Think the floppy hat trend is over? Think again! First made famous by J.Lo, the floppy hat is still very much on trend for fall and winter, and in fact, autumn would be the season to start wearing them, now that the temperature’s dropped a little, that cute suede wide brimmed floppy hat you bought in summer that sat unworn at the back of your wardrobe can finally see the light of day.

Choose a rich color wide brimmed floppy hat for fall and one made with a sturdier material – they hold their shape better when you put them on and wear them with casual clothes – this look is easier to pull off or with more dressy attire for more drama , floppy hats look fabulous and they channel major 70′s boho vibe!

It does take confidence to wear a wide brimmed floppy hat though, but this just adds to the sex appeal of this hot trend. Don’t be shy! To be sure you are in full chic mode, make sure the brim of the floppy hat is pulled down towards your eyes instead of being tilted too far back on your head. Pulling it towards your eyes adds to the allure.

Here are some ways to wear this versatile trend.

1. Caramel colored wide brimmed floppy hat + bright top and scarf. The neutral tone of the hat on top of the head complements nicely with a top, scarf or something in a bright and cheerful color close to the face.

soul hunting  | Concrete Catwalk

2. Dark brown suede floppy hat + printed top and dress. The darker tone highlights and frames the face, and adds sophistication and subtlety to an otherwise busy pattern.

christineem | Running on Happiness

3. Dark colored jewel toned and black floppy hat + light colored top and jacket.

 dustjacket attic | unknown

Scroll down for the easiest messy bun tutorials!

It’s been hot lately and I have been wanting to do my hair up.. a lot. And what better look is there than a messy bun? It looks great, kind of gives you that effortless chic vibe, great for the office, going out and running errands, they are so versatile!

The only problem is of course, while they may look effortless, they are usually not that easy to do, at least for me – I have super thick hair, tying it up sometimes leaves me with a headache, no joke!

Different styles of messy buns

If your hair is thick and heavy, like mine, the last thing you want is to tie it all the time in the one spot or in the same style every day, this would cause too much stress in the areas where the hair gets compressed from all the tying, resulting in weakness (easy breaks) and split ends, so being able to do the messy bun updo in a variety of ways is important.

Messy buns without bobby pins

Also, you want as little bobby pinning and spraying as possible. There are a couple of tutorials below that use no bobby pins at all. Personally, I don’t mind pinning a few pieces of loose strands here and there, but I don’t want to use bobby pins as the main method to hold the bun together as they sometimes snag on the hair and it’s a hassle with all the fiddling!

So with the above in mind, I set out to find the easiest (and cutest) messy bun tutorials, these are the ones I personally tried and found the easiest to do and had the most success with.

Step by step: how to do a messy bun

As you will see from the messy buns tutorials below,they share a few common steps.

1. (Optional) Teasing the hair at the top of your head to create a little volume and body.
2. Using a fabric covered ponytail holder, pull and tie hair back into a pony tail. A high ponytail for a high bun and a lower pony or a pigtail for a bun that sits low.
3. Twist ponytail into a bun, secure with another ponytail holder and pull hair out to form a loose messy bun. Shape with fingers. << This is the part where the magic happens and where the techniques differ!

Do I need to curl my hair for this to work?

You don’t need to curl before putting it up in a messy bun, but I find (for myself), thebun looks a lot better when I do curl first, plus this has the added advantage of hiding bits and bobs, which means even if your technique isn’t perfect, it won’t be obvious!

If you have straight hair, you can backcomb it, tease it out a little before you start twisting to form the messy bun, this gives more volume to your bun.

Four easy messy bun tutorials!

1 & 2. Easy,  no bobby pin messy buns, good for any type of long hair, straight or wavy.

The first two are really cute messy buns of an adorable little girl, don’t dismiss them! These buns are great for grown ups too, check them out. Using only rubber bands, these are some of the easiest you can do on yourself!

Found these inspirational words while I was reading Vogue a couple of months back, in a feature called “South Korea – Epicenter of the Shopping Universe”, I came across the term “RUBY”, which is apparently a nickname for women over the age of 40 in South Korea that are fashion forward. The acronym stands for Refreshed, Uncommon, Beautiful and Young.

How’s that for empowerment!

image: beautiful you by julie, emma kate creative

What is biggest diamond ever found? The Cullinan Diamond. The biggest diamond ring ever made? This is “it”. “It” is also the only one of its kind in the world!

This is one of those instances where you think why hasn’t anyone thought of this? Probably a little bit wasteful to some, a piece of diamond this big with a hole carved out in the middle, but that is exactly what makes this ring so decadent and truly one of a kind – this is one diamond ring destined for the history books!

This amazing ring is created by Shawish Jewellery in Geneva. Expected to fetch $75 million when it is sold, dubbed as the “World’s First Diamond Ring”, this impressive ring is carved entirely from ONE single diamond and weighs 150 carats.

So just how much trouble went into creating this world first?

“It took one year to get the copyright and we had to do multiple tests with the design, to get the precision of the circle right. Diamonds are made of carbon and molecules that can change, even the colour can be altered when attempting to cut it. We had to buy special laser equipment, to cut directly into the diamond.’

No small feat!

Source: Vogue UK

Photo: Younga Park

Getting started (in anything) is hard, you worry about doing things just right, you worry about things not being right from the get go and if you are like me, you read up on a ton of resources, over think and then get stuck in analysis paralysis mode… The more you think about it, the more you don’t want to deal with it. So the best thing to do?

Yep, the tried and true -  just get started.

For the past couple of weeks, I have obsessed over HOW to host this blog, pondering on the pros and cons of having the blog as a subfolder to my store (www.jewelrystore.com/blog), subdomain (www.blog.jewelrystore.com) or as a separate domain (www.jewelrystoreblog.com) altogether… Which blogging platform to use – self hosted blog using WordPress? A hosted solution – typepad vs blogger?

As I am opening a new store selling fashion jewelry, I want to have a place for store announcements and other tidbits related to jewelry and dressing up, maybe with some personal thoughts thrown in when the mood strikes!

I have had a lot of help along the way, in business, in my past careers and in life etc, I want to ‘give back’ by sharing, have fun doing it and keep everything neatly in one place! Thus, this blog is born!Welcome!