible readings, and I'll even throw in some grammar as a bonus! :) How are we going to do all of that?
With fashion! Really? Totally. :) We will be taking on fashion as a homeschooling unit of study and we want you to come along.
Over the course of several weeks, I'll be sharing tips on being good stewards of the blessings we've been given and how I choose to dress and what modesty means to us and how the clothing we wear reflects our hearts and clothing adjectives that I want to describe my clothes and my children's clothing (frumpy, short, and tight are not on that list!), a list of what to buy when thrift shopping and how to shop those thrift stores, and even some simple sewing, crocheting tutorials and our Fashion Portfolio.
We will share outfits with you that we love to wear, how we put them together, and where we wear them in this homeschooling life. One of my favorite things to do is find an outfit I love in a magazine and then go looking in my closet for something similar. I hope you are blessed and inspired!
So without further ado, our theme for this week is beauty, maybe frugally beautiful would be a more appropriate theme for this week, you'll see.
"How beautiful you are and how pleasing, my love, with your delights!" ~Song of Songs 7: 6
First up, is an outfit I wore to a casual, evening church service and it is something I would wear out to dinner with friends, too. It looks put together without much effort and allows for carrying that sweet baby Wheel on my hip.
This is a simple black t-shirt, but it is long. I need long, I have a very long torso. I have a navy one like this, too. My jeans are a favorite and are boot cut, have whisker fading at the top of the leg. They are actually a darker wash than the picture shows (I have had these jeans for about 5 years and love them. Did you know you should wash jeans inside out to prevent fading?). The scarf adds just a little bit of flash and it came from one of the hats from the kids' dress up box. Really. The hat was smashed and I thought, "Hey, I like that scarf!" I peeled off a little adhesive and tada, a salvaged find! I love scarves for the fall, winter, and spring! :) And finally the heels. Poppa bought these for me for Christmas one year (to extend the life of your shoes, you can use rubbing alcohol on them...check on a little part first to be sure that it doesn't do any damage to your shoes!).
Now on to the kids' clothes! So I realized after getting these pictures together, everyone of the kids are wearing hand-me-downs. I mean everything was absolutely free. There's frugal beauty for you!
Let's start with Ceesa. This is something she'd wear to church, but we love to go to plays (from a local theater) and this is perfect. The navy with the peachy-pink shrug are so lovely. One of my favorite color combinations are peach and navy and this is pretty close.
In the colder months, we like to take short sleeved dresses and pair them with cardigans to get the most use out of the dresses. This dress would be lovely with a black or white cardigan, too. the zigzag pattern is a great embellishment. It is even velvety to the touch.
Next up is Jo-Jo. This is an outfit she would wear to a winter encouragement group meeting, a baking club, a Bible study, or girls group. For those of you homeschoolers that go to co-op, this would be nice for it too!
The sweater is about ready for the pass-on-down box, but it fits nicely over the longer violet shirt. The scarf pairs well with the lighter fade of the jeans as well. We are fans of boot cut jeans. Can you tell?
Here's a bonus! I couldn't resist this. Li was watching and begging for his picture to be taken. Hey! Boys need to dress nice, too. This is a Sunday morning outfit or for a nice dinner out.
The boys often wear a nice button up dress shirt and white t-shirt underneath with a pair of dress pants. In this case, he's wearing a pair of khakis.
Stay tuned...next week we will be digging up some resources for creating a unit on fashion for your homeschool and sharing a new set of outfits.
Fashion Portfolio Assignment: This week we've decided to design our portfolio cover together.
Join us for all of our Fashion Posts:
Fashion Portfolio Assignment: This week we've decided to design our portfolio cover together.
Join us for all of our Fashion Posts:
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4 comments:
What a beautiful post!! I agree with you so much! Thank you for sharing your wisdom and tips. I have been researching Capsule Wardrobes lately. It might be something you would be interested in, too. Love you guys.
Thanks Phyllis! I started a Capsule Wardrobe a couple of years ago and have considered it with the girls. But just when we think we've got what they need, they grow and we have to start over. :) I'll add it to our list of things to share! We love you back. :)
What a great post - and idea for a series! I think this is a topic we as moms probably need to think about as much as our daughters do, so I love that you're doing a Fashion study in your homeschool AND that you're sharing it with us!
Thanks Kim! We are having a lot of fun with it and are looking forward to where it takes us!
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