2021 Resolution: Shopping my own bag and SLG collection. Any one else?

[Sparkletastic]

NOVEMBER ACTIVITIES

1. Bags by Brand Showcase!

Each week, share photos of your bags from the specified brands. Choose a posed “beauty” shot or get your bags out and about in action shots!

We highlight 3 brands per week: 2 premier and 1 contemporary in alphabetical order as listed on tPF. Any brands not listed are showcased in our last week. Brands change to the next set each Sunday.

Our first brand week starts now - Sunday, Oct 31. Please share photos of bags from these brands:

• Bottega Venetta
• Burberry
• Alexander Wang

Tip: Grab your photos from last year in the 2020 resolution thread. Search your user name and the brand to find your photos.

2. Special Stories
Thanks @Claudia Herzog for the suggestion

Wear a bag that has a backstory involving a person, place, or opportunity for which you feel grateful.

 

[keodi]

others more experienced no doubt will chime in, but I like that Trim II has a gusset and can fit more than the evelyne PM of comparable size While still look8ng sleek.

con: the shorter strap that slips off the shoulder. You can elongate with a similarly wide belt (see @pureplatinum ’s post on page 37 of Ode to Trim below) and attach a suede strip to the underside to reduce slippage.

the size 35 seems more NS orientation in clemence. The size 31 seems more EW in orientation. although I am a 30B and 28K person, i prefer the 35 Trim II to the 31. I posted comparison shots in Ode to Trim. To me overall silhouette against the body is really important.

You may not think you have the desire to buy less if you go down the H rabbit hole, but actually the research on various H bags prior to purchase is more than half of the fun

ode to the TRIM!

Today with my gold, GHW, trim. Just love it. Lovely bag! ❤️ what is it 31 or 35? And what are exact measurements height /width wise? Thank you very much!

forum.purseblog.com

I agree! @SouthernPurseGal here's a pic of my 38cm Trim I

 

[dcooney4]

View attachment 4951104
Doing Challenge #2 today. First time using this tweed Tabby since buying it last summer. Her first voyage will be to get pizza & salad on this finally Friday.

This is very pretty.

 

[dcooney4]

I agree! @SouthernPurseGal here's a pic of my 38cm Trim I

Gorgeous!

 

[JenJBS]

I'm really enjoying reading this Thread! You gals are wonderful!

Thought I’d share a few tips that seem to be helping me.

• Check the closet before making any purchase
• No online purse/SLG ‘browsing’
• Do a Bag Showcase

A sweet PF friend made me aware of some gorgeous purple gloves from Coach, that you can use a touch screen phone while wearing. Checked my closet. No nice leather gloves, or gloves that let me use a touch screen. Check 1. When I got on the Coach site, I only let myself look at the gloves, not the purses or other SLGs. Check 2. I now happily own the gloves.

By checking my own closet before making any purchase I can verify that I don’t already have something in my closet that I can use, instead of buying something new/new-to-me. Also helps me keep in mind what I have in my closet. Just have to watch that I don’t get too picky as justification to buy something new. ‘I have a similar bag in berry, but not purple, so I need one in purple too… They are different colors…’ I mean, they are different colors, but if I’m just using that as an excuse to get a new bag… Nope…

I’m not letting myself go on my favorite purse browsing sites. Not saying I can’t get on these sites if I end up wanting to look for a specific bag (most likely one I saw here on TPF ) or SLG (like the Coach gloves), just no aimlessly browsing them to see what’s new and what’s on sale. Farfetch, SSense, Modus Operani, 24S, yoox, Net-a-Porter, The Webster, Tradesy, Rebag, FashionFile, TheRealReal, etc. That’s helped limit the temptation. I can resist anything except temptation – so just have to avoid the temptation.

A friend suggested I do a Bag Showcase. Choosing my favorite pic or two of each bag is helping remind me of just what beauties I have in my collection, and how much I love them. This has been extremely helpful in keeping me focused on the fact that I don’t need to shop anywhere else when I already have these beauties in my closet to shop from and enjoy.

Anyone else have any tips they would be willing to share?

 

[Cookiefiend]

View attachment 4951104
Doing Challenge #2 today. First time using this tweed Tabby since buying it last summer. Her first voyage will be to get pizza & salad on this finally Friday.

So pretty!

I agree! @SouthernPurseGal here's a pic of my 38cm Trim I

Fabulous red!

I'm really enjoying reading this Thread! You gals are wonderful!

Thought I’d share a few tips that seem to be helping me.

• Check the closet before making any purchase
• No online purse/SLG ‘browsing’
• Do a Bag Showcase

A sweet PF friend made me aware of some gorgeous purple gloves from Coach, that you can use a touch screen phone while wearing. Checked my closet. No nice leather gloves, or gloves that let me use a touch screen. Check 1. When I got on the Coach site, I only let myself look at the gloves, not the purses or other SLGs. Check 2. I now happily own the gloves.

By checking my own closet before making any purchase I can verify that I don’t already have something in my closet that I can use, instead of buying something new/new-to-me. Also helps me keep in mind what I have in my closet. Just have to watch that I don’t get too picky as justification to buy something new. ‘I have a similar bag in berry, but not purple, so I need one in purple too… They are different colors…’ I mean, they are different colors, but if I’m just using that as an excuse to get a new bag… Nope…

I’m not letting myself go on my favorite purse browsing sites. Not saying I can’t get on these sites if I end up wanting to look for a specific bag (most likely one I saw here on TPF ) or SLG (like the Coach gloves), just no aimlessly browsing them to see what’s new and what’s on sale. Farfetch, SSense, Modus Operani, 24S, yoox, Net-a-Porter, The Webster, Tradesy, Rebag, FashionFile, TheRealReal, etc. That’s helped limit the temptation. I can resist anything except temptation – so just have to avoid the temptation.

A friend suggested I do a Bag Showcase. Choosing my favorite pic or two of each bag is helping remind me of just what beauties I have in my collection, and how much I love them. This has been extremely helpful in keeping me focused on the fact that I don’t need to shop anywhere else when I already have these beauties in my closet to shop from and enjoy.

Anyone else have any tips they would be willing to share?

These are great tips, thank you for sharing... I am especially bad about mindless browsing shopping sites.

 

[Cookiefiend]

Wearing my new to me Just Campagne Deville 2 today, it arrived earlier this week, for the Take the Tags Off Challenge. It’s a nice color (Graise), I like the shape, but not so certain about the zipper... but it would be a great bag for traveling as it does zip up! I’m hoping to replace my Massaccesi MIDI Juliet with this.
Apologies for the not so awesome office photo.

 

[BowieFan1971]

This was an all pink Coach bag someone gave me that was scratched up and had an oil stain on the bottom. A few hours and some paint and glaze....it looks gray, but it is a metallic taupe.

 

[Cookiefiend]

This was an all pink View attachment 4951376View attachment 4951378View attachment 4951377Coach bag someone gave me that was scratched up and had an oil stain on the bottom. A few hours and some paint and glaze....it looks gray, but it is a metallic taupe.

wow - that's amazing!!

 

[SakuraSakura]

Trying to enjoy the little things...

 

[sherrylynn]

I agree! @SouthernPurseGal here's a pic of my 38cm Trim I

Love this! Such a beautiful color. Do you happen to know the name of the color?

 

[whateve]

I cannot express how stunning this look is! I love your style!


Thanks for the heads up @880!
Happy birthday @BowieFan1971


Well done on your well organized kitchen! It looks amazing!
I am working on clearing digital clutter today and digitalizing some of my videos (thanks @momasaurus for inspiring me to do this on the last thread). Tomorrow I will clear paper clutter.

Re my 'edited' cooking: To put it simply, I realized that most of the time I could not savour the ingredients in complex dishes. I found most things I ate had a bunch of ingredients but I could not distinguish them on my palate anymore.
I felt that I wanted to get back to basics with my meals and enjoy simpler food where you get a handful of ingredients, cook them correctly and taste each one distinctly in the final dish. It's a more edited and considered approach- with only 4 ingredients, you have to think which one would give the most flavourful impact. I find the challenge fun and quickly learned to reduce everything down to 4 or fewer ingredients.
However, I do not include spices and herbs as part of the ingredients list.
An omelette is simply butter, eggs, cheese. Divine. Roasted mushrooms or asparagus for lunch with a bit of good quality parmesan grated over- simple but filling and delicious.
Even chocolate torte can be made with only 3 ingredients (eggs, cacao, butter). Add sugar if you want it sweet and you're still at 4 ingredients.

The only exceptions to my 4 ingredient rule are salad and chunky vegetable soup. Those can include up to 6 ingredients because I love my colourful veggies.
I use the best quality ingredients I can find and have been practicing cooking each thing correctly (roasting, frying, steaming, etc.) so that everything tastes great. As yet, I don't miss the extras that I once included.

One of my goals now is to practice plating my meals in a more professional manner. My mother serves food beautifully, and I do plate up properly, but I want to finesse this skill.

Edit to add: I can get away with my edited cooking because I'm not feeding a family but merely myself. I doubt that anyone would be able to get their families on board for such an experiment!


Join us on the organization challenge!
It's somehow more fun to know I'm not clearing out all by myself.

Happy to hear it doesn't include spices! I couldn't give up my spices! I have many dishes I make that would meet your requirements.

 

[whateve]

DH is fine with this so long as one dish is roasted meat with salt and pepper And the other is crispy roasted potatoes. I adore Diamond kosher salt, less salty per volume than Mortons kosher and no aftertaste like regular iodized salt.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/dining/mayo-meat-marinade.html?referringSource=articleShare (mayo browns meat better than butter)
DH is afraid of Mayo so i slather a bit on when he isn’t around

Want The Best Steak Of Your Life? Don't Thaw The Steaks Before Cooking Them

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but if you've been thawing your frozen steaks out before cooking them, you've been cooking steak wrong your whole life. According to Cook's Illustrated Senior Editor Dan Souza and the tasting team from Test…

www.bustle.com

recommendation is don’t thaw steaks, burgers etc be&ore cooking. Combined with slow roasting steak as per modernist cuisine, this also reduces the gray ring surrounding red or pink centers.

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/12/ultra-crispy-slow-roasted-pork-shoulder-recipe.html (pork shoulder with bone and skin, salt, black pepper)

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/12/the-best-roast-potatoes-ever-recipe.html (potatoes, baking soda, salt, and fat of choice - duck fat, olive oil or butter) are all you need (though dried thyme, granulated garlic and dried red pepper flakes are fine)

if you are only cooking for one, I use smaller potatoes for smashed potatoes (similar to above recipe) and find they are better the next day than standard roasted ones.

for a treat, caramel ice cream using only four ingredients but requires an ice cream maker https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/ice-cream-for-beginners/378253/
I really ’burn’ the sugar and just dump both dairy products in together. I don’t simmer as long, but I do refrigerate the cooked mixture overnight and chill the ice cream insert for two days.

@doni, I’m trying to clear out the cupboards too. I do have some cans bought in the first wave.

@dcooney4, glad the backpack metal piece thingy is not an issue.

@BowieFan1971, my DH ‘dances’ when we’re cleaning up after dinner (sways from side to side while hugging). we will all be with you virtually on your bday! Hugs

@Jereni, I love your bags for the bag challenge below. Your outfits and scarves are elegant and make the bags shine! I love your decor too. The chair and rug are gorgeous. And the credenza and map (hope that doesn’t sound like I’m being stalkery

I only use Kosher salt. It tastes so much cleaner. I don't like things very salty so I use it sparingly. Many things I cook have no added salt. The only time I don't cut down on salt is in baking.

I could eat roasted meat for every meal, and skip the potatoes.

 

[whateve]

Thank you guys! It’s actually on Monday, but since I won’t get to do anything special for it because of Covid, I’ll take as many early birthday wishes as I can get!

Because it is so close to Christmas, my birthday was never the big deal it is for others. But this one is special...50...and I wanted to make a big deal over this one. Now I can’t even go to dinner. So to be honest, I am sad, feeling a little mopey and sorry for myself.

Happy Birthday! I had my birthday during lockdown and it was a little depressing, but I worked it out with cooking things the day before so I didn't have to work on my birthday.

 

[Purses & Perfumes]

Join us on the organization challenge!
It's somehow more fun to know I'm not clearing out all by myself.

Thank you, yes, I absolutely need to do this. Paper clutter is the worst. And like @doni, it's a job I loathe so I keep putting it off! But I think I will start with something less challenging like maybe my make up drawer, which should be easy.

 

[dcooney4]

Wearing my new to me Just Campagne Deville 2 today, it arrived earlier this week, for the Take the Tags Off Challenge. It’s a nice color (Graise), I like the shape, but not so certain about the zipper... but it would be a great bag for traveling as it does zip up! I’m hoping to replace my Massaccesi MIDI Juliet with this.
Apologies for the not so awesome office photo.
View attachment 4951308View attachment 4951309View attachment 4951310

The close up really shows the color beautifully. Enjoy it!