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