Go Home Pinterest, you're drunk!

My last minute 'Oh yeah, I bought that a month ago to do for a Christmas craft project!' ornament. I highly recommend using a plastic Christmas ball, there's no way a glass one would have worked for this one.

Take off the top.

Choose your color(s).

And begin!

Put the top back on, (very carefully), and shake. Shake it high, shake it low, shake it up, shake it down, then groan when it doesn't turn out exactly the way you wanted, haha.

Still, not bad, and I enjoyed it as a project! I'm definitely going to do more of these, with visions of glitter and hot pink colors dancing through my head!

Merry Christmas!

Coral Refashion. Can't Wait For Spring!

Hello again! Today I'm showing a new favorite refashion. This coral two piece, way too big dress probably was the hot thing for office or church wear in it's day, but I'm going to give it a new spin!

As you can see, it needed a bit of lovin.

Unfortunately, I lost my pictures of the refashion process when I ordered a new phone, my old one decided to stop working when I tried to transfer info to the computer. Bum. You'll just have to use your imagination.

I toyed with multiple ideas but finally decided to chop the top sleeves off and go for a mid length maxi. I had been so happy about the fact that this dress had a zipper, then realized with chopping off, that it would need a new zip. I rummaged around my notions, and found a white zipper. It's not the invisible kind, but I liked the contrast. So I put on my brave face and attempted my first ever zip. (After I watched a few tutorials, haha). It was a 'zip-cess'! (Say Cheeeeeeeese!) 

I had to take it in around the bust for a more fitted look, (and so it would actually stay on), and it actually took me two tries to take it in, gah! Even then I still had to take it in around the bust (there's an actual name for that, that I'm sure I'll remember once I hit the 'publish' button.). So now my pretty dress wouldn't fall off of me when I walked. I'd given myself plenty of room up top for modesty purposes, but was still worried about the dress just not staying put. So I thought about getting some white ribbon for straps, to match the white zip in the back. 

Then I realized the detail on the jacket (where it buttons up) was rather pretty, and wouldn't be so tacky if it was turned into halter straps. So halter straps I made. Sewed up the slit in the back just a bit, and my new comfy dress was ready Freddie!

I really like it, and it's got that comfy, southern, summer feel, so even though it's December, (78 degrees outside, I'm in The South ya'll), I may wear it whenever I choose anyway, and not wait til spring. Maybe I'll set a new trend, haha..

I think I will eventually raise that hem a couple of inches, but I'll do that later.

Much love!

Lots and lots of yarn

A few months ago I finally learned how to crochet a granny square, yay youtube tutorials! Oh the joy, now I can make those amazing blankets I keep seeing on Pinterest! I grabbed a gorgeous dark aqua green color and made a whole bunch of squares! I started laying them out on the floor after I'd made about a dozen or so, I wanted to make a blanket big enough to cover my king size bed. After about twenty squares, I laughed and said, 'ok, smaller blanket it is!' I did the math on how many squares I'd have to do for a throw sized blankie, and wished I'd been a lot more smart, and a little less enthusiastic. 130 granny squares later, in several alternating colors, and I was done! This took a couple of weeks. Then I had the pleasure of realizing that my simple plan of sew/crocheting them together with some awesome black yarn to offset the colors, couldn't be done the way I wanted, and I had to individually crochet a black edge and then attach them together. I don't know what it is about me and doing things the hard way.. Here are the colors I chose.

What did they combine into?

Ta da!! The first blanket I've ever completed! (If you don't count small, basic baby blankets.) I actually made more than 130 squares, but I somehow missed that I had two more light green squares to attach in the middle, and went ahead with red, purple, and such.. Didn't discover my mistake til it was too late, at which point I just laughed and carried on anyway. This project was fun to do while watching movies and riding in the car. 

Just finished another fun refashion, hope to have pictures and blog post up soon!

From dated elegance to modern elegance!

Hello my friends! I've been such a slacker lately, my last refashion was almost a month ago.. yikes! I've been very busy lately, in a very good way! More on that later though, let's get to the refashion!

I found this pretty little thing at a thrift store for $5.

I think it's rather elegant as is, but as I am about 15 years too young for this particular look, a little altering was required. The shoulder pads were the first to go, of course. Simple enough, now for the length. My original thought was to cut it off just under the sleeves, and turn the skirt into a maxi dress/skirt. I thought it would make an elegant skirt, but was uneasy about it so I asked a couple of my girls what they thought, and none of them thought it was a good idea to do something that drastic for this piece. (It's a Jessica Howard, probably between $70-$100 originally.) So I chopped to make it above the knee instead.

I thought it was quite convenient that the design of the dress was pretty much right where I needed it for choppage, and choppage commenced. Only for me to discover that I had committed my customary mistake of cutting too short. I suppose I'll learn one of these days. But then, you learn cool things from your mistakes eh? Looking for a silver lining here. I went on to the sleeves and decided to worry about the length later. Those were pretty easy, remove and hem. (I should have given myself a leetle extra room on the outside layer of fabric for hemming the sleeves, but no harm was done, I managed fine.) Now about that length.

I looked at my remaining scrap, which I had thought about possibly turning into a lovely pencil skirt (there was actually enough fabric for that), but then realized I'd need part of it to lengthen my dress. I thought about using the natural hem, and spare myself some stitching, but upon further inspection, found out why the previous owner had disposed of the dress in the first place. Some yukky looking stains.

 I don't know if it's very clear from this pic, but those are definitely some kind of yellowish stains, I dare not try to find out what. Well never mind then! I went to the top of the scrap piece and realized I could chop down to the next straight bar of the design, and attach that to the bottom of the skirt. You can see from the design that I couldn't just use any part of the skirt, it had to flow and match somehow. Chop again, very very carefully. I pinned my 3 inch section of newly chopped fabric to the bottom of my dress, and discovered it would be perfect! Sewing commenced! Stitch stitch whiiirrrrr... Happily I go til the last six inches, whereupon I realized I would be just over half an inch short. I really don't know how that happened. Groan!!!! After having a teensy tiny little meltdown, I decided to see if this particular knit/metallic/something else fabric had any reasonable stretch to it, and thanks be, it did! I stretched the fabric to make it fit, which it just barely did (and btw, that is totally cheating, but who cares?) And the dress was finished! I took a good look at it and realized I would not have to hem it at all, so that worry was removed. Now I just had to match jewelry and I'd be good to go! I have to add here that I considered dying it originally, maybe a lovely light blue? But took a look at the different fabric combo and looked up everything I could about dye, and decided it wasn't worth the risk on something this pretty.

I discovered that much to my dismay, gold was really the only thing that would go with it, and I am NOT a gold fan. I have exactly two pieces of gold jewelry, and both pieces are more costume jewelry than fine, but that actually ended up working just fine.

So, on with the gold jewelry and pink shoes! (That combo actually did go together quite well, but I forgot about those shoes for the pic.. oops!)

Voila!

You see? Not so bad after all I think! It's virgin outing was to a wedding. A wedding to which I was greatly overdressed, but I styled and profiled anyway! I love the way the bottom strip looks like it ruffles in the breeze. (It totally does), and I think it looks like it was made that way. :)

Before and After

 

I think this one is my favorite refashion yet! Much love! I've purchased about four other new refash's, hopefully it won't take me a month to complete and post this time, but it's holiday season, I've got a Christmas play and alot of other things, so promise you won't be too disappointed if I don't get to it!! Much love!

Best ever $1 refashion!

Hello again! Today I'm premiering my favorite (so far) refashion! This was a one dollar score from the Humane Society Thrift Store.

I wasn't 100% sure about the print, was it too mature for me? Eh, why not, it's $1, and it's an experiment.
I started with the usual removal of the sleevage.

This dress had fabric bunched in the side, which made an edge that draped over the shoulder. I saw that when I chopped and hemmed the sleeve, this edge would hang over the sleeve a bit, but I decided not to worry about it at the moment, who knows? I might like it.

Next I had to do something about that neckline. It's a button up top, though you can't tell from the pic, the buttons were covered by a strip of fabric. I cut a V neck because I didn't think a scoop would work with the buttons, and I wasn't sure I wanted a scoop neck anyway. I had to cut it a little lower than I would have preferred, because of the button placement, but it wasn't really a problem. 

I could've left the back alone just fine, but thought I might like to have a little breathing room, so I cut a little V for the back as well. (Also toyed with the idea of being able to wear the buttons in the front and the back.) The V wasn't very hard to cut, just had to measure properly, but I was still a bit nervous cutting it. But there, it turned out really well!

I hemmed everything up, and it looked well and beautiful. Now I just had to decide what to do with the skirt. I didn't like the length, but couldn't decide whether to make it a short skirt, or something else. It occurred to me to try making a peplum out of it, since store bought peplum so far is not my friend.
Peplum to me, is tricky. The only tops out there seem to be for short waisted people. I have never, and will never be accused of being short, in any capacity, so I've figured peplum will be one style I shall have to forego. Until now. I tried on my almost finished garment and anxiously tried to find out what would be a great length for me. With great trepidation I finally laid down the dress carefully and sliced. (Didn't get a pic of that.) I tried it on with bated breath, and voila!! It was perfect! I had cut it exactly where I wanted it! It was a great day, I was so happy! And this refash took maybe an hour to do from start to finish! I was done with time to spare for Bible study, booyah! Here's the finished product! 

You can see the edges I was talking about that went over the sleeves. I decided to keep it, it works just fine for me.

I really really like it! This is one of the more wearable pieces I've refashioned, and for what was an experiment that could've gone wrong, I'm very happy with it. (I wear a little modesty panel with it, the kind that clips onto your bra, very convenient!)

Before and After

  

DIY Puzzle Pictures

Good afternoon everyone! This post will be a slight break from refashions, and will be more crafty. Today's project I'm talking about is no stroke of genius, but a very fun project nonetheless.

I'm talking about puzzles! 

I found this wonderfully tempting Thomas Kincade puzzle of one of my favorite movies, 'Gone With The Wind.' It was only $8 at Walmart! (See, Walmart is good for some things..)

Isn't it just gorgeous? I'm dying over here, look at the color combinations! This thousand piece beauty took me less than a month to finish, and with the exception of the top left corner (the tree branches from those two trees), I enjoyed every minute of it! I was actually kind of sad when it was over. :( I didn't want to take it apart though, and decided to get it framed. So I carefully turned it over and applied some Mod Podge to the back. Two or three layers was sufficient and I set out to find a frame. (Note: If you do this, keep the puzzle flat at all times, even after the glue dries, otherwise it will find a way to bend somehow.) I was unable to find a frame that I could in good conscience pay for, so I bought a piece of white cardboard and glued the puzzle to that. A visit to my favorite Hob Lob store for some hanging clips (the kind you can push in, eeeek!) And it was ready to hang. Now it sits upon my wall (crooked, no less, haha), but lovely and refreshing to see. (The rest of my house is not so refreshing to see, but that's another matter for another day. :)

Isn't it all cute being crooked? Why yes, I do have stuffed animals and ancient, handmade quilts lounging on my couch. I'm not going to tell you that it took me about two weeks to realize the picture was crooked either.

Later I will post about a few other super fun, crafty things I've tried my hand at over the past few years, (Thank you Pinterest!) Bible study tonight, gotta go!

Little Black Dress

Hi pretties! It's been too long, I know! Life has been super busy lately, spent two weeks in CA for vacay with my hubs, we had a wonderful time! I have the funky tan lines to prove it! :) I'll do a post with some pics for that later. Today I'm premiering my copy-cat refash version of an LBD. I found this amazing beauty on Pinterest. Ralph Lauren. Couldn't find a price, but I'm guessing it's around $200. 2012's runway.

So I found this Amish wannabe frock for one dolla! Hello dowdy!

Aren't I pretty, all washed out, and pale? Bleh. This is a rather tired looking black cotton, so it won't be formal (esp because of the length), but it'll do for a semi-formal LBD.

First things first, chop that top!

I like it already! There's something so satisfying about chopping. Then I hemmed up the cut edge. Easy peasy.

Now what to do with those buttons?

I wasn't sure if I could get in and out of the dress without the buttons, so I decided to keep them. I thought about adding a button hole and finding another matching button to close up that last two or three inches, but then I found the clasps. Bingo! Now I just had to match them up and hand stitch them on. I chopped off the other sleeve and hemmed it up. Forgot to take a pic of it. :(
I tried it on multiple times, multiple ways, but the clasp wasn't co-operating, the top fabric kept poking out.  Not cool. I turned the buttons around in to the back, and the fabric bunched up. There's always something. Sigh.

It continued to look funky and bunch up and have issues, so I stopped working on it for awhile, hoping for inspiration. Inspiration was a long time coming. Finally I carefully took the buttons off and just sewed the two flaps together. I am still able to get into the dress!

I left the two top inches unsewn, and attempted to attach the clasps again, but it just wasn't having it. I stewed for waaaay too long (a week or so) on how to fix it, when it occurred to me to just sew it up. Genius. Not really. So all I had to do was fit it. And the corner that dipped down the farthest was showing my bra, so I snipped some fabric from the discarded sleeve, and put a little wedge in that corner. It fixed it wonderfully without looking whack. Now my dress was finally finished and ready!

Ta da!!!! You can see my funky tan line on my shoulder, grrrr, but here it is! I quite like it! Seeing as it's not very formal, I can pair it with a black or silver belt to make it fun sized. Here's the before and after with the copy-cat version.

Savings of at least $150-$199. Booyah! Learned some awesome stuff as usual, and am excited to start my next project! Cheers!

One Dollar Remake

So July 15th, the day before my birthday, I decided to visit the Humane Society Thrift Store, to see what was there to be seen. I'd popped in a week earlier and noticed they'd dropped their prices a bit on clothes, which made me very happy! I expected $2 blouses at the least, which is about as good as it gets in my area. Lo and behold, I walk in on a one day sale, "All women's clothes $1, except bridal and new tags." YESSSSSS!!! It's not even my birthday yet, and it's already my lucky day! I hunted. It was a glorious hunt. I ended up with only four items, three dresses and one top, but I was quite satisfied. Given that for some reason it takes me forever to work up the courage to actually make the first cut, I figured these would last me awhile. 

Now all I had to do was wait for my birthday present, which I suspected would be the dress form I've wanted for months. It came on my birthday, but I was gone all day so didn't open it til midnight!

Yay!!!

I finally decided to start on the first dress yesterday. Here's the before. Size 14.

I'm wearing a slip under it, as it's terrifically see-thru. This pattern isn't quite my normal taste, as I usually prefer louder colors, but when I saw it I had visions of flirty, light summer frocks dancing in my head, so I decided to go for it, just for a change. 

Let the chopping commence!

Off with the sleeves! I debated leaving cap sleeves, but the weather decided for me that I didn't want sleeves. I'm in the South ya'll, this doesn't work so well most of the year!

I had noticed in the dressing room that there were a couple of buttons missing from the front. I debated replacing all the buttons for about 3 seconds, then realized I could probably simply take the two bottom buttons off and just sew up that little section, and use the buttons where needed. 

Yay! That idea worked out pretty well. Slight complication with sewing up the two inches where the buttons originally used to be, apparently as large as the dress is, it wouldn't fit over my hips quite right. It goes over my shoulders remarkably well, however, so problem solved. :)

I took in the sides about an inch or so on each side, and experienced more hassle sewing them up than I ever expected. I tweaked the machine a bit for a zig-zag stitch, and that stitch was the stitch from hell. I didn't take a pic so I can't show you what happened, but I had to take it all out and stick with a regular straight stitch. Grumble. Fabric has a mind of it's own, I tell you. And I am now out of white thread.

The sleeves were not a nightmare, I think I learned tremendous lessons from the last sleeves I hemmed. These turned out very nicely, and were probably the easiest part of the dress to finish. I debated taking off the collar, but then decided I liked it just fine. A touch 50's housewife maybe, but sometimes vintage is cute.

Finally, all that was left was the length to consider. My brilliant idea that I had when trying on the dress, was to chop the skirt in half, and sew the chopped half over the remaining skirt at the waist, making it a two layer skirt. (It was prettier in my head than it sounds like.) So I guesstimated where to chop, and chopped. 

And I chopped too much. Yes, I forgot the rule of thumb, it's better to leave more fabric than less..  Ugh! Here's a pic.

This length might be wonderful for those who do not possess mile long legs, but for me, this is just too short, and I hadn't even hemmed it yet. I think I stalked around the house pouting and grumbling out loud. I think my dog hid in a corner, questioning my sanity. Finally I decided to simply take the fabric I'd chopped, and add about 5 inches to the bottom of my skirt. I didn't see a good way for me to add the fabric over or under the skirt, it still would've been too short. So I start pinning. I pinned beautifully. Turned my dress right side out and looked to be sure I'd pinned it wrong side in. Nope. I pinned it the wrong way. The hem would be facing out of the dress, rather than inside. 

Seriously? I mean really? Sigh. I pull out all my pins, and re-situate the fabric. I'ma do it right this time. Pin, pin, pin. The thought occurs to me that I should check to be sure I'm not repeating the same mistake, but I dismiss the thought. Surely I've learned my lesson by now. Surely I am doing it right this time. Finish pinning and check again before sewing. 

'When will I listen to the voice of reason?' I cried. 

I had pinned it wrong the second time. Pinned it the EXACT same way as I did it the first time. This time I just laughed. No room to be grumpy now, just let me laugh as I take out the pins. I felt much better. This time I checked and rechecked, and then checked again. Started pinning. After about 6 pins, checked frantically to be sure I was doing it right. I was!

So finally I pinned, cut, trimmed, sewed, and my garment was finished. Try it on. Enjoy the feel of the light, airy fabric. Shed a tear that it didn't look exactly like the dress of my dreams. But it's alright. It'll wear. 

Here it is.

I had wanted it to be just an inch or two shorter, and I also didn't exactly want the 5 inch 70's hem, but that didn't work out due to my mistake, so I'll take it as a lesson learned and enjoy my very comfortable dress anyway. It's not something I'd wear to meet the Queen, but...

My hubs takes the picture, and informs me that he's not a fan of button up anything. How am I married to a man's man, fashion sense(less), fabulous guy for over 3 years and not know that he doesn't like buttons?

Before and after pic

Refashion is my new best friend!

Ok, so here's my first ever (truly successful) refashion!!!!!! I'm pretty excited about it! I was wandering in Goodwill the other day, when it occurred to me to check out the outdated, hideous clothes section, for possible refash's. Lo and behold, this 'beauty' caught my attention immediately!

Here it is, in all it's size 18, 80's glory!!! 

I stalked the store for several minutes, searching for a bolero type sweater to go with it, my plan was simply to hike the skirt up over my chest and strap on a belt (there was a zipper and elastic, so this required absolutely no sewing whatsoever, and I already had the handy dandy belt). I didn't want to wear just the skirt as my dress without some kind of sleeves or something to go over my shoulders.. Strapless is not my friend. Seriously. Then it occurred to me, even though it's only my first real refashion, why not have a go at that top and see if I could make it into something passable and pretty? Light bulb moment!!! Bought it! (Seriously Goodwill, $9 for a ugly 30 y/o garment? Not cool.)

Headed home and got to work on it. Chop goes the sleeves, chop goes the bottom part of the top! (Sorry, didn't get proper pics of that process.) Start pinning... 

Ah, what frustration, yet what joy! The vision I had for this piece was gorgeous (of course) the application, well, the less said about that, the better.

After many fittings, and many more fittings, and then a few more after that (I really need a proper dress form, although I think my zebra print is quite nice looking.) I finally gathered enough courage to put needle and thread to my creation, only to discover.....

I didn't have anywhere close to the right color thread. Grump. Off to Joann's I go. Arrive at Joann's to find that I DIDN'T bring a piece of the fabric with me to match the color!!! At least I remembered my coupon. Grumble grumble. Well I'll just guess and pray it's the right thing. (This rarely goes well.) After a good 10 minutes of agonizing over two nearly identical yet COMPLETELY different shades of thread, I gulped and picked the darker shade. Checked out, used the coupon, and treated myself to one of those 50 cent pieces of chocolate goodness thingamabob's. You know, the one with creamy, thicker-than-Hershey's-syrup-but-not-actually-cream consistency? Yeah, that one. It was delicious. Be jealous. So, I get home, and match up the thread.. Waddya know, it's actually a VERY close match! Yay me! Time to get sewing!

For some reason, this kind of edge was a pain in the butt to get even and centered properly. You can see in the earlier pic how it's got a rounded edge over the chest, it's very pretty, but very nit picky to get right. The first run-through I did, I asked my incredible fashion sense(less) husband if the edge was straight. Even he knew it was way off (not posting the pic because it's just not even worth it, use your imagination people!). Ugh. 

Anyway, fast forward, I finally got it even (more or less, we'll just go with more right now), and said, 'whatever, I'm sewing it.'

Whirrr.. It went so much faster and less scary than I anticipated! Done! Now for the sleeves. I'm not even going to go into the sleeves. Suffice it to say that I hemmed them eventually, and they were surprisingly easy after the headache they gave me went away.

Final reveal...

Ta Da!!!!!!!!!!

I'm quite pleased with it! (I actually took in that top a wee bit more after this pic, it was just a bit too big around the sides, but for some reason I don't have a pic of that.. maybe I'll take it and post it later..)

So, this is it! Waddya think? Before and After!