DIY Friday: Project Inspiration

Hello there lovelies,

I'm feeling rather sorry for myself tonight because I went for my first twenty-five minute solid run last night (yay!), and seem to have somehow twisted/injured my knee (boo!). It started twinging a little this morning, and was full-blown searing pain by this afternoon. I'm spending my Friday night with my knee propped up on a cushion, pumped to the gills with ibuprofen - so what's better to do than put together a DIY to-do list? Here's a few projects on my list:

Button-covered belt! This looks fairly simple, but incredibly time-consuming.

This is such a cute idea, and I am running a little low on clothing with geek cred right now.

An adorable way to liven up a plain pair of tights for Winter.

I really need to start wearing a watch again, so I think this is just the ticket.

Another cute way to jazz up some tights for the upcoming Winter months.

I died a little when I missed out on the Missoni Target thing, so I might just make myself these.

Happy Friday everyone! What's on your DIY to-do list at the moment? In reality, mine mainly includes mending pairs of The Boyfriend's pants, but this list is much more exciting, in my opinion!

Until next time, xo.

What I Wore: The High-School Throwback Edition

Hey there guys,

I actually wore this outfit last weekend, when I was feeling somewhat nostalgic for my youth - and my days of wearing outfits that were mostly held together by safety pins. Oh man, I remember this one cool t-shirt that I had. It had the muppets on it, playing in some kind of rock band & I slashed it up so that the side seams & shoulder seams were held together by safety pins, and the sleeves were saftey pinned on. It was my favourite shirt. I wore it to TAFE/high school pretty much every day. I think I still have the pieces of it somewhere, waiting for a DIY resurrection. This outfit reminds me so much of highschool - the friends and the frenemies, the boys I "loved" and the boys I "hated", the broken hearts, the highschool sweethearts, the growth, the exploration, the alienation.

I am wearing: an opshopped t-shirt that I shredded myself ($1), the infamous grey singlet that was long ago stolen from The Boyfriend, pants from Target ($39.95), sandals from Trade Secret ($14.95), and my favourite owl necklace from Sarah Misfit. A side-note to anyone that wants to try shredding a t-shirt themselves: that shit takes forever! I worked on this over a weekend, and then every day after work for a week and still only got this far (front & back). It's also hard to do without creating huge holes in the shredded pieces of the shirt. But it looks pretty damn awesome, amirite? Although, I did feel obliged to be a little sullen and moody all day. Perhaps a throwback to my highschool self? I guess we'll never really know.

Until next time, xo.

DIY Friday: How to Make a Cute Colour-Block Dress From Two Ugly Shirts

Hello there lovelies,

Happy belated DIY Friday! Apologies that I'm running so late, but I had a very relaxing Friday this week, and I was loathe to disturb it for anything, even blogging. Anyway, this DIY project was inspired by my new work shirts. A few weeks ago we got new flashy work uniforms with our names embroidered on them! I'm pretty happy because I've never had a name on my shirt before, but I was initially stumped about what to do with my incredibly ugly old work shirts. We were required to wear polo shirts, and the only ones I could find on short notice were a couple of brightly coloured men's ones. Then I got to thinking - what trend can I approach with two brightly coloured polo shirts begging for a refashion? Colour-blocking of course! This is how I made my two ugly shirts into a cute colour-block dress:

Equipment required for this project: Two loose-fitting polo shirts/t-shirts, tailors chalk, something to measure a straight line with (a ruler, or even Australian Sky & Telescope magazine should suffice), scissors, and a sewing machine.

First, take the shirt that will make up the top and bottom of your dress. Draw a line with your tailors chalk straight across the shirt about an inch from the bottom of the armpit. Cut your shirt into two pieces, and keep both. Take your second shirt, and repeat the line & cutting about an inch below the armpit. Now, cut off the bottom hem of the second shirt as well (sorry I don't have a picture of this, but they turned out crazy blurry for some reason!). You should have a tube of shirt left from the second shirt.

Now, we're going to create the bodice of the dress, and get rid of this ugly collar. I wanted a nice round, low neck for my dress, so I marked a u-shape with my tailors chalk, finishing an equal measurment from both shoulder seams. Cut out the u-shape.

My shirt also had pretty ugly hems on the sleeves, so I cut those off too.
Now line up your pieces, and bask in the glory of how awesome your dress is going to be! Then, get down to sewing business. You need to sew the bodice of the dress to the middle piece, and the middle piece to the bottom piece. You'll need to sew the pieces right sides together, so that your messy seam is on the inside of the dress, not the outside (the right side of the fabric is the side you're going to see).

Ta-da! Now all that's left is to hem your neckline & sleeves, and get on with looking awesome!

I styled my dress with a waist belt (Trade Secret, $12.95), an owl necklace (Trade Secret, $4.95), and a pair of brogues (Trade Secret, $19.95). What would you style yours with? Do you like the colour-blocking trend that's making the rounds? If you make one of these yourself, will you send me pictures? Please? I hope you do!

Until next time, xo.

DIY Friday/Book Club: Little Green Dresses

Hello there lovelies,

I actually did have another wicked DIY tutorial cooked up for you this week, but with everything going on I didn't have time to bring the idea to fruition. Rest assured, I'll have it ready for you next week! In the meantime, here's another cool book for our blogging book club. One with a DIY edge, in the theme for DIY Friday - Little Green Dresses.

I bought this book as a birthday present to myself last year, along with a few style photography books & Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. I was browsing The Book Depository looking for a book to inspire me to get back into DIY, and this little number with it's cute, stylish cover caught my eye. I waited eagerly for it to arrive, and I wasn't disappointed when it did. Little Green Dresses is a gorgeously styled sewing book, and it is full of inspiration & ideas, which I think would be beneficial for both beginning & more experienced sewing.

Little Green Dresses contains six sections: two sections of sewing info, and then project instructions for tops, skirts, dresses and bottoms & rompers. The first info section is all about sewing techniques, and covers everything from fabric types to seams & hems, to interfacing, adding darts & inserting zippers. The second info section is about using & creating your own patterns, and it covers cutting patterns, taking your own measurements, style lines & altering patterns, as well as including detailed instructions for drafting your own "master" pattern. The project sections include instructions for refashioning of certain items, projects requiring simple pattern-making skills and more complex projects based on altering your master pattern in particular ways.

I really loved the bright, clear & beautifully polished images throughout Little Green Dresses. Seeing a finished project photographed well & styled in the context of an actual outfit always gives me an idea of whether it is something I would wear once I finished it. I found that the instructional sections were written in a manner that was easy to understand, easy to follow, and interesting! I think it is often the nail in the coffin of DIY books that their instructions are written so dryly that they send me to sleep, so this was a nice change. I think that some of the project instructions may be a little hard to understand depending on how much experience you have sewing with patterns, but the included diagrams really helped me visualise how the pieces of each garment come together. All-in-all, I loved this Little Green Dresses to bits!

The only (maybe slightly negative) note that I would like to make is that I don't believe that the cover is 100% accurate in saying that the book contains "50 original patterns for repurposed dresses, tops, skirts & more". If you are thinking of purchasing, keep in mind that the book itself does not actually contain any patterns . What it does have is detailed diagrams & instructions for making your own patterns, and how to tweak a master pattern to make a range of different designs. This doesn't actually bother me. I think that Little Green Dresses is a fun & easy to understand lesson in drafting your own patterns & repurposing. I just want to drive home the point that it does not come with any premade patterns - if you're not looking to start drafting your own patterns then this is probably not the book for you.

The only question left for me is this: which of these projects should I attempt first?

Weigh in! Do you own Little Green Dresses? What did you think of it? And should I make the Ambiguous T Dress, or the Nip-Waist dress first?

DIY Friday: How To Make A Headband Worthy of Blair Waldorf

Hello there lovelies,

Every fictional Upper East Sider worth their salt knows that you are nothing without a headband. Blair Waldorf never goes far without one, she uses them to crown her personal army, and when she moves on from high school a bejewelled headband is used to crown the next "queen" of the school. So, it is only fitting that during Gossip Girl week we learn how to make a headband worthy of Blair Waldorf herself.

Equipment required for this project: A large piece of lace (I used part of a thrifted lace curtain), a headband (I got this one from Just Jeans in my first year out of high school), a tape measure, tailors chalk, scissors & a sewing machine/handsewing.
First we're going to measure from one end of the headband to the other, lengthwise. My measurement is 37cm. Remember your measurement!

Next we're going to measure the width of the headband - my measurement here is 4cm. Remember this measurement as well!

Now, we use your tailors chalk to draw a rectangle on your lace, using the measurements we have just taken. You will need to double your width measurement so that the lace will fit around the headband. Remember to leave a couple of centimetres for seam allowance! My measurements were 37cm & 4cm, so my rectangle measured 40cm length by 10cm width (width measurement doubled + seam allowance).

Then we jump on our sewing machines and make a tube out of our lace! Fold your lace rectangle in half, with the wrong sides outwards. Stitch one of the short ends closed, and then turn your fabric to stitch the long end closed. Leave the other short end unstitched for now!

Turn your lace tube right side out...

And then squeeze it over your headband!

Now you've got something like this! A cute lace headband - and the lace pattern conveniently hides the skull pattern on my original headband. Fold the unstitched short end in, and handsew (or machine, if you're brave) shut. Blair Waldorf fans will realise though that a simple cute lace headband isn't enough for Blair. We've got to add some more detail!

Next, cut another long strip out of your lace. If you're feeling energised, or your lace looks like it will fray then finish the edges of the strip on your sewing machine. If you're lazy like me, just tie your strip into a bow. The longer the lace strip, the bigger the bow! I actually cut out a super-long strip of lace, and then doubled it over so that my bow would look a bit fuller.

Now attach the bow to your headband. You can do this using craft glue (which I am currently all out of), using a safety pin, or like I was forced to do due to the lack of craft glue, with a bobby pin/hairpin. Of course, the upside of attaching the bow with a safety pin or hairpin is that you can remove it depending on what kind of look you want!

All that's left now is to put your new pretty on, go outside and practice your best Blair Waldorf smirk. I'm not very good at it. I don't really think that evil smirking is really in my nature. I think I'm much more of a weird wide-eyed semi-duck-face expression kind of person. But at least now I'm a weird wide-eyed semi-duck-faced person with a pretty headband!

You know you love me, xoxo.

DIY Friday: How To Remix The Same Dress Five Times

Remixing, or wearing the same items of clothing in a variety of different ways, is a favourite sport of mine. It's way to combine my love of creative dressing, with my desire to stop buying so many clothing items & be thriftier. In my wardrobe I always notice that there are particular items that I come back to, over and over again. Remixing isn't hard - it just takes a little imagination & creativity to get you started. If you're having trouble getting the remixing ball going, here are a few ways to make it easier:

Acessorise Like A Maniac. An outfit, or an item of clothing can be completely changed if you wear it with different accessories. My favourite floral dress (pictured above) has probably been worn with every different accessory I own. I wear it belted at the waist, with scarves tied around it, with no belt, with leggings & tights, or bare legged, with Doc Martens, with sandals, with knee-high boots, with ankle boots, with long necklaces, short necklaces, no necklaces, with black, with brown, with red, with yellow, and over jeans as a tunic top. Get crazy with your accessories, and you can have a completely different look every time you wear an item of clothing.

Layers, Layers, Layers. Layers change the look of a piece of clothing in an instant. Try looking at your favourite t-shirt in the mirror with different types of vests, jackets, cardigans or knits over the top. Layer up shorts with funky tights or leggings. Dresses can even be layered! Whack a skirt over a short dress & you've got a whole new top. Put a top on over a maxi-dress, and everyone will wonder where you got your new maxi-skirt. Wear your jeans & pants with boots over the top, and underneath, or with varying lengths of tops for a different look. Just pile your shit on, and see how it turns out. I promise, you'll find a look you like!

Identify & Shop For Workhorses. Whether you're a thrifter, or a chain store queen, there are always items waiting to be found that will slot perfectly into your wardrobe. First you need to think about the things that you feel are missing from your wardrobe. Do you always think your outfits would be better with a blazer, but you don't have one? Do you constantly bemoan not having a pair of fire-engine red tights? These are the things that it is a good idea to spend your money on, because you are obviously going to remix them! When I put on some extra weight around my hips recently, I noticed that I was really mourning having a pair of jeans that fit me nicely. It took me a few months to find a really good pair, but I kept on looking. Now I only need to have two pairs of jeans in my wardrobe - a pair of skinnies, and a pair of boyfriend jeans - because they work so well with everything else that I own. Once upon a time I had trouble culling my jeans down to the paltry amount of 10, because each pair worked so well with particular things, and looked terrible with everything else.

Remixing doesn't have to be boring. Articles about remixing often tell you to invest in lots of basics, in neutral colours - black t-shirt, a white button-up, black dress pants etc. - so that everything you have matches. I don't think clothing items need to be neutral to be remixed. The most remixed items in my closet are a thrifted owl print blouse (pictured above), a polka-dot dress (pictured above), colourful pants, and a floral bow-back dress (pictured at top). Items with personality, and a bit of a "wow" factor are still totally remixable. Once again, you just need to get creative. Try these items in combination with lots of different things - things that you don't even think will look good together, because sometimes they work even more splendidly than what your mind immediately jumps too. Put together colours that "don't work", mix up those patterns & get totally wild up in there!

Forget "Occasions". If you have it set in your mind that a certain clothing item is only appropriate for a certain occasion then you won't wear it as often as you could! Here's a story to illustrate my point: Jane bought a beautiful dress to wear to a wedding. Everyone at the wedding loved the dress, and it made Jane feel fabulous. But Jane felt like she could only wear a dress that special to a wedding, so she kept it hidden in her wardrobe waiting in vain for more friends to get married. When someone else finally did get hitched, she went looking for her perfect dress & found that it had been eaten by radioactive mice living in the back of her wardrobe. The end. You don't want that to happen to you, do you?

How do you feel about remixing? Would you rather have new clothes for every day of the week, or do you like the challenge of crafting new outfits from the same pieces? If you do love to remix, tell me all about it!

Until next time, xo.

DIY Friday: How To Make A Statement Necklace From T-Shirt Scraps

Hello there lovelies,

If you've reading my blog for a while you just might vaguely remember me trying my hand at making some necklaces out of t-shirt scraps. Well, since then I've given a bit of thought to refining the process, and decided to make a tutorial out of it. Prepare to learn how to make a cool statement necklace out of old t-shirt scraps!

Equipment required for this project: t-shirts that you don't mind cutting up (the longer you want your necklace to be the bigger t-shirt you're going to need), scissors, about 10 buttons of assorted shapes & sizes, coloured thread (the kind you made friendship bracelets out of in primary school), ribbon and an assortment of beads. Oh, and feet (or a bulldog clip).

Apparently I forgot to take a photo of this, but start by cutting the bottom of your t-shirt off. You don't have to use the whole bottom half, just a small piece off the bottom will give you enough fabric. Next, cut down one of the side seams of the shirt so that you have one long, flat piece of t-shirt.

Cut your long flat piece of t-shirt into three long strips. This stripy fabric was helpful for this, as I didn't have to mark how big I wanted the strips to be for them to be equal sizes.

Next, you need to choose what ribbon or colourful thread to put into your necklace. I chose a yellow ribbon, and orange piece of thread for this one. Tie all your strips together with a knot, leaving enough length after the knot to tie your necklace around your neck at the end.

Secure your strips down with something. Because I am weirdly flexible, with strange monkey feet, I just hold my strips between my toes. Apparently attaching them to the back of a chair with a bulldog clip works just as well, if you're lacking in the monkey feet department. We're going to plait these strips together, just like plaiting hair (I held the ribbon with one strip of t-shirt, and the thread with another so that there were still three strips to be plaited).

Keep going with the plaiting! This part takes a while, so maybe watch a DVD or something while you're doing it. I watched The Boyfriend play his new copy of Mass Effect 3, which is pretty much the same as watching a movie. When you're finished plaiting, tie all the strips in another knot, remembering to leave enough length at the end for tieing!

Now you've got something looking like this. Pretty cool & colorful, but still a little boring.

Get out your random assortment of buttons! Try and choose some of different sizes & patterns.

Take a small length of thread, put it through the button holes and tie your buttons tightly to the necklace with a strong knot. Make sure you tie the knots really tight so that your buttons don't move around! I tied a couple of knots, just to be sure they would hold.

Keep tying on buttons until your necklace looks like this! I used ten buttons, but you could use as many or as few as you like. Hurray! Pretty easy, huh? Here's how to DIY another type that I've been making lately:

Again, cut three long strips of t-shirt material. Choose three different coloured pieces of thread, and tie all the strips together in a knot, leaving enough room to tie the necklace at the end. One t-shirt strip and one coloured thread together will make one strip for plaiting, but that comes a bit later.

Grab out your assortment of beads, and start tying them onto the strips/threads at different places. Put a knot right before where you want a bead, and another one after to hold the beads in place.

Keep going until you have a crapton of beads knotted onto your strips & threads.

Now, use your cah-razy monkey feet (or bulldog clip) to hold the strips tight as you plait them all together. When you reach the other end, tie all the strips in another knot, again remembering to leave enough length to tie the necklace.

What you'll have will look a little like some variety of bead factory exploded onto your necklace, which is pretty awesome in my books.

All that's left now is to rock the bajeesus out of your easy & thrifty new necklaces, possibly in front of your tripod for photos while your neighbours stare at you & wonder whether you've finally gone insane.

For the record, no, I haven't gone insane. I've been there for a long time, and I enjoy it immensely. How are you guys enjoying these DIY Friday posts? While I'm always brainstorming new DIY's to whip up for you, is there anything in particular you would like to see?

Until next time, xo.

P.S. Here's a photo of my goofy smile.