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diy

June 12, 2012

Outfit of the day: Yellow, Black & White

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Posted in Clothing, Jewelry, OOTD

  • Yellow is a thifted tank top & vintage costume jewelry bracelet from my late great aunt’s stash.
  • Black is the short sleeve jacket from Target (purchased a few year ago) & Bauble Bar bracelet via on of my Birchboxes (though I didn’t participate in this contest and it creeps me out a little that Justin Bieber apparently wears this bracelet.)
  • White is the stripes in the tank top, another vintage bracelet, & the earrings I made from a pair of vintage clip on earrings.
What do you think? Good combo? Overkill on the arm candy? 🙂

May 14, 2012

Make something Monday:
spring / summer scarf

Forever21 scarf

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Posted in Accessories, Scarves

Inspired by the Forever21 scarf I bought (as seen in my May Birchbox unboxing video and below), I decided to make a few more.

Forever21 scarf

I will note that it is actually cheaper to just buy a scarf from Forever21 because you will need 2 yards for the length scarf I made. You however get a larger choice in fabrics by learning to make your own.

Here are the two scarves I made:

   

 

Try and ignore the purple shirt under the sarong. I didn’t want to change to demonstrate some possible tying options. 🙂

Supplies needed:

  • Sewing machine. I’ll try and do a few no sew projects in the future but this you probably need a sewing machine for.
  • 2 yards fabric. Something that’s thin and drapey. Chiffon, silk, even a light polyester. This is where going into the store and feeling fabrics is actually a good idea. This will be against your skin so if you don’t like how it feels, don’t buy it because you’ll be less likely to wear it if you don’t like how it feels. You’ll be using the full length for the scarf but you will only need a 16-17 inch strip for the size scarf I made. Both of the fabrics I chose were $4.95/yard. You can use the remainder for a sarong like I did above or to make scarves for your friends.
  • Thread to match. Around $3 each. Don’t forget an empty bobbin if you don’t have one at home.
  • Rolled hem sewing machine foot. Between $9 and $30 depending on your machine. Again, I already had this at home. I can’t imagine doing this project with a regular foot however you might be able to do a single tiny fold with zig zag stitch depending on your fabric but it’s not going to give you quite the same clean finish.
A couple of quick photos mid-process:
 

Videos I referenced:

Sewing a rolled hem:

via YouTube by ClaireOKC
via YouTube by ClaireOKC

I found this video useful to correct some of the mistakes I was making on my first attempt at sewing a rolled hem on light fabric. I’ve actually done a rolled hem on cotton before and the machine foot did a lot of the work but with the lighter fabrics you have to pay attention to the details more.

Scarf tying (European Loop is my favorite, then fake knot and braid):

via YouTube by wendyslookbook

Sarong / pareo tying:

Pareo and Sarong Tying for Womenhttp://pareo.com 20 Ways How Women can Wear a Pareo or Sarong from pareo.com.

via YouTube

August 13, 2011

Some DIY Button earrings

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Posted in Jewelry

I went to Hancock fabrics this evening and came across these buttons that I thought would make perfect earrings. They’re very simple and cheap to make.

Supplies:

  • Earring hooks on hand or around $3 a package
  • Necklace Bails – used Beadalon Pinch Pendant Bails 327B-070 $3.49 (pack of 4)
  • Bloomenthal laser cut “cut-out” buttons $2.50 ea. large or $2.75 for the cards of two smaller buttons. Colors that may be available: http://www.blumenthallansing.com/cutoutbuttons.aspx
  • Pliers and wire cutters on hand.

Project cost should be around $12  or less
unless you don’t have pliers or wire cutters.

I got both the large white buttons and a green that’s unusual.

This project is super simple.

  1. Cut the piece from the necklace bail off that won’t work with the earring hook with the wire cutters.
  2. Open up the bail and insert the button. Make sure you close it on the same opening in each button for both earrings so you have symmetrical earrings.
  3. Open the earring hook to and make sure you have the button faced the correct direction when you put the loop from the bail onto the earring hook and close.


The white earrings button size is 1 1/2 inches (38mm) so they are slightly longer than that.
Made from laser cut polyester. They feel a bit like plastic but with a pearly finish and they are VERY lightweight.

April 27, 2011

DIY Bracelet to Necklace { more turquoise jewelry }

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Posted in Jewelry

So I found this great Ralph Lauren bracelet on clearance at Dillard’s. I didn’t like it as a bracelet as much as I wanted it for the giant clasp. I’ve been looking for a giant clasp since Switzerland and I haven’t seen a good one for less than $20+S&H so I jumped at the chance to buy one for about $18 with turquoise beads I knew were at least worth $7 or more. Since this wasn’t my initial purpose for the large clasp I went back and bought a pink bracelet as well.

Turquoise necklace from a Ralph Lauren bracelet

4 Simple steps:

  1. Remove the end from the bracelet (pictured on the right) since it fits the clasp.
  2. Attach it to the end of the chain and connect to the clasp.
  3. Wrap around your neck to decide how long you want it and cut the chain at that point. Mirror comes in handy. 😉
  4. Attach the cut end of the chain to your bracelet.

And voila, you have a new necklace!

Turquoise necklace and earrings

Matches the earrings and ring I previously posted. Yay – a full set!

turquoise jewelry set

January 25, 2011

DIY drapey wrap vest : semi-fail

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Posted in Clothing

Recently I bought a wrap sweater from Victoria’s Secret. I love the options and ways it can be worn but the fabric has been horrendous. I got the Cotton & Cashmere Shadow Stripe Wrap which they no longer carry. Basically a little of:

I have gotten a few good wears out of the sweater but it pills, heavily. But it’s black so it’s less noticeable. I would have returned it if I had spent the original $60 price. However it was discounted and then I had a $10 off coupon so I only spent about $16 for the sweater and a scarf including shipping. Not worth the wasted time (and an awesome deal really.)

What I’ve learned however is that that sweater is basically a giant rectangle plus sleeves. Which got me thinking, why not make my own quick drape-y sweater vest? I had some men’s undershirts that I thought would be perfect fabric (there’s not much knit fabric to choose from locally for some reason) and it was at least a good test run.

Why I think it failed:

  1. color block? Eee. I think it would look better as a single color
  2. it’s a vest so you’re going to see the color of your sleeves too (another reason to do this single color)
  3. a little too short in the “wings” – maybe another 1/2 yard to a yard
  4. a little too long top to bottom, the VS version was shorter which looks better

I should have simply measured the VS wrap to start with (which is by the way about 31″x87″.)

I will be trying this again soon. The men’s undershirts were I think about $10-$12 for a 4pack (Hanes Men’s Sleeveless 4 Pack Rib Knit or Fruit of the Loom Men’s 4-Pack A-Shirts. 2XL gets you a fair amount of fabric to play with.) If I can find some knit fabric locally it would be faster and no-sew so I’ll be checking that out.

Or I might buy some from fabric.com. I haven’t bought fabric off the internet yet and missing that step of touching it before buying will be odd. Maybe one of these though.