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!