FashionPlaytes Blog: Rhinestones Make Everything Better

It’s time for a new featured design of the week from one of our fabulously talented designers! This week we are featuring this beautiful Jane t-shirt by Jillsyrs. The blue sky underlayer and blue lace with the blue moon color of the shirt, are expertly coordinated and bring a girly twist to this T. The silver horse and rhinestone set add a flashy, sparkly twist, perfect for the first day of school!

We know that Jillsyrs will be rocking this shirt with pride! What do you think of this fabulous t-shirt?

Don’t forget - keep expressing your style and inner fashionista with your designs! You could be our next Design of the Week!

It’s almost time to put away the cute summer dresses and tanks and to bring out the skinny jeans and jackets because fall is right around the corner!  In order to get you ready for the fall we have some advice and some tips for this season’s fall fashion.

Colour Palette: This season we are recommending shades of grey from dove to charcoal, vibrant reds, warm gold and coral, purple (again!)  Who doesn’t love purple?

Military Crisp: Fitted clean lines of stovepipe pants, piping trims to add linear detail to solid colours, epaulets, military badges, buttons and graphic elements.  A classic navy peacoat paired with a knee length skirt or straight jeans complete the look.

Lace and Tulle Trims: These fanciful trims glam up a simple a-line dress or a basic tee.  These looks are feminine, fun and flirty.

Eccentricity: The combination of unlikely colours (coral with red or purple with pea green) knee socks and over the knee socks with dresses, short jackets with long skirts. Mix it up and have fun!  Top it off with a shocking hair style of multiple braids or asymmetrical up-do’s.  Work that up-do!

Bohemian: This hot, summer look will carry into fall with second hand chic. Long skirts and vintage looking t-shirts and jeans, jangly bracelets and fringed capes. Poor-boy caps and fingerless gloves finish the look and keep girls feeling cozy as the weather cools.

Retro Urban Punk: skinny knit jeans (these feel much more comfy than the 70’s originals), black tees with goth-look graphics, high top sneakers and tall boots. Add some studs and stones.

We hope these fashion trends help you put together a styling outfit!

Girls LOVE sleepovers! All the girl talk, movies, junk food, games, pillow fights, stories, truth or dare, hanging out with your BFF’s… what could be better?! FashionPlaytes wants to hear about your fun-filled sleepovers with your BFF’s! Send us your best stories, game ideas, or any other general great sleepover experiences you have had and you could win a custom lounge set to show off at your next sleepover!

See rules below on how to enter and win!

We happen to love …this game: Nail Polish Birthday Spin Game-Place several colors of nail polish in the middle of a circle of girls. Have the first girl at the sleepover spin a bottle of nail polish. Whoever the cap is pointing to when it stops must paint one of her fingernails that color. Then that person spins the next color of nail polish…and so on. Pretty soon everyone has really crazy hands and toes!

To enter: Post your favorite sleepover stories or games to our Facebook page by 8/19/10. Three winners will be drawn from all entries and announced on Friday, 8/20/10.

General contest rules: To enter, you must be a U. S. or Canadian resident, and have a parent or adult of at least 18 years of age entering on your behalf, and you must post a comment to the FashionPlaytes Facebook page. No purchase necessary. The winner(s) will be randomly selected and will receive a gift certificate valued at $50.  Employees, contractors, and the families of employees and contractors of FashionPlaytes, Inc. are not eligible to enter. You are not eligible to win if you have received a prize or giveaway from FashionPlaytes in the last six months. Void where prohibited. Contest will run from 8/11/10 through 8/19/10.

Wild Child, Arlington MA

We’ve partnered with a few local retailers in the New England market to sell FashionPlaytes gift certificates - here’s a shout-out to THE best retailers around:

• Wild Child in Arlington, MA is a Best of Boston winner with a well-edited assortment of kids clothing, furniture and gear
• Belmont Toys in Belmont, MA is chock full of creative gifts for kids of all ages
• My New Wardrobe in Avon, CT specializes in a unique assortment of American and European kids clothing and footwear

Stop by if you live near one of these retailers & show your support for FashionPlaytes. Or pick up a gift certificate if you’re running off to a last-minute birthday party!

We’re up at a rustic cottage in Maine for a few days and invited our cousins up for some fun at the lake.  Santana, Madeleine and Maeve are designing paper dolls and creating many beautiful outfits for their paper dolls – the old fashioned way, without any templates, all by hand with some love and lots of attention to each detail.  Talk about inspiration.  These girls have designed some amazing creations and patterns that could be incorporated into beautiful, trendy fabric patterns.  I particularly like the yellow pattern with flowers.  Very colorful and reminds me of our sunny summer afternoon spent by the lake.   This reminds me of the time I spent with my mother designing clothes together when I was Maddie’s age.  Sewing seems to be a lost art these days and so few of us have the time or the talent to really create the masterpieces we dream about wearing.

Santana told me she wants to be a fashion designer when she grows up.   We don’t see them nearly as often as we’d like and we rarely talk about our business, so I was so happy to hear her say “FashionPlaytes is totally awesome.  It inspires you to be creative.” She rattled off all the designs she has in her collection and called many of them by name.

It’s a real treat for our kids to get together and an even bigger treat for me to hear how much others LOVE playing on FashionPlaytes.  For Madeleine, she keeps a keen eye out for girls wearing FashionPlaytes and pretty much lets me know when she sees girls she doesn’t know wearing custom designs.  Going to our kids’ end of year receptions and plays, it was special to see girls wearing dresses that they designed on FashionPlaytes.  Some of the mothers tell me that their daughters wear their outfits at least once each week, and would wear them daily if they’d let them!  What a complement.

Keep designing ladies! We want your help in creating our next graphic designs, fabric pattern and silhouettes for our product line.  Please send us pictures of your designs (and photos of you in your FashionPlaytes outfits, too!) and let us know what you’d like to see in our line next!  Look for upcoming contests where we ask you to help us with designs.  We love your ideas and absolutely adore hearing from you!

Sarah McIlroy

Founder/CEO, FashionPlaytes

Congratulations to our three winners - Reesecup, Abigail105, and Kittysquared! Each young lady created a fabulous new back to school garment and will be rocking those outfits this fall! Hope you make all your friends jealous! Be sure to keep an eye out for our next contest and you could be our next winner!

Check out their creations!

Kittysquared’s design:

Reesecup’s design:

Abigail105′s design:

It’s time for a new, featured design of the week from a new, talented designer.  This week, we are featuring our Cassidy dress designed by Daisinator5.  The lilac henna coloring and the long sleeves on the Cassidy dress make for a design that can be worn year round.  We love how Daisinator5 chose a ribbon color that matches the raspberry coloring throughout the lilac henna design.  Daisinator5 kept the design simple and let the fabric templates’ natural beauty develop with the appropriate ribbon choice and placement throughout the garment.

We would love to wear this dress out one cool summer night. What do you think of this fresh, styling dress?  Keep designing as many summer clothes as you can before it’s time to start getting ready for sweaters and fall fashion!

http://blog.raycatenamercedes.com/2010/06/12-summer-vacation-tips-to-make-vacations-fun-easy/

Even though summer will be over before you know it, that doesn’t mean you can’t take one last family getaway!  Even if it’s just for the weekend, one last mini vacation is a great way to end summer, and to hopefully hold you over until next year.  We have some ideas for fun, short, family getaways!

-         Go camping at a local camp site: Even if you’re not a huge fan of roughin’ it outdoors, there are campsites for different degrees of comfort when it comes to camping.  There are campsites that are tent-only where canoeing and hiking are common activities, but there are also campgrounds where you can rent cabins and have a more comfortable, homey experience. 

-         Stay Local: You could always set up a tent in the backyard for the kids or for the whole family.  Have a campfire, make s’mores, play flashlight tag and even have pizza delivered to your backyard.

-         Beach Weekend: Escape to the beach for the day or even for the weekend.  Rent a hotel room, stay at a little bed and breakfast, or even a house in a local beach town.  The beach is the best place to relax, play with the kids, go for a walk for some exercise, or simply finish that book you started months ago.  What other venue can you accomplish all that and still have a great, relaxing time?

-         BBQ-ing in the yard: Another option if you want to stay local and save money is to have a bbq with friends and family.  Pick a weekend when you know the weather will be nice so you can move the party outside.  Have some activities set up for the kids to keep them entertained such as sidewalk chalk, wiffle-ball equipment, and, maybe even a slip n’slide (our favorite).

-         Thrill Seeking Outings:  If you are an adrenaline junky family, go to a Water Park or Amusement Park for the day.  Spend the day riding roller coasters or sliding down nearly vertical water slides to get that end of summer thrill!

We also have a few websites to recommend that offer good ideas for family vacations.    

-         Kid Friendly Travel Destination: This site has several different vacation ideas from a more elaborate, expensive vacation to Hawaii, to a day trip at a national historic park at Yosemite, to a theme park in Florida.

-         Best Kid Friendly Travel: This site breaks down what type of vacation you and your family are looking take.  Whether that trip is to the beach, or more amusement parks, this site breaks down trip ideas into categories.  This site also offers several articles about kid friendly travel tips.

We hope your end to summer is just as fun as the beginning excitement of summer!  Let us know if you do any of these fun activities or if you plan an end of summer vacation by using our recommended travel sites.  We know we will be canoeing and sliding down some water slides!

To all our customers and fans outside the U.S.,

We’ve listened to your requests and are excited to announce that international shipping is now available to over 190 countries* at these flat rates (USD):

• $16 - Canada and Mexico
• $20 - All other countries

We know that creativity has no boundaries and can’t wait to see customers from all corners of the globe designing their own clothes on FashionPlaytes.com.

For those of you outside the U.S. who’ve waited patiently, thanks for your support! We look forward to shipping fantastic, one-of-a-kind outfits to your doorstep soon!

Your friends at FashionPlaytes

*We ship to 190 countries served by USPS international priority mail.

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As summer starts to come to an end, to quote the infamous Staples commercial that adults seem to love but kids cringe when viewing, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year… they’re going back!”  We want to share some Back to School (BTS) shopping tips so you will be ready to tackle the crowds and get the most fashionable trends for great prices!  Here are some tips that will make back to school shopping fun, and that will distract your daughter from the looming school year ahead.

-         Shop at the end of winter of the previous season.  There are always a ton of sales so take advantage of those sales and wear those clothes and shoes next winter.  Don’t worry, those trends and outfits will still be acceptable fashion choices!

-         Make a day of it!  Try to get all the shopping done in one day.  Spend one day on clothes, and then another day on school supplies.

-         Avoid Weekends – Try to go on a weekday mornings when the stores are not too crowded.  Everyone always chooses the weekends to shop, so if you have the time, try to plan a mother-daughter outing one weekday.  Also, make a list of what you need with your daughter.  Get her involved!

-         To save money: Go through school supplies from last year to see what can be re-used.  Buy items in bulk, such as pencils and pens that can last the whole year.  And, of course, keep an eye out for BTS sales on school supplies in weekly circulars. 

Items that every girl should have:

-         A jean jacket:  Jean jackets are classic no matter what the age!  A young girl can even get away with some rhinestones on the jacket!  Help find a classic and age appropriate jean jacket for your daughter and feel free to let your daughter get creative and decorate her jean jacket.  At FashionPlaytes, we have an adorable jean jacket that girls can add ribbons and appliques in order to create their own custom jean jacket!  We recommend *rhinestones* because Rhinestones Make Everything Better! 

-         A denim skirt: A denim skirt is very practical because it can be worn in the summer, and even in the winter with a cute pair of leggings or stockings.  Again, you can find some age-appropriate very cute denim skirts for your daughter, and watch her rock this classic look.  Visit FashionPlaytes to get creative so she can design her own denim skirt.

-         Boots: Again, no matter what the age, there is a pair of boots for everyone!  Sometimes younger girls like cowboy boots, and can get away looking great in them.  We recommend the cowboy boots with a denim skirt.  She will look like your very own little, chic cowgirl!  Other younger girls prefer the classic Ugg boot attire because they see older girls wearing them.  Whatever the boot, your daughter’s outfit will be styling all the way to her feet!

We hope these tips will help you save some time and money when you go shopping for back to school clothes and supplies.  We want to know, when do you plan on starting to go back to school shopping?  But, in the meantime, enjoy your last few weeks of summer with your family!