Best of 2011

Everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn't I?!

I'd like to present to you the top 11 posts of 2011.

(Where did the time go???)

In January, I turned a couple of leftover pockets into a heart-shaped pillow.

In March, I thrifted an old picture frame and turned it into a hanging display for my earrings.

In May, I embellished three tank tops for myself and my girlfriends to wear to a Prince concert!  We had so much fun and I'm pretty sure our tank tops had something to do with it ;)

During the same month, I also made a few adjustments on one of my favorite thrifted dresses ever.

In July, I turned a men's dress shirt into this fun little dress.

In August, I was very busy! I have three favorites from the month of August.  First, I rolled out my Etsy Shop.

Then, I thrifted and refashioned this work outfit.

Finally, I made a fun summer dress out of an old-lady dress.

Actually, I think I did all of those things in the opposite order, but oh well.

In October, I made you all jealous by showing you the amazing chair I thrifted for $15!

In November, I made a frumpy old sweater into a hip, happenin' sweater.

And finally, in December, I had a happy accident and dyed a pair of jeans pink.

Thank you all so much for reading my blog.  This hobby of mine is way to fun not to share, so I truly appreciate that you all are interested.  I hope and pray that the new year brings joy for all of you.

Operation: Christmas Pants

It's been a month since I blogged.  Holy moly.  Well, it's certainly been an eventful month, to say the very least.  Some stressful things, some amazing things, some very sad things.  All in all, this has been an extremely difficult year.  However; I still stand firm in the truth that God is good.  As crazy as it seems sometimes, I think I believe it more now than I ever have before.  God is really, really good. 

Now let's switch gears a bit.  You've all seen those really adorable red, skinny jeans, right?  They're everywhere lately.  I love them.  I wanted some.  So I decided to make some for my Christmas Eve outfit.

I started with this pair of black jeans.

I got them a couple of years ago at the Banana Republic outlet store.  They're great jeans but they faded so quickly.  They'd started to look old.  The bad kind of old, not the worn-in-and-perfect kind of old.  

I put the pants in the sink with warm water and a lot of bleach.

I know. It looks gross.

I had to bleach them twice, and after the second time they became this really cool color of gray.

I considered leaving them gray but remembered how I wanted red pants way more than I wanted gray pants.  So, I proceeded to dye them.

After running them through a rinse cycle in the washing machine, I started the dyeing process with scarlet-colored Rit Dye.

I thought I was sure to get some seriously red pants using Scarlet.  I was absolutely wrong.  I got pink pants.  Actually, they're more of a salmon color.  And you know what...I love it!  I totally owned these salmon-colored Christmas pants.

Lucky me!  I want to wear them everyday, but I'm sure I'll get tired if them if I do that so I'll space it out for now.  Maybe once a week.

I also wanted to thrown in a picture of my trusty side-kick, just in case you forgot how cute he is.

Merry Christmas, friends!  A few days late, but I'm sure you'll forgive me :)

T-Shirt

I took my husband's old t-shirt

used this tutorial

and created this shirt:

I love it!  It was quick, simple, and cute.  Once I finished the first, I immediately made another.  Way fun.  Try it!

Big, black dress.

That's all it was when I bought it for $1.25 at the local thrift store.  That's also what drew me to the dress.

Big: No problem.  When has that ever stopped me?

Black: Perfect!  That means there are a million accessory possibilities.

Dress: Well, dresses are my favorite thing :)

I love that it's got texture, too.

I got to work by taking in the bodice, arm pits, and arms.

Then I took off a foot of length from the skirt with the help of my fashion consultant.

Now that it's finished, I can imagine myself wearing this dress lots and lots this winter.

Like I said, the accessory possibilities are endless!  I could wear it with legging or tights, with a coat or a sweater, or just a colorful scarf.

Sweater Weather

It's sweater weather ya'll!

I've been waiting impatiently for the temperature to cool down.  Having lived in California my whole life, it shouldn't come as a surprise that it stays warm until November or December.  But every year I continue to complain that it's too darn hot for Fall.

I got this sweater from my favorite thrift store for $1.25.

It's kind of cute the way it is, right?  I had this idea in my head that I would wear it as a mini dress with tights and heels....but then I put it on.  You see, that may work for tall, skinny girls, but I'm a short, curvy girl.  It was a no go.  So I got creative.

I took the shoulder pads out, of course.  I also removed the buttons, thinking that I was going to keep the length.  I was going to replace the gold buttons with larger, black buttons.

After I removed the shoulder pad and tried the sweater on, everything changed.  I realized the arm pits were droopy, the sleeves were loose, and the length was terrible.  

I changed plans and decided to make a cropped sweater.

This is pretty much my new favorite thing.  I've done this with a couple of my husband's old t-shirts recently.  It's so simple and so cute!  I'll show you the t-shirts soon.

After I trimmed the bottom, I hemmed it, and I took in the sides and the sleeves to make it a little more shapely and a little less droopy.

Testing out a new model pose, apparently

Much better.  I adore this sweater now!  I wore it yesterday and I wanted as many people as possible to see it.  You know the feeling :).

It looks like things are going to remain cool for the time being so I'll have to work on some more sweater projects for you.

Pretty skirt & bad face day

I picked up this skirt for $1.25 over the summer at a thrift store.  The color is BEAUTIFUL!  Pleated skirts are totally in this Fall too, so there was no question that I needed to buy it.

As you can see, it was a little big on me.  The waist was too large and it was too long for my short legs.  Being that this is a pleated skirt, I knew a simple hem would not do the trick.  I'm sure there's a way to hem pleated skirts, but I'm not familiar with that magical method.  So I had to come up with another solution; I cut off the top.

Everything beyond that point was fairly basic.  I created a new casing for the elastic, made the elastic a bit shorter, and ran it through the casing.

If this concept is new to you, notice that I placed a safety pin at the end.  This helps to have something substantial to hold on to when you're running elastic through casing.  This works for ribbon and chords as well.

In the end I had a pretty, teal skirt.

This is where we talk about my face.  You see, it was early in the morning and I was in a hurry to get these pictures done, so I wasn't wearing any make-up yet.  But it seems nobody told my face it was time to wake-up.

Either way, I did eventually put make-up on, my face woke up, and I had a great day in my cute outfit.

I love Ellen!

Ok, this is SUPER late.  But I'm thinking, "better late than never," right?

Back in early September my homies and I took a trip to the Ellen Degeneres Show.  It was the bomb.com (not an actual website)!  It was my second time seeing Ellen.  Two years ago, one of these homies and I went to Ellen's 900th show.  Steve Carrell was the guest and I was selected to be part of a group of people with potential to be contestants in a game! Ultimately, two other people were chosen but the experience was still fantastic.

So when I learned of another opportunity to visit Ellen, I jumped on it.  The entire week before I had a hunch it was going to be premier week.  Well, whadaya know, it was the season premier!  Ashton Kutcher was the guest.  To tell you the truth, I wasn't terribly thrilled to see him but it was still interesting.  Ellen's usual DJ, Tony, was working on a movie so will.i.am filled in.  There was also a pretty lengthy human interest story about a woman who does incredible things for the students at the school where she serves as principal.  After her story, and after Target donated a bagillion dollars to the school, we all got $100 Target gift cards.  Score!   

I have to tell you friends, my favorite part of seeing Ellen is the dancing.  We spent about an hour before the show just dancing, singing, and getting pumped up.  Then during commercials we stand up and dance again.  There are few things as fun as dancing at the Ellen Degeneres Show.

Turns out Ellen's facebook page has pictures of audience members dancing.  Check us out!

Front row, baby!

Happy Fall

Fall is here!  You wouldn't know it by the weather.  Except for the last two days, the temperature has still been in the 90s.  Eek!  The warm weather has not kept me from decorating for the season.  It's almost the end of October, for goodness sake.

I made this wreath a few weeks ago and decided to share it with you all.

I started making wreaths like this at Christmas time last year.  Since then, I've made one for every season.  It's so much fun and super easy!  The twig wreaths are sold at any craft store (or Wal-Mart) for about $3.00.  Then I just use scrap fabric to make the flowers and I hot glue them to the wreath. 

I try to add something a little different to each wreath.  This is the first time I made the leaf garland and added it to the project.  I thought it was appropriate for this time of year.  For the wreath garland I used felt and yarn.  You could do the same thing but make the leaf garland multi-colored and the flowers all one color.  Just be creative.  The possibilities are endless!

The chair

Check out this amazing chair!

Isn't it beautiful???  I got it at a thrift store last week.  Guess how much I paid for it.  Just guess...

$15.00!

It was originally $30.00, which I think was already too low, and the thrift store was having a half price sale.  I saw this chair and knew it had to have it.  I'm considering this the deal of the month, for sure!

It has made it's home in my craft room.  I'm so excited to have it because 1) it's adorable, and 2) people can now sit in my craft room with me and chat while I'm working.  It's fantastic!

Blog stuff

Wow.  I did not expect my break to last an entire month.  Let me tell you though; it was really good.  The truth is, my friends, the last 3 months have been exceptionally difficult.  I don't think this is the venue for me to spill my guts about the details but I'd like to be honest with you all.  It's been really tough and I needed the time to have one less thing to think about.  I needed to clear my head and take some time to breathe.

During my break from the blog, I've had a slight change of heart about my goal in blogging.  I remembered that this all started out because I'd found something that I enjoyed so much that I just had to share it.  It wasn't about money or recognition or advertisements.  Those things are nice, but my quest for those things got in the way of my joy.

The bottom line is I have a lot to share on a fairly regular basis.  There's certainly more to me than refashioning clothes.  Once again, I don't believe this is the right place for ME to get too personal, but I'd like to share more of the things I'm excited about.  I'll give you some examples:

A couple months ago I found about three yards of vintage fabric at a thrift store.  The fabric was silk, hand painted in Thailand, and I bought it for $3.00!  I didn't know what to do with it at first, but a couple of weeks ago I finally figured it out; I made a valance for my living room.  It brought so much life to my dull, brown living room!  But, I didn't share it on my blog because it's primarily a "fashion blog."

I am a girl who loves a bargain...and even more, I love to tell people about my bargains.  A few weeks ago I printed a coupon from the Target website for $5.00 off any Mossimo clothing item.  I went to Target and browsed the clearance section and found a pair of black, cropped pants that fit me perfectly.  The pants were priced at $6.24 but with my $5.00 discount I got the pants for $1.24.  How amazing is that???

I still love fashion and recreating clothes but there are other things I like to share and I think people will enjoy so from now on I'm just going to blog about things I like, things I care about, and things that inspire me.  I hope you will join me!

Sometimes a girl just needs a break

It's time for me to take a brain-cation (I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this term, but I'm proud of it anyway).  A few months, I got really ambitious and decided I wanted to take this blog to the next level.  I was going to post as often as possible, try and get sponsors, and start my Etsy shop so I can earn some bucks while having fun.  Well, all the pressure (self-imposed) has begun to affect my excitement for what I've been doing.  It feels much more like an obligation than the super-fun hobby it started out as.  Due to this (that one's for you, Megan), I'll be taking a bit of a blog breather.  Right now I'm going to say two weeks, but we'll see where am at when the date rolls around.  I just need to separate myself from all the madness that consumes my brain and reassess what I'm doing.  You know, get some perspective.

Thanks for understanding, friends.  See you soon!

-Steph  

More quick ones

I've been pretty busy lately with non-sewing related projects so I haven't had a ton of time to work on clothes.  I've been doing a lot of quick changes, rather than complete overhauls.  Allow me to share a couple of my recent 30 minutes clothing adjustments.

First up is this hot pink tunic.

I got it at a garage sale for $1.00.  I've worn it a couple times as it is, but I'm really not into this color with  this style of top.  There's just something about it that I don't like.  I thought it would look better if it was a lighter pink so I decided to bleach it.

I put the tunic in the sink with warm water and some household bleach.  I let it sit for about 10 minutes before I rinsed it out.  Then I ran it through the rinse cycle in the washing machine, just to be sure it was totally rinsed.

I also cut off those silly strings that were meant to tie in the back.  I think the length is a little awkward, so instead of wearing it as a tunic, I paired it with a high-waisted skirt and wore the light pink tunic as a blouse.

I think the color came out perfect.  In my opinion, the pale pink looks much better with the white lace.

I also adjusted another skirt last week.  I told you a few weeks ago that I'm obsessed with skirts right now.  Well, I wasn't joking.  I've probably done about 10 skirts in the last 2 months.  Plus, there are at least five more in my closet waiting to be made adorable so I can wear them.

This skirt came from a thrift store.  I think I paid $1.25 for it.  It started out quite large for me.

Look at how pretty the colors and the print are.

I just did the usual; took in the waist and took up the length.  I wore it with this pretty top I got at a thrift store recently.  I wish the picture was better so you could see how cute this top is.

What's most fun about this outfit is that the top and the skirt were both originally home made.  I love finding home made things at thrift stores and garage sales!

Glitch

Hey friends.  Thanks for  being patient while I figure out why my blog keeps trying to get you to sign in.  I REALLY don't get it.  Especially since it's asking you to sign in to a completely different blog!  Anyhow, if anyone uses blogger and might now how to fix the problem, please share your info with me.  Thanks again!

A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll

Donnie and Marie just might be the most obnoxious singing duo I've ever heard/seen, but they provided an excellent description of today's recreation.

I only have before and after pictures of this one.  Nothing of the process.  Mostly because there wasn't much to show.  So here's how it started.

I got it at the Salvation Army Thrift Store for $3.00.  It's actually home made.  I'm really not sure what this person was going for.  It had a muu muu-esque quality to it with some interesting additions.  Each side had an almost inappropriately high slit, yet the sleeves were full length and the collar reminded me a bit of something fit for an Elvira costume.

After some sleeve removal, length removal, and width adjustment I had a whole new dress.

   

Speaking of awful music; as I'm looking at this picture, I can almost imagine it with Doc Martens being worn to a Gin Blossoms concert in 1993.  I would not have been the one attending the concert, however, since I just in middle school.  And anyhow, if it was up to me I would have preferred Alice in Chains or Nirvana.

I digress!  I love this dress.  I've worn it twice now with two different styles of boots.  It's perfect for the scorching weather we've been having and it's just darn pretty!

A lil' su'm su'm

So, I made couple things recently.  Thought I'd show you all.  I've been a bit busier since work started again.  But I have had some time for refashioning.  It's just that by the time I'm done refashioning, I don't quite have time to blog.  So, I'll go ahead and give you two at once.

The first is this darling top I found at an estate sale.

It belonged to an old lady.  I'm sure you're not surprised.

First things first; remove the sleeves.  It has been about a million degrees outside so sleeves just aren't happening right now.

After that I just hemmed the arm holes and took in the sides.  It became a super-cute summer top.

Next, I'll present this skirt:

I got this one at a thrift store for $1.25.  The color caught my eye.  And I think the print is really cool too.

I didn't have to do too much with this one.  I took in the waist and took a few inches off the bottom.  The hemming was a little tricky because it's pleated but I think the whole project took me less than an hour.

I love, love, love this skirt!  It's so comfortable and fun.  I've worn it three times in the last week.  I really feel like these pictures don't show quite how cute the skirt is.  You'll just have to stop me on the street when I'm wearing it :)