Vintage Haul

Chris and I went to brunch in Brooklyn yesterday with some great friends, and then hit one of my go-to vintage stores for dress-flipping.  We were on a time crunch (aka: I had to pee and there were no bathrooms.  I blame the mimosas), so it was a quick look through the racks.  I grabbed these three dresses and can't wait to get flipping!

 Another great beaded sack  - I'm thinking of a peplum for this.

  A lovely maroon & white prairie frock:  this is going to make a light and airy sundress or layering piece.  

  My favorite find - its very simple, but its in my new favorite color - mint! NO idea what I'm doing with this, so I'm going to have to give this one a good think. I'm open to your ideas!

Thursday DIY: Magazine Necklace

Lets take it back to 1993, when Cat was a bright young 10-yr-old, doing everything she could to not ever have to go outside and play organized sports or competitve games of any kind.   My mom, who is more crafty that I could every hope to be, recognized that her strange, pale little girl would rather be indoors, covered in hot-glue-gun-webs, making something instead.

One of those many things she taught me was how to make lovely little beads out of magazines. 

We have more magazines than we know what to do with in our house, so here is a little craft you can do to eliminate some of those pages:

 

Step 1: Gather your supplies:

 - magazines

 - glue (I used Tacky Glue because its all I had, but Elmer's will do too)

 - thin wooden dowel / BBQ skewer

 - cup of water

 - scissors

 - *not shown: clear nailpolish, yarn or string, needle

Step 2: Pull out a few pages and cut into page-long triangles as above.

 

Step 3: Roll the wide end of the triangle around the dowel once or twice.  Now, depending on your glue of choice, you can (a) dot the triangle with glue as you roll the rest of it around, or (b) mix your extremely goopy Tacky Glue with some water, and paint it on with a Q-Tip.  Either way, it gets a little messy here, so keep a little wet towel on hand.   *Remember not to do the first few rolls too tightly or you won't be able to get the bead of the dowel.  

Step 4: Once your beads are somewhat dry (I did a whole bunch so as the last ones were being rolled, the first ones were solid), throw a topcoat of clear nail polish on them for shine and to bond all the layers together.  

 

Step 5: Let your beads completely dry.

Step 6: Get your string or yarn and start creating your necklace.  I chose to do three tiers and then tied them all together at the back.  I measured so it could fit over my head so I didn't have to fuss with closures. 

 

Step 7: Stand back and say, "ta-da!". You have finished your DIY magazine bead necklace! Look at you, so talented.  Do your parents know how talented you are?  You should tell them.

 Step 8:  Look out the window and wonder why all the stray trash on the block ends up in your backyard and not your neighbors.

*I'm also wearing my new handmade Bird Shirt, which will be in the shop this week!

DIY Thursday / Flip this Sweater

Guys.  We are one day away from Friday.

So this DIY Thursday is actually a flip that is very easy to do-it-yourself.

I got this sweater a few months ago from Cotton On and I thought I loved it.  I wore it once for Thanksgiving, and clearly did not love it as much:

 

Its just very droopy and the sleeves are too long, and so you'd think it was a more oversized look, only its too short for that.  Its just an odd shape all around.  

So let's make a cardigan!

 

Step 1:  Take a look at your odd sweater one last time.  Find the center of the front (I just used a stitch line for guidance) and cut that sucker down the middle.

 

Step 2: Cut off the sleeves at the seam.  Now you can see just how much extra room there is at the sides of this sweater.  Sew with serger or zig-zag stitch excess fullness off the sides.  I took about 2" off each side.

 

Step 3:  Sew the sleeves back on.

Step 4: Try on the almost-finished project and mark where you want to cut off those go-go gadget sleeves.  Finish the sleeves and the front edges of the sweater with serger and fold over.  Press (I put a piece of cotton over it just in case the metallic melted) and hem with zig-zag stitch.

Tada!

 

You can easily do this with any old sweater you have lying around that isn't getting as much wear as it should.  This way, I can pair an awesome gold cardigan with any blah outfit and I have instant sparkle.

 

(eyeballing Lady)

Have fun sweater-flipping.

Flip This Dress: Cat is Getting a Skirt

So many Cats!  A pal of mine, also named Cat, was gifted this lovely little vintage party dress, but felt she'd get more use out of it as a skirt (a girl after my own heart - I'll be blogging about a similar situation in tomorrow's DIY Thursday post).

After!:

(Before)

This was a fairly simple flip.  I chopped off the top (that's extremely colorful language for just using a pair of scissors to gently cut) about 2 1/2" above the waistline piping.  This was a really pretty detail that we wanted to keep .  I then serged the edge and folded down, stitching right above the piping.  I also swapped out the old zipper since it was old and not functioning as it should. I tacked on a hook above the zipper and ta-da! Skirt.

 

 

(how pretty is this embroidery?)

Cat, hope you love it!

Friday DIY - Headband

After my resolution post, my two besties gave me some awesome ideas.  Its really amazing to have friends that will inspire you and challenge you.  And they are really good looking too. 

Anyway, Michelle gave me the idea to start incorporating some simple DIY projects (that's do-it-yourself, if you're not up on the lingo), and that's what I'm going to (try to) do every Friday. 

Here's a super duper simple DIY project involving no sewing machine skills at all - so no excuses!

Ribbon Headband:

1. Get your supplies together:

 - elastic (mine is about 3/4" wide)

 - some pretty ribbon trim 

 - a pair of scissors

 - a needle & thread

 - *measuring tape is helpful too, but not necessary

 

2. Measure on your head how long you'd like the ribbon to be.  (Basically from behind-right-ear to behind-left-ear - the rest will be elastic!)

 

3. Add 1/2" to this measurement and cut your pretty ribbon to that.

4. Fold over 1/4" and press down.  (I gave it a quick iron for a crisp fold.)

 

 5.  Cut a piece of elastic that is just slightly smaller that the rest of that head measurement of yours.  You want it to stretch a bit when you put on the headband so that it stays in place.  Sew the end of the elastic to the wrong side of the ribbon.  Fold over the corners so that it forms a little wrap over the elastic.  Sew securely in place.  Repeat on the other end.

 

6. Enjoy your sick headband and show it off to all of your friends.  Then, go make them some matching headbands to say sorry for being such a show-off.

(awesome photography by Chris, which is why I'm making silly faces)