The beauty of a capsule wardrobe- The utility jacket

For readers abroad, English text further down.

Det har kommet ønske om at jeg skriver innleggene mine på norsk også, så da etterkommer jeg det. Litt forklaringer er kanskje på sin plass. En capsule wardrobe kan oversettes med basisgarderobe, eller direkte oversatt en kapselgarderobe. Dvs at klærne i garderoben skal kunne brukes om en annen, og dermed får du en mye mer funksjonell garderobe, og her gjelder utrykket less is more. Vi har jo alle vært der, skapet fullt i klær, men ingenting å ha på oss. Vi tar på oss det ene plagget etter det andre og ingenting passer sammen med det, gruuuusomt frustrerende. Da jeg tilfeldigvis en dag fant en link til en blogg som heter Classy yet trendy så gikk det et lys opp for meg og jeg ble så inspirert at jeg endevendte garderoben min dagen etter. http://classyyettrendy.com/2017/02/start-capsule-wardrobe-5-steps.html/

Etter å ha studert den en stund fant jeg ut at mange av plaggene her har jeg og at det bare var snakk om å ta en real opprydning og organisere klærne mine bedre. Dette er ikke så lenge siden, men føler allerede jeg har hatt stor både nytte og glede av min nye kunnskap. Veien blir til mens man går og det blir nok en del prøving og feiling.

Utility jacket betyr Nyttejakke, og min nyttejakke er en vanntett, olivengrønn jakke med hette som jeg kjøpte i London for flere år siden. Må ha vært høsten 2012 eller 2013. Det er en Timberland jakke og den kostet litt, men er brukt så mye at den var verd hver krone. I Bergen er en slik jakke helt uunnværlig for den kan brukes uansett vær.

Collagene under består av klær jeg har i min garderobe, eller lignende som jeg har funnet på nett. Det meste har jeg hatt i mange år og noe er nytt spesielt innkjøpt for å få en funksjonell basisgarderobe. Det er 5 nye plagg her, tre gensere, et sjal og en kosebukse.

Had to give a quick update to my Norwegian readers, explain about capsule wardrobe and the beauty of it. Today I'll introduce you to my utility jacket. It's one of my Best Buy's ever, if not the best! I bought it in London several years ago, 2012 or 2013. I've worn it a lot, because it's waterproof and it has a hood, which is a must when you live somewhere it rains a lot. It's a Timberland jacket and a bit pricy, but worth every cent. It's not the exact same as the one in my collages, but very similar. I can wear it with just anything all year round as it's big enough to have a real chunky wool sweater under. All clothes in the collages is in my wardrobe, either the exact peace or something similar.

Here's what I wore at our Easter holiday in Myrkdalen.

Utility jacket - Timberland, sweater- Fanakofte, homeknitted (not by me), plain tee, jeans - Emma from Floyd, hat and scarf- Maggy from Home and cottage, old hiking boots, old sunglasses

Utility jacket- Timberland, striped blazer- this is from Debenhams, mine is an old one from Zay, plain tee, hat - Maggy, scarf- PM, watch - Michael Kors, bag - Fjellräven, sneakers-DL Sport

Utility jacket - Timberland, Navy blazer -  not sure where this is from, mine is old one from European Culture, sweater- Lindex, jeans - Floyd, bag - Mulberry, watch - Mockberg, scarf - old one, boots- old ones from Tamaris

Utility jacket - Timberland, leather jacket - I have similar from Butterfly (don't know where this is from),sweater-  Anna Field - Zalando,  jeans- Fiveunits, bag- Mulberry, boots old one from Tamaris

Utility jacket- Timberland, old denim jacket, trousers - 2nd one, Miley from Motefrue.no (supercomfy), sweater - Second female, scarf - PM, bag - vintage Mulberry, watch - Mockberg, boots- I have similar from Timberland (don't know where these are from)

Så dere ser at en slik nyttejakke virkelig er nyttig og veldig enkel å matche med andre ting i garderoben.

And thats the beauty of the utility jacket, very versatile.


Until next time.

Kari

The beauty of a capsule wardrobe- The frumpy dresses

Another winters day here in Bergen, will there ever be spring? Actually it's getting colder instead of warmer, this night it snowed and there's still a little snow outside as you can see from pic below. It's sunny though, but heavy wind and earlier it was a blizzard believe it or not.

Yesterday I plunged in to my wardrobe again, it's still a way to go before it's a true capsule wardrobe. I discarded a couple more items, and then I decided to find out what to do with some of my dresses.  Could they fit in the capsule wardrobe? One was immediately discarded, one was removed from spring capsule to the autumn capsule. The other three is still in my wardrobe, I'll show you the outfit ideas for two of them in this post. I asked for an opinion in the capsulers Facebook group, and what a response, people really gave me lot of feed back and good ideas. Both the dresses were referred to as frumpy, especially the checked one, but some people thought it was kind of cool. I can understand both views, it's all in the details, I hope I've come up with some styling options which makes it cool.

Ok here we go....

# 1 A black floral dress, I knew this one was very versatile and had good outfit ideas on this one. This is a quite new dress, bought last year. Floral print is trendy now, and this dress can be used all year round. I can use it with my trench, cardigans, short or long, with leather jackets both black and cognac and with a denim jacket. I can use it as a dress or as a tunic with skinny jeans or leggings, with boots, sneakers or sandals. Options are endless and here's some of them.

#2 I've had since 2012, and I've always liked it. It's so comfy and the colors suits me well. It's light navy blue, white and a beige checked patterned. The brand is Masai, very good quality. I have several pieces of clothes from this Danish brand. I did'nt think it would fit into my capsule, because of it's collar, but I suddenly got inspired and found endless options for this dress too. I was amazed to find is just as versatile as the black floral one. Tried to take some selfies today in a couple of outfits in this dress, I'm a selfie virgin so they didn't turn out very well, but they give you an idea. Have to say, this dress was a bit difficult to photograph for the Stylebook, and since it's quite old I couldn't find any photos of it online either.

And here's my selfies of the dress, ha ha I could do with a course and/or a photographer.

So what do you think, are they still frumpy?
Would love to hear Your opinion.


Wish you all a very nice day.

Kari

Homelovers

It's not a Secret that Norwegians are a bunch of homelovers, I think we are one of the countries in the world which use most time and money to redecorate our homes. Maybe it's because it's quite cold here most of the year that we need to make our homes nice and cosy, we burn a lot of candles too especially in winter time.

I'm no exception on the contrary I use a lot of time and efford to make it nice and cosy in our home, not so much money as I like to see the options in what we already got. A lick of paint can change even the ugliest piece of furniture.

When we bought this house about three years ago my hubby believed it was virtually nothing to do here. He was so wrong, one should think he knew nothing about me.  The previous owner had painted most of the rooms right before he sold in a magnolia kind of shade. I really not to fond of magnolia and I also find it boring when nearly all rooms has the same color. I can't relax if I don't like the colors of the walls, so the day after we moved in I bought paint and started to paint the room we use as a walk in closet. And then I've slowly worked my way through the house room by room. Not quite finished yet. The guestroom could do With a makeover and I'm also at the present planning to paint the kitchenwalls some day soon.

Today I'll show you the sitting room, or living room as some calls it. Here's how it looked when we came to see the house for the first time. Nothing really wrong with it, but not my taste. And we also have very different furniture.

This is how it looks now, or not exactly now because at the moment my hubby has carefully rearranged the cushions all by himself.

This is how it looked a couple of weeks ago. See how much difference the cushions make. I have a variety of cushion covers and change several times a year. A very cheap and easy way to get a whole new wardrobe expression. Cushions and flowers are like the scarves in our wardrobes, change the scarf and the whole outfit looks different.

If you want to see more of my home feel free to check my instagram account @momentsintimebergen


Today it snowed again here, this spring has really started to annoy me.

Until next time.

Kari

The beauty of a capsule wardrobe - The pink sweater

As I told you in my previous post I was so inspired when I came over this blogpost on Leanne White Blackmons blog Classy yet trendy. Here's a link to the post I accidently came over via Pinterest: http://classyyettrendy.com/2017/02/start-capsule-wardrobe-5-step

Ok I've seen similar before, but no one so inspiring. I looked at the clothes in the capsule and thought I have a trench like that, I have a couple of blazers, I have this, I have that, actually I have most of it. This was about ten days ago, it was in the evening so couldn't start right away, but next morning I was ready to plunge in. I dived into my wardrobe, took all off the hangers and piled it on the bed. I started to color coordinate. I decided to use Navy as my base color, taupe, cream and white as neutrals. All my black clothes I put aside for an autumn capsule along with some typical autunm colors like mustard and olive green.

I used hours, looked at all my clothes with new eyes, Something went in a pile for donating, something in a pile I wanted a friend to look at. We have been swapping clothes for a couple of years. Now I lost a bit of weight, she put on some, so instead of buying everything new we've swapped basic things like jeans and coats in neutral colors. A couple of my blazers still fits me, but now I can button them so they actually look better. I fell in love with my clothes again, and realised I had done something right along the years, buying classic items in basic and neutral colors. I just hadn't been able to see it before when black and navy was stashed together with all kind of colors at the same place, making impossible to see the versatility in my clothes.

I knew I needed tees and a couple of sweaters as most I have looks like I'm a little girl in my mums clothes. It was time for some shopping, I decided to use Coral as my accent color, pink is not my cup of tea, or so I thought. I ordered some tees and sweaters online, 2 striped sweaters, 2 Coral  and a navy tee. Ended up sending most of it back. Kept a navy tee and one of the striped sweaters.

It was time for some shopping the old fashioned way, I headed for the mall and ended up with blush as one of my accent colors. Who would have thought??? I was really happy, with 4 new tees, a cream sweater a navy yoga pant,  a pair of shorts and a scarf. Tried to find a blush pair of jeans too, with no luck.

And then I discovered Stylebook, omg I'm in heaven, now I can put all my clothes into this app and shuffle them around for outfits I never even thought of. So Worth the 44 NOK I payed for it!

Went into a couple of stores again today in search for my blush jeans. No luck today either, but I found this sweater in the perfect pink for me. At Lindex, and today was 20% off too.

Now I will show you the beauty of a capsule wardrobe, and the outfits I made on my new toy Stylebook. I have all these items in my wardrobe, either the exact item or something similar. Most of them I've had for years.

Don't you just love it?? The options are endless. The only problem is that I use to much time to play around with this so I forget to knit bunnies and baby clothes.

Thank you Leanne, and thank you Capsulers on Facebook for all the inspiration.



See you

Kari

Suddenly I felt the urge to start blogging again, this time in English, there's a couple of reasons why. First of all I love the English language, but I'm a bit rusty so please bear over with me if I stumble and fall. Second I have both friends and family that don't speak Norwegian. 



A little about me, I'm a woman soon to be 55 living in Bergen, Norway. I live with my partner close to the sea, we have a wonderful view so I warn you, there might be some sunset photos on this blog, especially in the summer. (If it ever comes)

I have 2 grown up sons and am soon to be a grandmother. I've been waiting for this a while and now I'll have 2 in August/September, not twins as many of you would have thought. At least one will be a girl, which is so nice since me and my hubby have 4 sons amongst us. Can't wait really and already started to knit baby clothes.


I'm a creative kind of person and recently I took up knitting again, haven't been knitting much the past 25 years. I mostly knit bunnies which I partly have designed myself. You will probably find photos of  the bunny bunch in some of my posts. Here's one of them, her name is Sweet Sophie. My bunnies live their own life on Instagram. @lillepernille_design 

My passion for interior is well known among family, friends and anyone who knows me. I had an interiorblog for several years, still have actually, but haven't posted for a long, long time as Instagram kind of took over. I will for sure post photos like this on my blog too. My account on Instagram is @momentsintimebergen 

 I do love clothes, which woman don't? Recently I came across a blog called Classy yet trendy, will link to it in another post when I found out how to do it. Yes I'm a bit rusty on blogging too. In this blog it was described how to create a Capsule wardrobe. I got so inspired that I the day after started to  clean out my closet. I tell you more about this in another post, but I can reveal right now that I actually like my clothes again. 

Other things about me, I'm currently not working due to health issues. I got vestibular neuritis a couple of years ago it knocked me completely out for a long time and I'm still struggling with it for long periods at the time. This blog will not be about illness, but I might mention it in between. When I was working I was a sales assistant  working with fish export worldwide for almost 20 years. 

Another thing is that I live on a LCHF diet, and the past year I've lost 14 kg which is about 30 lbs. this will not be an LCHF blog either, but It might be I post something about it once in a while. 

Now I want to welcome you all, this blog is now officially reopened. Looking forward to blog again.

Bye for now

Kari

Hviler på laurbærene

Dette blir mitt første blogginnlegg fra I-pad, litt spent på hvordan det kommer til å se ut. Vi nyter nå noen velfortjente hviledager mellom slagene. I går var fotografen her og leligheten var ryddet og stylet etter alle kunstens regler. Jeg har bare snappet et par bilder med mobilen, så særlig bra bildekvalitet er det ikke, men her er en liten omvisning, flere bilder kommer når jeg får tilgang til fotografens bilder. Hun var forresten en kjempekul dame og det virket som hun kunne sine saker, blir kjempespennende å se. 

Disse vakre rosene prydet salongbordet.

Her er et bilde fra gangen. 

Foppballpuben er helt forvandlet.

I stuen har vi fjernet litt møbler, ble så mye luftigere og lysere, nesten så vi ikke har lyst å flytte.

Badet gjorde vi ikke så mye med, det eneste der var at vi kjøpte inn et par nye håndklær og et Durance lys. Forresten vi har kjøpt nytt speil også for det vi hadde vil vi ha med oss. 

Nå skal vi hvile på våre laurbær et par dager før vi begynner med ennå mer rydding, vasking og klargjøring til visning. Visning blir 7 oktober. Nå sitter jeg i sofaen og nyter synet av de vakreste rosene vi har hatt her i huset, roser kjøpt på Rema blir nedtur etter dette. 

Klem fra Kari

Welcome June

Welcome June, welcome summer, welcome lazy days on the balcony. 

You can find more summerphotos at Helenes place