Claire's NDAD Creation

It's St. Patrick's Day, so I'm all about a little plaid.  Claire crafted something so fab...check it out!

Hi, Marisa!  I've been following your blog for a couple of months now, and I've gotten a lot of great ideas about what to do with my old clothes. I was getting ready for the holidays, making some "upcycled" hats and mittens out of old sweaters for some special people on my list, when I fell in love with a cute, Christmas-y jumper from the Unique Vintage catalogue.

Here’s that dress Claire loved…

The retail price? $86!  So, obviously, I decided to make my own version, from a $5 dress I found at the Salvation Army. 

So I guess we know what route Claire is going!  Time to see how she got there!

After removing the shoulder pads, buttons and sleeves, I cut about 4 inches off the bottom, so it would hit just above my knees once it was hemmed.  Next, I took in the sides by about 2 inches for a better fit, leaving one side seam open for a zipper. 

After I sewed all my new seams, I wrapped one side over the other, to cover the button holes.  Finally, I cut off the velvet trim from the neckline, and replaced it with a turtleneck collar that I got off a sweater I had used in another project. 

The result?  An adorable "mod" jumper I could wear for Christmas Eve!

I’m a plaid girl so this is right up my alley too!!  Holiday appropriate, for sure, but I’d wear this on the regular.  I love how you styled this because I totally would pair this dress with opaque black tights and ankle boots too!  Keep ‘em coming, Claire!

So Those Pants...

You saw the pants earlier...

...and the amazing up close and personal shot of the velvety material.

Here's what we decided to do with them.

In order to accommodate the both of us, we decided to make matching projects, however with the leftovers, we can totally start a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants story, passing back top portion as shorts.

We trimmed one portion of the pants right at the cuff...

...and then matched the other side, measuring and cutting off the same amount.

We're making matching clutches!  To give the bag a little more character, we trimmed a second piece of pant material, took out the seam, and then folded up the edges, to form triangles to go on top of the rectangular section.

We pinned our triangles, and then took out the seam at the top of the first rectangle.

We turned the rectangular material inside out and then put and pinned the triangle in-between the material, right sides touching each other.

We stitched this top section with the triangle edging, and the right side of the bag, leaving the left side open.

We needed zippers to secure one of the sides and because we only had 9" ones, we opted to leave the zipper on the left side instead of the top of the bag.  (...just in case any of you were wondering why we didn't put the zipper up top.)

We sewed the zipper in...

...and was almost complete!

Now, we had some fab tassels to work with (I scored a bag of 10 for a buck!) so we affixed two to the bottom of the triangle and then added one to the zipper on the left using a jump ring.

Once we added our flair, the clutch was complete!

I wore a pair of Marc Jacobs studded heels (thank you Plato's Closet in CO for offering these pretty much brand new heels to me for $16) along with a black H&M tank and Forever 21 grey jeans to complete my ensemble.

Yes, that black tank is totally legit.  It was 80 degrees today and I spent a good chunk of time outside soaking in the rays and Vitamin D!!  (Yay for a day without having to take my supplement!)  The UPS dude totally caught me laying on the steps and opted to walk around me to drop off packages, which I totally appreciated.

New clutch, check.  New shorts ready to start shooting Sisterhood of the Pants 3: Pants Meet Scissors in, check.  That post will come soon, after our contracts have been negotiated.

Happy Friday, friends!

Thursday Teaser!!

I had a fun lil' craft day with Sonya Nimri last week and we ended up sorting through some Goodwill bags looking for pieces to work with.  We came across these guys and my mouth dropped!!

They are totally bootlegged pirate/clown pants, but check out the amazing close-up of the material.

We were obsessed with the velvet striping, so we removed the pants from the donation pile to create something fabtastic with them!!

The after shots will be posted later today!  What would you make with these?  Or...would you have kept them in the donation pile??