Painting the Roses Red

Painting the Roses Red | www.eccentricowl.com

With it being October, I have costumes on my mind. Growing up, we didn’t celebrate Halloween at all; when the 31st came around ours was the dark house with nobody that answered and occasionally brothers who wanted to hide under piles of leaves outside and scare anyone who walked past. We have really only lived in a neighborhood twice as it is — once in a small town when I was between the ages of 9-13, and once right after Mr. Owl and I started dating. So to have the non-treat house wasn’t as big of a deal most of the time, and most of my own disappointment with Halloween was the fact that I, as a girl who loved costumes, could not get all dressed up as Belle or a Victorian lady and run around with my friends pretending to be someone we were not. I didn’t even care about the candy, I just wanted the costumes!

But after I got married, having grown up not celebrating (other than the occasional Harvest Festival at various churches), my husband pointed out that he didn’t think he wanted to strictly forbid Halloween for our kids.

Painting the Roses Red | www.eccentricowl.com

Mainly because many of Asa’s cousins go trick-or-treating, and for us it really is nothing more than a fun event for our kids to get together with their cousins and have some innocent fun. It’s bonding time, time to let them express creativity through coming up with a costume, and time to get candy that otherwise they probably don’t get that often. Or for us, time for Asa to use his cute cheeks to score us a bucket of goodies. HA! (Okay, this year he’s old enough to have some of that candy.) And for my husband and I, it’s probably the only time we ever get to dress up in costume and go out, something we both love doing.

So when I was thrifting on Monday, my primary goal was finding pieces I can add to my closet that also work for costumes. And when I saw this skirt, I immediately thought of Alice in Wonderland, and the song where the cards are painting the roses red.

I knew I needed it as soon as I saw it, of course, but add to the fact that it has pockets and an elastic waistline AND it’s nearly a circle skirt and I was 100% sold. Plus, I can add it to my list of Halloween costumes I will be creating from my closet (whether I’ll do a different incarnation of the Red Queen — here’s last year’s — or I’ll be a rosebush, I don’t know yet) this year for blog posts. I can’t wait!

And now I want to switch gears for a minute and talk about jewelry! More specifically, Rocksbox. Quite a few fantastic bloggers have been sharing their experiences with this company, and I’m excited to join ranks. Rocksbox is a super fun subscription service wherein for $19 a month, you get three pieces of jewelry at a time that you can “borrow” for as long or short as you like (with unlimited swapping of boxes in each month). You start out by taking a style quiz and adding pieces of jewelry to your wishlist. Then, a personal stylist makes those wishes come true, usually choosing an item from your list to style two other pieces or jewelry around for you. If you adore the pieces, you can buy them for a good discount; if you didn’t like something, you can let your stylist know. And when you’re done borrowing the jewelry, you send it back in its box and a new one is sent to you!

The bracelet I’m wearing here is one of the three pieces that was in my first box. (I have two more posts coming with the other pieces!) I am not much of a bracelet wearer, since most bracelets are far too large for my wrist, and sadly this one turned out too big too, even with its adjustable feature. But it was far too pretty not to wear anyway! The delicate silver band has tiny little diamonds embedded in it for just the right amount of sparkle, and I loved how it was easy to wear with an everyday outfit but could have also been styled with something fancier.

I am really excited to share the other pieces and also to return them and try out a few new pieces of jewelry! It really is my kind of subscription box — who doesn’t love getting shiny things in the mail every month?

If you want to try Rocksbox (and I highly recommend you do!) you can have a first month entirely free! Just sign up, and enter the code eccentricowlblogxoxo and try it out! And don’t worry, it’s super easy to cancel if you decide getting swappable jewelry is just not your thing. (But WHY would it not be?)