55 Days to Go: Janet's NDAD Creation

Today's piece comes from Janet and there's nothing that a little bit of leopard print can't fix.  I loved what she did!!

I've always wanted to "up-cycle" something but you inspired me to get to it!  I found this dress at my local Goodwill and I LOVED the fabric and the accent band around the bottom, but...HATED the style.

What's she gonna do with this?!?!

First I cut off the top at the sleeves and gave it a new U shape.  Then I stitched up the top of the zipper to keep it from coming down and faced the arm holes with scraps of brown fabric I already had. 

Next I added some beads to give it a kick. VOILA!!

Way to go Janet!!  Send in a pic of you wearing this because it's fabulous - such a creative way to upcycle this piece!

56 Days to Go: Jessica's NDAD Creation

Today's creation comes from my gal Jessica in Portland!  It totally reminded me of the embroidered dress I worked on this week and made into a halter top!  Pretty embroidery is in the air...

Miss M –  I finally have a submission!  I make little tweaks all the time to stuff but never really a major transformation like your fun and thrifty creations.  This one isn't all that major but it was done on a tiny budget and tight timeline!  I am an event manager, so summer is my busiest season. My birthday also happens to fall right in middle of June, so I hardly ever get to celebrate it in earnest, because I'm always working!  On the Friday before my birthday, some of my oldest and dearest girlfriends decided to surprise me with an impromptu evening of dancing to celebrate the big 3-6 and party like it's 1999! (It was 80's/90's night... there was a lot of Prince.)  They called me at 6:00pm and insisted I meet them at 10!  With just 4 hours and nothing to wear, I turned to my by-the-pound bag from last month's foray to "The Bins".

Note to self - I.  Must.  Go.  To.  The.  Bins.

I bought 7 pounds worth of stuff for about $1.20 a pound and I pulled out this piece…

…because of the cute embroidery around the neck!

I wonder if this lovely embroidery will make the cut?!

This nighty weighed around 4 or 5 ounces, so it cost a whole 35 cents at worst!  I had intended to remove the neck and stitch it onto a bag or vest lapel because it was a size 6 nightgown.  I'm a size 10 (on a good day) so I never thought to try it on however, I ended up giving it a shot one day and found that the armholes worked!!  All I needed to do was open up the neck because it was stitched closed, so I took my seam ripper, unstitched it, then removed the button, and cut off the little loop. 

I then pinned it at the perfect length to tuck it into some jeans and cut about 6 inches off the bottom.

I paired it with some dark wash jeans, a cream tank (to combat the sheerness of it), and an old tie that was the perfect shade of gold to match the scallop stitching around the neck!

Such a fun birthday ensemble to dance to Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, my faves!!

Nothing like a little PRINCE SHOW to ring in the new birthday year!!

Thanks for the inspiration to pull off a fun new top in just a couple hours, and for always being a voice in my head when I'm visiting all of my thrifty haunts!"

Hope your birthday was amazing Jessica!  You look gorgeous and I can only imagine that your dance party with the gals was fabulous!

57 Days to Go: Anthropologie Copycat

Like last week's Anthropologie clutch copycat (refresher here!) that I crafted with my most creative pal Sonya Nimri...

...we also worked on another piece that we scoped out in Anthropologie's most current catalog!

We loved this lace stripe combo and found it would be easy to make with two thrifted pieces.

A - striped shirt...

B - lace shirt...

And little side note...we're gonna make two tops, one for each of us to don.  Ready to make a Anthro-faux-logie piece??

We layered the options to get an idea of how everything would look...

...and then we got cutting!

We used the Anthropologie catalog page as a guide as we trimmed.  After we trimmed the lace, we used it as a template for cutting the striped shirt and sleeves.

Once all our pieces were cut, we did a Frankenstein number on them!!  We began to restitch the top part of the lace shirt to the bottom part of the striped shirt and sleeves and the top part of the striped shirt to the bottom part of the lace shirt.

We attached all the pieces and put our new shirts on!!

Hello, how cute are these??

The Anthropologie shirt retails for $78...

...and ours cost just a few bucks.

Because we paired black lace with black and white stripes, we wore some melon-y red jewelry to tie in the original lace color from the Anthropologie version.

Oh, and those dangling threads from the striped shirt...they got a little trim.  No need to toss a piece like this when that happens!!  All you need to do is take a pair scissors and cut off the stragglers!

Two new pieces created from two old pieces.  I like the sound of this!!

Always a fun crafternoon when you've got a buddy in tow to throw ideas by.  We've got a few more projects around the bend...

Any fun projects on the horizon for the weekend??  I've got my fantasy football draft and couldn't be more excited :)  Well that and a few more remakes to put finishing touches on!!

Happy Friday!