Style Secret #1: Accessorize!

The importance of accessories in an outfit cannot be over-emphasized. Well-placed accessories can upgrade a drab outfit. On the other hand, accessories badly chosen can ruin an otherwise passable affair. You can even wear the same clothes twice but accessorized differently, and others will hardly notice that the clothes have been worn before.
Here are a few rules to go by when accessorizing:

1: There is such a thing as too many accessories - Even though you really want to show off all that adorable jewelry you just bought, you have to exercise self-restraint. A great man(or woman) once said that before you leave the house, you should look in the mirror and take off one accessory. Less is more.

2: Build your outfit around an accessory -If there is a statement piece you really want to wear but you're not sure how well it will go with your outfit, try looking at the accessory as the centre-piece of your outfit. Choose everything else to flow with that, and in no time you'll have the perfect ensemble.

3: Colour-coding - Try as much as possible to have your accessories in every colour, jewelry especially. This is really helpful because sometimes you may want to wear something but find that you can't because the colour does not go with the rest of the outfit. If every colour is not possible, make sure you at least have black, silver, and gold.

4: Diversify - A girl's gotta have it all! Lol. No, really, it is advisable to have at least one of *every* accessory. You never know when you might feel the urge to dress Blair-esque (Blair Waldorf, GossipGirl) and then you'll need a headband!

5: Splurge wisely - There really is no point splurging on a deliciously beautiful but expensive accessory if you can't think of at least three different ways you can wear it with what you already have in your wardrobe. Save the cash for something that you know you can and will use, many times. You need to get your money's worth.

This isn't an exhaustive list of guidelines, but these should be sufficient for you to make wise choices when accessorizing. So, here are the accessories I can't live without:

headband
brooches
hair slides
embellished hairpins
earrings (in every colour)
necklaces (silver and gold)
pendants
skinny belts(I prefer these for waist-cinching)
scarves(all colours)

What are your favourites? And what are your personal rules for accessorizing?

Love to Hate You

GrlNxtDoor Loves:

1. the Swingin' Sixties
2. Lady Gaga
3. Japanese lads
4. vintage items
5. DIY-ing

GrlNxtDoor Hates:

1. sweating
2. stubborn stupidity
3. crowd mentality
4. feeling hungry when she's flat broke
5. being flat broke

What do you love and hate?

What have they done to you?

What in blazes is up with Rihanna's hair these days? She looks like she should be in a head-butting contest!

I think most people will agree with me when I say that Rihanna made much more sense in her "Pon the Replay" days...recently, it's been one crazy hairstyle after another. I mean, "Disturbia" was cool and all, in an edgy sort of way, but we thought it would end there. Unfortunately, since then Rihanna has just been sliding further and further down the weirdness scale.
Music of the Sun and A Girl Like Me were great. We could totally see and hear where she was coming from: the Caribbean island of Barbados. Then the Good Girl went Bad in 2007, and everything just went downhill from there. She cut her hair (BIG mistake, she looked much better with long brown tresses) and dyed it black, and went under this transformation into a darker, edgier, arguably sexier version of herself (can anyone say Sasha Fierce?). Granted, there's nothing wrong with a good ol' makeover to re-vamp your image, but come on! Rihanna has taken the thing too far. We don't even know who she is anymore...at least I don't. And now she's releasing Rated R. Dressed in nothing but barbed wire on the cover (remind you of Beyonce on the cover of Dangerously in Love?). And to top it all, ram horns on her head. Freaky. I mean that in the worst way.

Rihanna has a great voice and she can sing, no doubt about that. She just needs to get her act together. Else, she'll risk alienating her fans.

Mary Poppins gets a good dose of M 'n' M's...Slimmin', innit?

Despite the fact that I am an avid fan of Eminem, I will try to make this as unbiased as possible. (not!)

Over the past few weeks, the world has looked on as the Eminem-Carey feud gets progressively more and more heated. As is natural to human beings, most people are inclined to point the finger of blame at either Mariah or Eminem. The blame lies with both of them, I think.

Mariah's big mistake was making that excuse for a video, Obsessed. Yes, Eminem made a jab at her and her sorry-ass so-called husband, Nick Cannon (don't even get me started on him!), in Bagpipes from Baghdad. But he does that to everybody! I don't see Jessica Simpson, for example, recording a retaliatory song to We Made You, do you? Mariah, rap artistes make diss tracks and such, not wannabe female R&B singers like you.
Mariah's song, Eminem-dissing aside, was as mediocre and lacking in depth as everything else Mrs. Nick Cannon releases these days. Seeing as her hubby wrote the flat, unimaginative and childish lyrics, this was not unexpected. The video was no new territory, as we were regaled with Mariah Carey's usual excessive display of flesh. I'm not sure how much more 40yr-old partial nudity I can take...
And that 'stalker' in the video. Was that supposed to be an Eminem look-alike? Really. Was that the best she could do? Well, let's cut her some slack and assume the stalker wasn't meant to look like Eminem. However, you can't get past the fact that the song was referring to Eminem, albeit indirectly. So was she too scared to come out and say what she meant plainly? Eminem wasn't afraid to address her directly in his songs. But apparently Mariah Carey is a yellow-bellied coward.
A word of advice from me to you, Mariah: Quit posing as a singer and go into pornographic films. I'm sure you'd find the industry better suited to your talents than the music industry. Besides, you're taking up space there.

As for Mr. Marshall, his mistake was to respond to Mariah's Obsessed with his The Warning. Mariah isn't worth it, Shady! By responding to it, you've basically marked her as an equal. Bad move. However, it can be argued that Eminem was only trying to be fair by giving Mariah fair warning before he unleashed the dragon, so to speak. Good point.

Well, whatever. As Eminem and Mariah Carey each try to gain the upper hand in this acrimonious debate, I will be waiting at the finish line, popcorn in hand, to see who gets there first. See you there.


PS: What is going on with GossipGirl? Hilary Duff??? Anyway, that's a story for another day.

Getting Acquainted

Hello.

So this is my first entry, and I'm using this opportunity to stage an introduction of sorts.

I believe everyone to some extent has something to say. I also believe that for every such person, there is at least one other person who would, at the very least, not mind listening to (or reading) what that person has to say. Therefore I start this blog in the hope that that very person (or those very people) who would not mind listening to what I have to say, will eventually have the chance to read my blog entries.

This blog will be random glimpses into the life of the Girl Next Door (me!) mostly, but at those times when it is not, I will be focusing on telling you how I see the ordinary world through my extra-ordinary eyes.

I welcome all feedback - the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. Just don't expect me to take any nastiness sitting down, though. I will delete any distasteful comments.

Lastly, this blog will not exactly be the most regular. I'll try to post a new entry roughly every week, though. And special broadcasts can crop up at any time. Just whenever I feel the urge. :)

So...enjoy.