Pinterest-Inspired Fashion Challenge?

1) The big winter holidays usually mean more traveling than usual, more seeing people than usual, and more doing things out of the normal for me - from attending concerts, to being in concerts, to family pictures... my usual issue of jeans and a t-shirt - even dressed up a little - doesn't always cut it.

2) Holiday concert performances require black outfits, something I no longer have. (Meanwhile, from 2000 to 2009, my not-jeans-and-a-tee wardrobe was almost exclusively black performance wear.)

3) Although I meant to get black slacks, I accidentally also picked up a black dress - which needed accessories.

4) I am not really an accessories kind of woman. Okay, I might own about 6 purses at the moment, and somewhere between 15 and 20 shoes, but other than that, I really don't know how to do accessories. I don't own any belts. One winter scarf (which I've never actually worn). Two bracelets (gifts I received this year). One necklace (worn for a wedding, never since). Um... I think that's really it. Oh, two pairs of tights - are tights accessories??

Anyway, the point is, that all of these factors together started me down an initially unintentional path toward some Pin' inspired outfits and accessories.

Even though neither fashion, nor accessories, nor taking photos of myself are areas I'm really comfortable in, I figured I'd keep the momentum going and roll the unintentional into something a bit more intentional (especially since I think I wanted to do 3 non-food related challenges from my Pinterest ideas, and my first two attempts have crashed bad - no, no sharing...).

Here are my accidents:
1) I have been crushing these outfits 1, 2, 3, 4. I accidentally bought a black dress. It's not exactly  like any of the ones I've been looking at, but I think it'll do - though it's a bit of a blank canvas kind of dress...
2) I have been hinting about picking up something like this or this  as a birthday/Christmas gift. Without realizing just how close, I bought something very similar completely on a whim.

Even though I had a packing list worked up telling me just what to take on all my trips (type A personality sometimes? I think so...), I am thinking that to kick this into an intentional challenge, I am going to pick a couple inspiration looks from my Pinterest boards and try to create a version for me - and of course, to add a little more challenge, the goal being to avoid buying something new just to make it happen. With one exception - because I already have tights on the list, I'm allowing myself no more than two pair of new tights. Everything else has to come out of the closet, out of the drawer, or be borrowed. Not even thrift shops.

Yikes. Putting that in writing it sounds harder than I thought it would be when I was just kicking the idea around the other night... but that kind of makes me want to do it even more!