New Dress A Day

Happy Golden Globes!  I’m a sucker for awards shows – I’m a total film buff and I love watching the dresses come down the red carpet and seeing what everyone picks from the colors to the jewelry and the hair.  Also, I love betting in the prize pools to try and guess the highest amount of winners.  I’m usually off, however this year I’ve seen most of the nominees and feel like I’m coming from a more educated place instead of the usual ‘if Dame Judi Dench is nominated, she’ll always win’ stand.

The Golden Boy, Ricky Gervais

Today’s dress comes from Linda and because of what she was inspired by, it was the perfect piece to use!

“Dear Marisa,  I live in Great Falls, MT, but originally a “valley girl” from Santa Ana, CA.  I recently saw the movie The Help, and the enclosed dress reminds me of the 60s.  I debated over this dress and a church lady dress, but I thought the colors in this dress would look fantastic on you!  Have fun, I can’t wait to see what you come up with.  I enjoy your creations so much!”

Now in my logging, the actual before photo of the dress was not with the documents I kept, so I’m using this photo instead as the before shot – it had the same shape and similar length of the one that Linda sent my way, so it will suffice.  Apologies!

Kind of like Linda's submission!

Here’s a close up of the actual fabric to get the 60s idea!

Fabric ECU!

Since Linda was reminded of The Help with this piece and the Golden Globes are tonight with The Help up for awards, I felt this a perfect piece to work with!!

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Today’s piece comes from Johanna…

I figured because the Golden Globes are tonight, this golden sweater would fit right in.  (Get it, golden!)  Plus it’s a sweater and it’s January, so it works for winter as well!

“I got invited to my friend’s annual holiday party, which this year had a theme of “Merry & Bright.”  We were told to bring our sequins, glitter, shine, etc.  I knew that I didn’t want to go out and buy something sparkly that I would likely never wear again, so, I hit the local Goodwill and found this interesting cream & gold sweater, clearly from the 80′s.

Johanna - Before

Best of all, it was 50% off, so only cost me $2.50.  

ECU of the embroidery!

Time to see the magicalness of this $2.50 purchase!

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“Here’s something that I think you can have some fun with!  White, beaded, silk, long…it’s fine now, but I want you to make it fantastic!  This came from my mom’s bag of hand-me-downs that I just don’t have the stamina to try and fix.  I will it to you…  Thanks for all the inspiration you give each day.  I am always amazed at what you do and I just can’t wait until your book comes out!  Affectionately yours, Katie”

Alrighty!  Today’s dress from Katie (shout out to TN!) was one that I thought could work as a reserved wedding dress, one to use when striking those vows at City Hall, kinda like when Carrie and Big did it for reals.  (Yeah, that was a Sex and the City movie reference that I’m surprised I actually remembered enough to call out)

Mine…

Week 14: Katie - Before

Hers…

Carrie B gettin' hitched!

The dress was silk with these gorgeous pearly beads stitched down on top of a lace bib and the silky material had pretty feathers stitched on it, however it was so hard to see being white.

Pearly Whites!

I’m not headed to City Hall any time soon, unless I get called into jury duty, so this needs a small tweak!!  I knew that this was a job for RIT dye to knock out of the park!!

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The original piece I was going to work with got scratched today as soon as I walked outside and felt the warmth.  Yeah, this weird winter heat is giving me spring fever!!

I thought a fine piece to work with would be this floral wonder that Judith shipped out west.

Week 15: Judith - Before

“This piece came from a bunch of dresses that a neighbor handed my way.  I’ve been such a fan of your blog that I’ve been inspired to do my own remakes and friends are giving me their old pieces to use!  This dress was a bit too small, so I immediately thought of you.  The print is pretty and the dress is fine, but I’m sure you’ll make it a bit more fun, like you usually do.  Thanks for all of the inspiration!”

Time to make a few small adjustments to work as my “yeah it’s 74 degrees on January 8th” ensemble!

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Yeah, well today’s piece is inspired by the newest, most famous child in the world, Blue Ivy Carter, the little bebe from Beyoncé and Jay-Z.  I figured with all the hoopla surrounding it, I had to do a little homage.  Gwyneth Paltrow tweeted about her and she already has a hip hop song featuring her baby cries.  Seriously!  (Listen to Jay-Z’s jam here)

I took a fab, vintage, green, short sleeved, mini-jacket from my closet and grabbed some blue glass beads from my kit to get started.  See the color combo I’m going for??

Beads!!

I threaded a needle and began to stitch these beads down to the edging of the bow at the clasp on the neck.

Needle-icious!

After stitching around the edges of each side of the bow, I had insta-Blue Ivy!!

Ivy jacket + blue bead work = Hip Hoppin' Wardrobe

Just think, J & B will be singing a duet of “Bonnie & Clyde” to her all the time!!  The bead work was just a small little detail…

Easy beadsy

…to add onto an already chic mini-coat to show my Beyoncé respect.  Oh, and so was stuffing my belly with my hoodie.

No, I'm not really preggo...

Watch out Suri Cruise, there’s a new celebri-tot in town!!