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Sunday May 13, 2012

For Mothers Day, I took a trip to our local amusement park here in southwest Ohio. Kings Island is famous for an array of unique rollercoasters. While fantastic for the thrill-seeker in me, this is a disastrous situation for the snappy dresser on the outside.

Not only does each coaster give me a Helena Bonham Carter hairdo, I also exit each ride checking my pockets to make sure I didn't lose anything important. My husband rushes over to the backpack bins to retrieve his belongings before all of the phantom bad guys detect that there's precious snack pretzels in there.

It's this situation that leads many moms to turn to the dark side. I've been there before. It's bulky and comes with a smokin' hot nylon strap with plastic buckles. Thaaaat's right: the fanny pack.

I've written about my love-hate relationship with the fannypack before. As a mom, I need to have crap on me. No, I'm done with diapers, I mean the other crap. The band-aids, snacks and other assorted accessories that come in handy when we're out for a day of fun. Even my cellphone counts... I need a game of Angry Birds now and then to keep me sane.

A fannypack is usually my solution to the 'stuff' conundrum, because hey, I'm adorkable. I'll rock my dork from here to Milan and still have swagger to spare. But even supernerds like me can feel the burn of bad style, and I, too, need a break from a bulky zippered pouch.

Kathy Dahl Crifasi was thinking along the same lines when she created the Hipzbag, and she told me all about it. She sent one my way and I took it for a test drive. The standard sized Hipzbag is just big enough to fit my cellphone and a few essentials like lipgloss, a stick of sunblock and a granola bar. Larger 'Passport' Hipzbags are large enough to hold medications and even an inhaler.

My test drive consisted of the 138 foot drop, four loops and two corkscrews aboard The Vortex at Kings Island. That's right, I used my unsuspecting cellphone as a guinea pig just to give you guys the dish on this accessory. The Hipzbag design is decidedly more along the lines of a purse, and much less chunky and floppy than a fanny pack. It stayed zipped and my Droid lived to see another day.

What I like best about this little bag was the lack of strap. While each Hipzbag comes with an optional leather strap, they also have two small clips that attach to your belt loops. The clips make this bag much less of a production. Easy on and easy off, and it doesn't interfere with my outfit. I give this one a thumbs up. That's what I did for the ride photo on The Vortex, anyway.

For more information, visit the Hipzbag site.

Thursday May 10, 2012

These tangerine dreams were handmade by Maria, a jewelry artist from Israel. Learn more about Maria in Indie Style's interview, and grab your change to take these babies home.

Monday May 7, 2012

"Embrace the scarf!" Kris Lowrey, my new Premier Designs jewelry rep was sashaying across my buddy Karla's livingroom floor. I don't usually go for those kinds of Tupperware party engagements, but Karla is on my Awesome List and she always puts out a good spread. Also, who could turn down the chance to play with someone else's jewelry? It was like the 1987 raid on moms jewelry box all over again. Except this time, I didn't have to blame it on my sister.

The sheer leopard print scarf floated and danced on it's own as I and the ten women around me watched in rapt attention. Kris was all charm and fun, and she said 'smokin' hot' so much that I vowed to add it to my daily vocabulary. Right now, she was on a roll, teaching us all to invest in accessories instead of entire ensembles.

After a few more 'smokin hot's and 'super cute's, Kris had tied the scarf in five different ways around her body. I own about 234 scarves, and a couple of these moves were even new to me. Forget the jewelry; Kris was a scarf ninja. Embrace the scarf, indeed. Karla picked her jaw up off the floor and we resumed our jewelry adventure. But I was already inspired.

Right now, I'm working on an index of every way to tie scarves. I've been researching techniques and digging up photos of celebrities wearing their favorite styles. Fortunately for me, Johnny Depp is a scarf fan. Sometimes research ain't all that bad.

So keep an eye out, I'll soon have a slew of scarf tying techniques, from hair bandanas to full-on neck origami. Until then, here's Johnny in one of his favorite styles to tide us over. Yes, this is a thinly-veiled reason to post a photo of Johnny.