I’ve known about the site Polyvore for a while. I’ve seen people put together fun little clothing and home collages. I got a sudden urge to do one after seeing a fun collection of 80’s/spattered paint images that someone had done.

There are thousands of high-end and low-end items to choose from to create a great outfit with. I’m not entirely sure how they are compiled, but I’m guessing either web designers at the Polyvore site gather images from various sites and do a very fast magic selection around them in Photoshop and then nsert them into the program –or– they are submitted by users. Anyway, whichever way they compile them and program them into Flash for us to move and manipulate in our browsers, it’s pretty darn fun. Here’s a pic of what the site mainframe actually looks like if you decide to try it:

You would think this would be a relatively easy task for me to compile one of these, but I’m incredibly hard on myself in judging certain things. I’ve never been a fashionista, though I do think I have some knowledge of what’s on trend or looks good. Just on a regular basis, you probably wouldn’t know this based on the clothes I wear. I’m a basic jeans, black tee, and funky accessories kinda gal. So putting together a complete look mystifies me a bit. For this look, I was trying to put together something I thought I could actually see myself wearing if I had a reason to wear it…I guess a funky party dress combination is the look I was going for. I actually think this loud mixture of prints is really fun. I like the playfulness of it with the yellow trim and bow. For the accesories, I went with simple things with a bit of a funk. In my own personal style, I love bangles and bling. I also love the texture in the open toe snakeskin pumps and the pleats in the purse.

Putting this entire look together took me an hour….I mean afterall, I wanted to create something I was happy with, but wouldn’t hopefully get readers thinking, “Man, this girl really doesn’t know what looks good.” I hope I succeeded. I always put a lot of pressure on myself in things like this that showcase my creative skills. It’s like I set this bar for myself that I think others have of me, and I’m afraid I won’t live up to. One time, while visiting with a friend who I really respected as a graphic designer, we made mother’s day cards (we even went to michaels to buy materials). I was sooo consumed with the fact that my friend wouldn’t like my work or think it was good enough that I ended up wasting all my paper cutting it up into stuff I didn’t like, and I walked away without a complete card. I was measuring myself against her and what she thought of my skills it wasn’t a good thing.

So this is the deal…even though I struggled with this and worried whether or not you guys would like it, I also have come to the realization that it’s ok if you don’t like it or get it, I’m happy with it and that’s all that matters. I don’t think I need to put so much pressure on myself to have this perfect finished product to show off, it’s about getting there and being confident in myself and my decision making.

So Swellions, while I hope you like my creation, the more important thing I want you to take away from this post is to not over complicate your creativity or set measures too high for youself when creating. It totally weighs down the creative process and what’s the fun in that?

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa