Plus Sized Skirt to Cute Paper Bag Skirt

Things suddenly became a little busier in our house. With the last semester of school coming to an end for my husband, we are suddenly faced with decisions regarding our future. Some of you may know that my husband is a Machinima Youtube commentator. This means that he makes money from sponsors and video views on his video game commentary videos. 

Recently, we sat down and had a long chat. He revealed that he wanted to continue his Youtube career instead of pursuing a job in mechanical engineering. It may seem like a waste of a bachelor's and master's in business degrees, but the income he currently brings in is no small amount of pocket change. Since I've technically been unemployed, we've been living off his income alone for the past 5 months. I'm happy for him too! I'm glad that he's found something that he truly enjoys doing and while making some hard earned money.

Before Brad told me that he was taking on an internet career, I had hoped that we would move wherever he got an engineering job. Now that he'll be working from home, I actually get to choose where we move. 

So, I chose the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area in Texas. My big brother's family lives there and the state is faring quite well in this down economy. Jobs are aplenty and the healthcare industry is bustling in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. This means I can expand my horizons in my nursing career. Along with applying for jobs and searching for houses, I've been cleaning and preparing for a visit from my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew this weekend. I'm so excited!

Since I've been too busy to craft new things I decided to post about something I made awhile back... a chambray skirt!

Acorns or Turdcorns?

The weather in Mississippi isn't getting cooler as fast as I'd like it to. This is very disappointing to me. Some of the inhabitants of the South are already wearing jackets and leggings. I don't believe it's jacket or jean weather until it's below 60°F. Ugh. Come on, +70°F weather! Go away! I want to wear my boots!

So, I'm still stuck indoors with the A/C trying to envision a cozy, warm house on a cool autumn day. To help achieve this, I decided my house needed some cute acorn decor. Since my kitchen is apple themed, the dividing wall  between the kitchen and dining area holds two glass apples (one green and one red). I made two giant acorns to replace them so it'd add more of an autumn feel.

The results weren't as great as I'd hope.... so are they acorns or turdcorns?

Here's a mini-tutorial on how I made them!

DIY Translucent Faux Pumpkin [Part 2]

I have managed to fix this pumpkin! Hooray!!! You may need to read Part 1 of my adventure so you can understand what's going on. After much contemplating and scouring my house for supplies, I managed to come up with a solution to fix my almost craft fail.

I've photographed the rest of my project so you guys can see what I did. I suppose it's like a ghetto tutorial. 

Anywho, here's the result!

DIY Translucent Faux Pumpkin [Part 1]

The autumn themed crafts continue! This is supposed to be the last project to be posted, but it's taken me forever to get done and I found another project to make after this one! It's been quite a hassle to work with and I ran (and currently still running) into a lot of pitfalls. As with most of my craft projects, I usually fly by the seat of my pants and hope for the best. In the process of imminent fails and shaky recoveries, I learned a lot!

This post will be in two parts since I technically haven't finished it. It's not really a tutorial per-say.... more of a step-by-step photo documentary of the process and its trial and errors.

I was originally inspired by Martha Stewart's translucent pumpkins tutorial that I pinned on my Pinterest board. Martha used real pumpkins, of course. I have only carved one real pumpkin ever in my life and it was a mess and a half. I decided to try a faux pumpkin instead. (No seeds!) I bought mine at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon which came out to be about $25. It's the Funkins brand, which is pricier, but higher quality and more realistic looking than other faux pumpkins. I figured it would be a long term investment.

DIY Dryer Hose Pumpkins

The autumn themed crafts continue! I did not make my own tutorial for this post, but I will provide links to the two blogs where I found the tutorials. The good thing is that these are pretty cheap and quick to make! I made 2 pumpkins from 5 feet (4 inch diameter) of dryer hose and it cost about $7 total for the hose and spray paint.

Aren't they cute? I'm currently obsessed with white pumpkins. I really don't like the color orange in general, so I chose ivory! Plus, ivory pumpkins are really unique! I know they exist, but I've never seen one in real life. The stick for the "stem" was found in my backyard and I had some leftover gold organza ribbon from an old project that I tied around the stems.

Here's how they look before painting and after hot gluing together.

Autumn Wall Decor

More autumn themed crafts! Yay! This time I made something to go with my front door wreath! I was originally inspired by this pin from Pinterest (of course) and wanted to do a slightly different take. As usual, I made it more difficult than it had to be and took photos of my progress.

Here is the final product.

Faux autumn leaf wreath I made last year... from a pool noodle!

And here's how I made it.

Autumn Leaf Bouquets

I can't believe it! The weather here is finally under 90 degrees! It is simply amazing! I can go outdoors and breathe normally without feeling like I'm breathing through a warm, wet sponge. (Ugh.)

I love fall. :)

Since the weather has been nice, I've gone into craft overload. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a Fun-kin faux pumpkin to carve! I haven't started on that yet, that will be another post soon. I've also started working on my Christmas wreath (crazy, I know.) and I've actually run out of thumbtacks, so that's on hiatus for now. That is also another post for another day.

I saw this amazing post on Pinterest about making pumpkins from dryer hose so I went out and bought ivory spray paint and dryer hose and I'll have another post on those soon! (AHH so many blog posts!) For today's post, I decided to make some indoor autumn decor since I put up my autumn wreath on my front door. I made the wreath last year from left over faux maple leaves I had bought for my wedding decorations. The wreath base is a pool noodle!

Here's one of my bouquets!

I also made a short tutorial on how to make them!

DIY Regular Scarf to Circle Scarf

Instant gratification crafts. We all like those. You make them quick and wear/use them quick. I remember seeing a tutorial on transforming a regular pashmina scarf into a circle scarf, but I can't seem to find the link. I was rummaging through my scarves and found one that I did not wear much because I hated the dangl-y ends getting in my way. 

So, I turned it into a circle scarf! In 5 minutes!

DIY Mousepad

So, I am cheap. And lazy. I would say I'm very lazy but my husband says I'm "not that lazy." I guess so since some things get done around the house lol.

I've noticed that the area on my desk where my mouse resides was slowly being worn away. For the better part of this weekend and week, I've been using the back side of a memo pad as my mouse pad. I like to make lists so it was a hassle to flip the memo pad over and over every time I needed to write something or use it as a pad for my mouse.

Since I am too lazy to leave the house to buy a mouse pad, I googled tutorials for DIY mouse pads and most of the results I found involved cork. I have cork but it was only a 4 inch wide strip. Not close to enough for my needs. Then, I stumbled on Sara vs. Sarah's tutorial which used 2 layers of craft foam. Bingo! I had a roll of hideous orange foam I had never used and tons of scrap fabric.

Thus, this was born.

[TUTORIAL] Sculpt A Crescent Moon

I apologize for not posting in over a week! Also, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! This post was supposed to be posted before I left on my mini vacation to visit my sister and nephew last weekend, BUT my husband decided to crush all my hopes and dreams the Tardises I had spent the last 5 days crafting right before we left on our trip. When we got back on Monday, I was so demotivated and depressed that I put off a few days on repairing the Tardises and moped about the house. But! Life must go on and so will the crafting! Everything written past this first paragraph was before the tragic crushing of the Tardises. They have since been repaired and now are for sale here.

It's a Tardis army!!!

The last few days of my life have been filled with lots of crafting. Ever since my first pair of Dr. Who Tardis earrings sold out in under 30 minutes after posting to my Etsy shop, I've been working on a 6 pairs (yes! 12 Tardises! AHH) of Tardis earrings. That one pair took me forever to make and these 12 have taken even longer.

My husband and I took a day trip to JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby two weeks ago and I bought new paint and new detail brushes specifically for the Tardis project. The paint I used for my first pair of Tardis was old and had become a bit clumpy. I bought some DecoArt Americana acrylic paint and it paints surprisingly smooth for $0.97/bottle, although a bit thin. I had to paint 5 coats of paint to get to the right shade of royal blue. My old detail brushes were becoming a bit shaggy and thin so I bought a pack of new teeny tiny brushes and they painted the tiny window details like a dream.

Just as I thought I was finally finished with the Tardises.... I realized that I was out of clear spray enamel and Lowe's was closed and Wal-Mart did not carry the Rustoleum brand I preferred. Ugh. Another day behind. :( I've had a problem with Krylon varnish turning yellow over time and getting tacky/sticky after prolonged exposure to high humidity. Living in the highly humid South, that is a very very bad thing to have happen when you're outside sporting off your fancy earrings and then realize they're literally melting. :(

While, I was waiting for the Tardises to dry between coats, I finished up my "Shoot For The Stars" earrings! Check them out!

I even made a beginner's mini tutorial on how to make the crescent moon!

[TUTORIAL] Wool Pants To Shorts (and how to add belt loops to pants)

I finally got my schedule for my new job today. The good thing is that I get to pick what days I want to work, but the bad thing is that the days available are first come, first serve.

So far, I am only working one day and that was the only one they had available for me closest to where I live. :(

Today's post was inspired by Freshly Given's wool pants to shorts tutorial that I had pinned on Pinterest long long ago. In my recent thrift shopping extravaganza, I picked up a pair of wool, grey-ish XOXO dress pants. They were very cute, but unfortunately had some awful stains all over it. Luckily, they now have a new life as wool shorts!

I used Freshly Given's tutorial as a vague guideline to make mine. I'll be going a little more in-depth on how to measure for the cuffs and even show you how to make belt loops!

Let's begin!

[TUTORIAL] Removable Shoe Wings

Some of you may know the Greek messenger god, Hermes. He's best known for his winged sandals that allowed him to move quickly and even fly. I am a fan of anything with wings. Birds, angels, bats, you name it. (Well, maybe not bugs.) I've always been fascinated with how birds and bats fly and been trying to draw them for years.

I saw these shoes on eBay last night and I remember pinning The Dainty Squid's removable shoe fringe tutorial and an amazing idea formed in my jumbled mind...

REMOVABLE SHOE WINGS!

GENIUS! I haven't had an original idea in awhile (crafting wise) so I immediately dropped everything I was doing (aka making more cigarette ankle pants) and dug through my fabric stash for some faux leather and grabbed my black oxford ankle booties from the closet. And thus, these were born:

I love them so much. I might even make bat wing ones for Halloween.

Here's the tutorial (and pattern) for it!

[TUTORIAL] Hooked on Fishtail Skirts

I'm at it again! Ever since I made that fishtail skirt the other day, I've wanted a lighter, flow-y one that would flutter behind me as I walked.

Outfits I devised to go with my new fishtail skirt. I like the far left and far right best.

So, I decided to use some vintage floral lightweight fabric I found in my stash that I inherited from my grandmother. I have devised a mini-tutorial of sorts on how I made it.

There was a lot of flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants in this post. I made up stuff on the fly and nearly literally set my skirt on fire. We'll get to that part in the tutorial....

Fishy Fishtail Skirts

You guys. It's freaking HOT! So my air conditioning has been broken for over 24 hours now and our landlord won't send anyone to fix it till Monday morning! UGGGH... I know I grew up without A/C, but I'm now spoiled by it's goodness. I would like it back, plz. :(

My craft room is sweltering but I shall keep on crafting!!!! I have managed to make one using Morning by Morning's maxi skirt tutorial.

I didn't want one maxi length so I made a shorter version above the knee length that tapered to right above my calves in the back

[TUTORIAL] Dress Pants to Skinny Ankle (Cigarette) Pants

Woah! I've been up FOREVER! Well, since 1pm yesterday, took a small nap, but I've been up since! I even ran this morning at 6am!

So, this post is about what I've done all night. I'm a little slow on fashion trends, but I LOVE those ankle length skinny pants, otherwise known as "cigarette" pants. While I was studying abroad in London in June 2007, these were already in style and I saw them EVERYWHERE in Camden Town. The one thing that's different with these new pants are that they're more sleek and office-approved than the skin tight cigarettes of the UK.

MONTHS ago, I bought 3 pairs of dress slacks at the thrift store: navy, black, and grey. I had the intention of making these into cigarette pants, but I FINALLY got around to trying one this morning. I found Miss Allie Jane's tutorial and was inspired! Don't get me wrong, I love her tutorial, but it didn't seem to go into deep detail so I decided to make my own tutorial covering all the little things.

DIY Sweetheart Bandeau Top [with link to tutorial]

Strapless tops were never one of my favorite pieces of apparel. I was a bit self conscious about my shoulders and since most of them were tight fitting, it made me dread my lower stomach pooch.

This summer, I've been looking for new pieces to wear and I found this tutorial by fake-leather via Pinterest. It looked pretty simple and I tried it out on a spaghetti strap tank I already owned but never wore.

The verdict?

I LOVE it! I've made 5 of them in different colors! The tops look especially cute with skirts and a big belt so it hides my stomach pooch quite well.

There are a few steps not covered in the tutorial that I'm going to run through.

I started with this coral colored tank:

In fake-leather's tutorial, it doesn't seem like her top had a built-in shelf bra. I really hate shelf bras with a passion and despite looking high and low for a tank that DID NOT have one, all I found were ones WITH shelf bras.

So, I'm going to show you how to cut out that shelf bra and take off the straps! All you need is a pair of sharp scissors, a steady hand, and patience. 

First, find the side seams and pick which ever side to start cutting.

Next, start cutting from the bottom where the elastic is. Cut along the seam and then veer off either left or right. Your preference.

From here, just cut carefully around the upper part near the top elastic all the way around. Be careful and try not to cut the fabric on the back side or you'll have holes show up when you wear it. A good way to prevent is to take it slow and keep your hand under the bra to make sure the scissors are between the shelf bra and tank fabric. 

After you've finished that, you can cut straight across on the front of the tank (see fake-leather's tutorial) but don't cut the back straps yet! I've found if you just cut it off, it's left with these irritating "nubs" that will dig into your backside when you wear it and makes it 100x hard to sew through on your machine or by hand.

So, take your seam ripper or your scissors and carefully find the threads that hold down your straps and snip them ONE AT A TIME. 

Do this for both straps and now you're just left with the strapless tank body to finish! Follow the rest of fake-leather's [tutorial] and you're on your way to a cute sweetheart bandeau top for summer!!!

Here's how mine turned out! (Disregard the dusty mirror and stomach pooch.)

Thrift Shopping 101

Hey guys! Today's post is about thrift shopping! It's one of my favorite things to do besides napping and crafting. I was going through my closet the other day to look for things to donate and I realized that about 70% of my clothes and over half of my shoes were from some form of thrift store. 

I'm not a professional at thrifting, but I believe I've gotten pretty good at it. I wasn't always such a big fan of thrift stores, believe it or not. Don't get me wrong, I've always been cheap and I try to buy everything on sale. Before my mom passed away in 2004, she taught me that thrift stores were places where only poor people shopped and even said, "Why would you want to buy that stuff? Someone's died in it." So, before ever setting foot into a thrift store, that was my general belief of them. It's not like she taught us to blow money or spend extravagantly. My mother taught my siblings and I to be frugal and buy EVERYTHING on sale (or try very hard to). After my mom passed, my family and I went through and donated a lot of her clothes to the local Salvation Army. That was the first time I had actually ever set foot into a thrift store and took interest in buying anything. I was enthralled at the mix of interesting and weird things. While some stuff was icky and old, some was pretty fashionable.

My thrifting habits didn't really kick in until I got into college in 2006 when my friends and I got into a reconing clothes phase. Since then, I rather shop at thrift stores than retail! My husband is still iffy about thrift clothing but he enjoys looking for interesting thrift furniture and books. On our honeymoon to Flagstaff, AZ (big hipster city), instead of going shopping at the retail stores, we went thrift store shopping!

Some of my thrifted goodies! Many name brands like Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Anne Taylor Loft, J. Jill, Patagonia, Fossil, Coach, Ellemeno, Anne Klein, H&;M... to name a few. Even the frame for that dry erase calendar was thrifted!

Okay, enough about me! I'm going to give you a rundown on the general beliefs, pros/cons, and then end with thrifting tips with links to sources and good blogs on thrifting! If you're a veteran at thrifting, you may already know most of these tips. These are mainly for those starting up in thrifting and beginners. Get ready to READ!

[TUTORIAL] How to Add a Sash/Bow Tie to a Button-up

Hey guys! You may have seen my other tutorial on how to enlarge a button-up and make it into a removable bow tie shirt. In this short tutorial, I will show you guys how to add a bow tie/sash to the collar of a shirt.

A few considerations before you begin:

-The collar on my button-up is a mandarin-style collar so this tutorial only explains how to add a sash to that type of collar.
-If you have a shirt with an actual fold over, pointed collar (like any normal button up), I would recommend just using my tutorial linked above to make a removeable sash.
-Here is a no-sew tutorial on how to make your collared shirt into a mandarin collar shirt. Attaching a sash will be a bit different than my method since this isn't a true mandarin collar.

Let's begin!

[TUTORIAL] Removable Bowtie Shirt & How to Enlarge A Shirt

Hey guys! It's Tutorial-Tuesday! (Not really. I am not motivated enough to post a self-made tutorial every week.) Today, I'm going to show you guys how to ENLARGE a shirt that's too small and how to alter a long-sleeved button-up into a sleeveless bow-tie button-up.

I was inspired by Extra Petite's tutorial on how to transform a button-up to sleeveless bow-tie top except the shirt I had was TOO SMALL for my busty Asian self. I may be petite, but I was unfortunately (hehe not) blessed with my grandmother's Amazonian Asian genes of bustiness.

So, I shall show you the ways of enlarging a shirt!

Owl pattern & Tutorial

Hey! I'm actually posting a pattern and a tutorial!

This is the pattern for the 003 Owl plush I made for my friend. Please do not reproduce and use for profit purposes. This pattern solely for those that want to make this owl for gifting or personal purposes.

Click on the image for the full printable size or right click and choose "Save link as..."!

Now for the short tutorial!

1. Cut out the recommended number of pieces.

2. Sew the wings first! Put the right (or outsides) of the fabric together and sew around the edges EXCEPT the straight edge (this is where you stuff in the stuffing... if you want to stuff it).

3. Flip the wings inside out so that the right side is now on the outside.

4. Sew up the notches/darts (the V-shaped cutouts) on the body pieces. This will give the body some dimension so it's not all flat.

5. Now whipstitch (or stitching of choice) the belly and face pieces onto the front body piece. You can also sew/insert your eyes at this time too.

6. Put the right sides of the body pieces facing each other and pin the wings and feet.
IMPORTANT! With the right sides of the body pieces facing each other, sandwich the wing (and feet) pieces with the opposite tips facing each other in between the body pieces and pin the wings and edges together. Also, pin the feet pieces facing inward.

Like so: 
7. Sew! Sew like the wiiiiind!!!! Remember to leave an opening for stuffing!!!!
8. After you're done sewing, carefully flip it inside out and you can start stuffing!
9. Sew up the opening and voila! You have a cute pygmy owl!

Yay!

Sorry for the crappy tutorial.... if you have any questions or concerns please leave a comment!