Fashion Forward Wednesday

Onto the fashion...finally! I have been an avid reader of Adventures in Dressmaking for quite a while now.  The blog features great tee shirt make overs and drool worthy home dec pictures for inspiration.  I totally admire the great woman who runs the blog, she makes something new practically every day, I would be exhausted!  One thing you must check out if you click on over to her site?  Her Amazon Store in the top section of links, she has a great selection of books for the sewing and craft minded person.  

So back to project!  Have you seen the rolled cuff slightly longer than normal jean shorts out there?  

 Via Adventures in Dressmaking

Seems like a trend for only the super fashionista, right? WRONG!  That short is amazing, the inseam is a bit longer so its age appropriate for people who have are past the booty shorts age, and a great weekend look for any young lady on the go!  Sometimes picking up a trend piece is just not worth the money, especially for artificially destroyed jeans, but this is a great way to add a fun spring and summer trend piece from something you already own.  Grab a pair of jeans that still fit, but you might not wear so much any more and click on over to the amazing step by step tutorial and hack away.  Come the warm days of summer, you'll be glad you did.  A great variation to this trend?  have the cuffs lined in a soft plaid so the rolls contract the jeans a bit.  I have seen some great ones in the April/May fashion magazines!  If I make the lined version I will be sure to let you all know how I did it!

Reliving Sixteen

For the last week or so I have been reliving a lot of things from my 16th year.  Not on purpose, but I have the craving to watch How to Deal, which I saw in theaters when I was sixteen, I have even been listening to the soundtrack.  This yesterday I listened to my birthday mix, which I was given when I turned sixteen.  Once I started noticing this, I saw that for some reasons I have been doing a lot of 16ish things.  I am having a huge garage sale this June, probably the biggest since the one I had when I was 16, it was also the first year I had my friends from high school come help.  One still helps, a lot!!  I even started drinking soda again.  I am re-reading the Sloppy Firsts series.  It is just really weird that 16 is coming back to haunt me.  While that time in my life was very fun most of the time, it is also marred with somethings I would rather forget.  Birthday, they seem to serve as reminders.
Take a listen to my favorite song from How to Deal

The Monday Million

...Just kidding.

I decided to postpone the Sunday five for one day. Two reasons: 1. its my birthday so its the best day to celebrate all the stuff that makes me happy, and 2. I was really tired yesterday.  Driving in the dark is a major energy suck! So what is making me happy on my 22nd birthday? Read on to find out...Hint, its more than five less than a million!

1. My new Whirley Pop popcorn popper.  If you know me personally or have been reading the blog for a while you probably know how much I love bacon, but my love for popcorn is a close second place.  A while back I read an awesome post about kettle corn over at Chica and Jo.  Well for my birthday I asked for the popper and my parents came through.  I already tried the movie theater mix that came with, AWESOME!! I love it!!
2. My Birthday play list, which I tried SOOO hard to upload here for you guys to listen to, but I will just had to add some links so you all can listen!  This is just a 5 song sample from the birthday mix I got when I turned 16! I am very lucky to still have the giver in my life! Song 1 Song 2 Song 3 Song 4 Song 5.  Happy listening!
3. Vampire Diaries.  Are you following me on twitter? Well if you are you know I am totally obsessed.  The last episode literally drove me insane.  I can hardly wait for the next episode, the show is just so good, I can't put it into words. 
4. Palm Springs.  Over Easter and this past weekend I was visiting my parents in Palm Springs that is where I have been with no internet access.  But it was super relaxing and a great way to celebrate with my parents. 
5. My new favorite drink!  Diet Mug Root beer with some no sugar added vanilla ice cream.  SO amazing low sugar and low cal root beer float! Tasty!   
6. Living at the beach.  Sometimes San Diego feels just like any other city.  But 80% of the time the air has a hint of salt. The morning starts with a hint of onshore flow and some pretty white clouds keeping the spring just cool enough. I love everything about the beach, except sunburns. 
7. LIMES!!!  My roommates and I are totally obsessed with anything hint of lime.  Hint of lime chips, popcorn and beer have all been approved here! SO SO SO tasty, cannot even convey! We are currently in search of a lime salt so we can give a hint of lime to even more foods!

Get ready for some awesome posts this week, and some fun pictures of my trip and some of the trinkets I acquired along the way!

Sorry

Even though I missed quite a few days blogging I am going to make it up to you all.  Soon, I promise.  I have so many fashion projects just waiting to be featured! I have fun sunglasses postes and knitting posts. But they all will have to wait.  I am heading back to Palm Springs again this weekend which means no internet again.  But I promise you all a great Sunday 5 once I get back on Sunday evening.  It maybe even 5+!! So don't give up on me yet, fair readers, I promise to return to blog life once my internet conncetion is secure and pictures are uploaded.  Once I start uploading the posts again, keep hitting refresh, I'll be writing as fast as I can!

Sending all my Friday love your way! 

Happy Friday!

...And Thursday

Spring has sprung in the hearts of fashionistas around the globe.  Anything and everything from television adds to magazines spreads, even bloggers are sharing the latest spring pieces.  But as most know, spring can be a difficult time to dress, one second its sunny and the next it is blowing rain in your face, and messing up your hair, uggg!  Pieces that are just a bit on the warm side are perfect for spring and summer evenings. A perfect transition into summer is a knit dress, good with tights, leggings, or even jeans now, and great for summer evenings later.  Enter on of my favorite free knitting pattern blogs out there Pickles.  This is the third Pickle's pattern I have featured, so you know I must visit the site often, I do.  When I am there I usually stop over at the store to droll over the yarns too.  Someday when the amount of yarn I own can fit in just one SMALL box, I will buy from the store.  I really recommend their yarns, as buying the yarn helps support the free pattens, plus they are reasonable in price and the colors are amazing!

But back to the dress...

Is is a sweater, or is it a dress?  It can be anything you want.  Since your are knitting it you can control the length, a little longer if you want to wear it as a dress alone, a little shorter if you are short like me, or super confident, or plan to wear it as a tunic style sweater. Another great way to make this fun dress perfect for spring, knit it up in the nudes and pinks that seem to be everywhere. One tip when choosing colors, if you are fair stick with pinks, roses and warmer colors, if you have tan or olive skin the lighter cooler colors work like gray, and if you have dark skin think bronze when choosing yarns or any nude pieces for that matter. Knitting the trim in a black or navy would be a great way to get a pop of dark in the dress! Another idea, you could knit it in two colors, color block style, with the change at your waist and then belt it to exaggerate the color block style. The possibilities are endless.  Have I convinced you yet?  Simple stated this dress is quick and simple to make and sure to become a spring favorite! Click here to visit Pickles and the sweater pattern!

Fashion Forward Wednesday

Today's Fashion Forward post comes from a blogger who's style I have admired since I stumbled upon her blog once upon a time.  I encourage everyone to go take a peak at Alisa Burke's blog, she is totally unique, unlike anything I have seen on the web, and I mean that in the best way possible.  She is so creative and I am sure I will be featuring her in future posts! Today I am showcasing a project that involves no sewing or knitting, just the willingness to let your creativity go nuts, with paint!

The Messy Dress

If you head over to the amazing tutorial to create this dress, you will find that with a few tools and some fabric paint you can turn a plain target dress, into your own custom work of art. Like most of the other projects I have featured, you can customize the final product with different dress choice, she shows a gray and green dress, and different paint colors.  Another perk of this project, you start with a fairly cheap dress, and end up with something totally fabulous looking, so much craft bang! Once you have tried her method out you could even expand the technique to tee shirts or skirts. Let your imagine run wild! Check out her awesome tutorial here!  As the artist said both the dresses are "simple, graphic and a little edgy" a perfect addition to you spring wardrobe and sure to become a dress you will love to wear!

See you tomorrow!

 

My Dollar Store Challenge!!

As I mentioned a few days ago I am participating in a themed challenge going on over at Dollar Store Crafts.  I love making stuff from Dollar Store finds because everything is only a dollar (when I went last time they come on the loud speaker to remind us...), need I say more? So this week the challenge item was placemats. On Friday I headed out to the Dollar Tree and got two different placemats, I wasn't very impressed with the colors or the styles but I grabbed up this blue one.  I guess the real question is, what did I decide to make with it? 

A picture frame! I take an extreme amount of pictures and often I buy prints at street fair that are in non-standard sizes. Custom made frames are expensive so a dollar store revamp is a great money saver. 

Materials

• Placemat
• Matching needle and thread
• Hot glue
• Ribbon
• Add on's like sequins, beads, or thread for embroidery

First decide on the picture you want to use. You will want the opening on the inside of the frame to be slightly smaller than your picture, or you can make the opening bigger and create a mat for your picture. Since my placemat already had a border going on, I used that as my frame and chose a picture to fit. 

I cut a half inch border around the outside of three sides, the bottom and the two vertical sides. On the top I cut right along the pattern.  On the three edges, I folded the half inch over and sewed along the fold. Make sure you sew along the fold, it creates a pocket that you can slip the back into. Ironing might help create a sharp fold.

Once you sew all three sides you will have a a slot to slide the back of your frame into. Now, fold you frame in half and cut out the middle section, try and cut it out in a single piece, you can use the middle to create a mini frame, two for the price of one, dollar!

See the pocket?

For the back I used a cereal box that I cut open.  Trace the outside of the frame and then trim it down from there. Start big and slowly trim it down to the correct size. 

On the inside edges I bound the raw edges with ribbon.  Since I had no ribbon and thread that matched, and I was feeling super lazy, so I hot glued it. Measure inside edge to inside edge and cut some ribbon. Fray check the ends with a lighter really quickly.  Start with a short bead of hot glue near the edge and place the top half of the ribbon on in a straight line.  I placed the ribbon on top to check placement first then ran a thin bead of glue on the front and held the ribbon taught to ensure a straight line.  Flip the mat over and repeat on the backside, to encase the raw edge. Repeat for all four inside edges.  Once you are done it will look like this.

I added some table confetti I got a Pier One a couple years ago for the corners. For the top I added some yellow grosgrain ribbon tied in knots. Sadly I could not print the 8X10 I wanted to fill this frame but here is my finished frame.