Fashion - Pocketful of Joules

Boot Straps = Awesome

Remember a few months ago when I tried to figure out the boots + jeans conundrum with a few different pairs of boots? One of the suggestions I had come across was to buy little straps that connect your jeans cuff and go under your foot and hold them tight.

Well, apparently these magical things are called Boot Straps… and they are awesome.

When I got my new Fryes, my old trick of just shoving my pants into the boots wasn’t really working. They’d look pretty great at first, but over a few hours the pants would slowly work their way up and my legs would look kind of baggy and rumpled. Not really the look I was going for. So, I clicked over to Amazon, which is honestly where I go for pretty much everything these days (yup, I’m an Amazon Prime ho) and these boot straps.

I figured I’d give them a try and worst case scenario was that they didn’t work and I could tell you all not to waste your money buying them. Instead, they became my secret weapon in NOT looking frumpy within a couple hours.

The first time I tried to use them… well, it didn’t go well. I snapped them on my pants, shoved my feet in my boots and the stupid things slipped right off my foot and joined my pants in their ‘let’s crawl up the leg and make Joules look frumpy’ plans. Assholes.

I kept fussing with them and getting all sweaty because frankly my feet are kind of far away and I’m not that bendy. I figured out a little trick to make them work though so I thought I’d share it with you all and save you the hassle.

Here’s what the boot straps look like; just a little strip of elastic with two flat clips:

First, clip one side of the boot straps onto the FRONT of your cuff. Try to get it an inch or so in front of the seam that runs up your jeans.

Then, attach the other clip about an inch or so in front of the other seam. It may feel a little odd at first, but will feel normal after a minute or two.

By clipping the straps forward like that, the elastic stays nice and snugly in the arch of your foot when you put your boot on – instead of slipping right off your heal. Once your boot is on, you can wiggle your foot around and everything will snap into place perfectly.

When I take my boots off, I just un-clip my boot straps and throw them inside each boot for safekeeping. That way I always know where they are. I feel like someone crafty could totally make these for hardly any cost, but honestly it was worth it to me to just buy them online. Since I can use them with all of my boots, I don’t really feel like more than one set is necessary.

Have you tried boot straps before? Did you also have the issue of them slipping right off your foot when you went to put your foot inside your boot?

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Reviewing Firmoo Glasses

Over the weekend I teased my Instagram and Facebook friends with a sneak peek of my new glasses from Firmoo and now I’m happy to have the chance to share my full review.

I’ve seen online glasses places pop up all over the place lately, but felt like it must be one of those “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is” kind of things. I mean, we JUST bought Travis a new pair of glasses from the mall for somewhere around $400… so how could they possibly offer something just as great for less than a quarter of the price?!

When Firmoo reached out to me and offered a pair of glasses for me to review, I thought it would be a great opportunity to see if it really was all that and a bag of chips.

Since I wear contacts most of the time, I usually only break out my glasses before bed, early in the morning and during allergy season. I have a designer pair I like from a few years ago, so I thought that it would be fun to get some more “trendy” frames to play around with. I’ve wanted a pair of cat eye frames for ages, so I decided to finally try them out.

The Firmoo website has a ton of really cool and funky frames, but I narrowed it down to #F033 or #F038 because they both had the cat eye look I was going for.

I was totally unsure of how they would look on my face though, so I uploaded a couple pictures of myself and played around with the frames. First I tried a couple options with the #F033 frames:

Um. Yuck. They look terrible. I mean, I want a bit of a pointy corner, but these look really bad on me.

So then, I tried the same pictures with the #F038 frames:

Better. I mean, it’s still kind of weird to just plop a picture of a frame on top of my face… but these look kind of cute.

I called up my eye doctor and had them give me my last eye glasses prescription over the phone and went ahead and ordered the #F038 glasses. I figured if I hated them, I had three days to return them. Also, I was getting them for free… so I really wasn’t losing anything but my time.

Imputing all the information onto the glasses order was super easy and my glasses arrived in my mailbox about 2 ½ weeks later.

I gave my dresser a good ol’ windex job and took a few pictures for you:

I think it’s fair to say that I’m pretty darn impressed. The lenses are exactly my prescription and the frames are substantial without being irritatingly heavy on my face. I love the fun designs on the sides of the frames too. They fit great and Firmoo even included a little tool to tighten the screws if I ever need to.

Here’s my best “trying on glasses” pose:

Just kidding. I took a ton of pictures and this one was so dorky that it made me laugh… so of course, I had to share it.

Here’s a normal picture… I mean, as normal as you’re going to get with me:

Kinda cute, right? The best part is that if I would have paid for them they would have only cost me $45.95! That is SO insanely cheap for glasses and next time Travis needs a pair we are definitely going to go with Firmoo.

I don’t know if they are going to hold up for years and years the way my designer pairs do, but for less than $50 I can get EIGHT different pairs of glasses for the price we paid for just one pair a couple months ago. Now instead of worrying over a glasses purchase because I’ll have to live with them forever, I can actually try something trendy without having a huge money commitment!

Have you ever ordered glasses online? When choosing glasses do you usually get something classic or go totally funky?

Disclaimer: Firmoo provided me with a free pair of glasses for review purposes; however all thoughts and opinions are my own. There are Firmoo referral links in this post and if you use my link I will receive a very small reward (even though the price will totally stay the same for you).

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How to Snag Frye Boots for a Steal

You guys remember when I was obsessing over getting myself a pair of Frye boots? My old faithful winter boots had kicked the bucket and I really wanted a replacement pair that were made out of REAL leather, were classically stylish and would keep my feet warm and dry all winter long.

For years, I really wanted a pair of actual Frye boots (and not the knock off Frye look-a-likes that Target was selling for a while), but the price kept scaring me away. I know the whole ‘get what you pay for’ thing, but paying over $300 for a pair of shoes was just NOT in my budget.

Well, long story short… I got my boots. I actually am now the proud owner of TWO pairs of Frye boots and I was able to get such awesome deals that I wanted to share a couple tips with you!

Tip #1: Figure out EXACTLY what you want.
Go to a store that has a nice selection of Fryes, pretend you’re rich and TRY THEM ALL ON! That’s right; those $500 boots that make you pee a little because they’re so darn pretty? Put them on your feet and prance around.

I did my trying on at Nordstrom Rack and a super snazzy boot store I visited while I was in Austin. By trying on a bunch of styles, you can figure out exactly what you like. Are booties your thing, or do you prefer the taller boots? If you usually wear a couple different shoe sizes depending on the brand, try a few sizes on and figure out which one fits you perfectly. Take your time and figure it out. But DO NOT make the rookie mistake of falling in love with a pair and buying them!

Tip #2: Do your research.
Now that you know what you want, figure out how much they typically cost. For example, let’s say you love the taller harness-style boots, like the Jenna Belted Harness Fryes. On the Frye website they cost $498. However, the very similar Frye Belted Harness 12R are on Zappos for $278. You can also find deals on flash sale websites like 6pm, HauteLook and many more. Just narrow down what you are looking for FIRST so you can jump on it if you see it.

When looking at the Harness boots, $278 was certainly better than $498… but still more than I was willing to spend. So I hit my favorite online store of all: eBay!

There are a million ways you can search on eBay, but if you want to get the super deals you’re going to have to put in a little work. See, I can easily type in “Frye Jenna Belted Harness boot 8” to pull up any of the boots that are listed. However, if the person listing the boots is knowledgeable enough to know exactly what the style is called… well; they probably know what they are worth too.

Instead, be creative. Search for “Frye boots”, “Fry boots”, “Frye boot” and more. Once you have some results, narrow it down by shoe size to see what is available. I also like to choose “pre-owned” instead of “new” because if they’ve been worn before they will most likely be cheaper and broken in already! Look at all the pictures, even if they are really crappy pictures. This is why you learned what you liked… so you can recognize it even in a blurry picture.

Remember, you’re still doing your research. So click “watch” on a few pairs that you like and just follow along and see what they end up selling for. This will help you get an idea of what you’ll probably pay for a similar pair.

I like to do the search a couple different ways: first I’ll sort by price to see which ones are marked super low to start. Then, I’ll sort by Time Ending Soonest to see if any are reasonably priced with no bids. Don’t get fooled by low bidding prices though. Many times boots will start out with a $25 bid and then in the last hour of the auction it gets fierce with bids and goes right back up to the typical sales price.

Tip #3: Be patient… but when the moment is right JUMP ON IT!
So, you followed my first two tips and you’ve been stalking your dream boots for a couple weeks now. You’ve watched online and see that typically the ones you want get bid up to around $130 – $150 every single time. You even set up a little automated search on eBay so that it emails you when new boots with your specifications are listed. You go, girl (or boy)!

You’re in the sweet spot. You know what you want. You know how much it typically costs. So now you’re crouched like a TIGER ready to unleash your FURY!

Check out the boots listed in the “Buy it Now” section. These are the ones that you don’t have to bid on and you already know how much they will go for. For example, we now know that the harness boots I liked would be about $500 new or go for $150 – $200 in an eBay auction. So, when I saw a pair of “Boots Frye” listed with a starting bid of $63 and a “Buy it Now” price of $89… I stopped and stared.

There were only a couple pictures and a style wasn’t named… but I would recognize that harness anywhere… Now, the starting bid of $63 seemed awfully tempting. I mean, if I waited until the last few minutes of the auction and put in my bids I could have walked away with the boots for a steal. However, remember that last tip where I watched and waited and learned how much the boots typically go for? Well, now is the time to use that information! So, if $63 seems too good to be true, than it probably is. But $89 was also a FANTASTIC price and if I hit “buy it now” they were MINE. No waiting, watching and bidding against anyone else.

See… now that you have all the information you need to JUMP ON IT! Hit “buy it now” pay the bill and wait with baited breath for your mail to arrive!

Of course, you don’t have to only do the “Buy it Now” option. You can absolutely choose to bid on a pair of boots that you like. Just keep in mind that other people are probably watching and waiting to bid too. Have a number in mind for your maximum bid and don’t let the adrenaline of bidding against other people push that out of your head! You can absolutely get a steal if you’re on top of things and know when to walk away.

These tips are EXACTLY how I ended up with my two pairs of Frye boots. The first pair I bought are the Wyatt Disc Short boots, which sell for $350 new and around $150 on eBay. I got them as a “buy it now” option for $99.

My second pair – which I have literally worn every single day since they arrived – are the Jenna Belted Harness Frye boots. They sell for $498 on the Frye website, around $150 – 200 on eBay and I got them as a “buy it now” option for $89 plus shipping.

It can be done, I promise!

Tell me, have you gotten any steals off eBay? Do you have any tips to add to my three for getting a super deal?

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