Everything Starts With An Idea - 11/04/2013

It's amazing how quick you can make an idea a reality. I drew this little guy after seeing something similar and just thought he was too cute to leave on the paper. So with my creative juices flowing I brought him to life in the form of a t-shirt.

I really like the look of appliqué so I went rooting and found some gorgeous vintage fabric in my house and started there!

He didn't take very long to do and I can make him say anything I want. I've chose 'all my friends are dead' as I thought it was quite witty and a bit different. I made one for my sister and she wanted hers to say 'ROAR!!'. I think they look amazing styled with grungy high waisted shorts and a leather jacket, or just with a pair of jeans!!

If you want to get your hands on one of these then you can!! I'm selling these cuties!! You can either choose "All my friends are dead", "ROAR!!" or your own words!! I'm selling them for £17, with a choice of words, and colour of fabric for the dinosaur. At the moment they are a men's small size, but can order different sizes for any shape! Let me know if you would like one by contacting me on here, my Facebook page or my Twitter! Hope you like it!

x x x

Cute Puppy Jumper December 2012

When trying to think of Christmas gifts this year I was inspired by what my sister has been trying to find for a while now. She has searched all over the internet (and beyond probably) for a jumper, or a knitting pattern with a picture of a Yorkshire Terrier on, as she has the cutest pair going.

So I made her one for Christmas this year!! This was the result and the pup who inspired it, Toby, how CUTE!!

So I just used a picture that I found of Toby looking super cute and still!! It is a good picture as it is mainly big shapes which are easy to sew.

First I cut out a shape in a pale brown fabric, which resembled the shape of Toby's head, but simplified. I then pinned it to a jumper that I bought in the men's section in Primark, the sturdier the fabric the better. I used the same colour thread to satin stitch around the shape. This was done using a zig-zag stitch on the machine, but you could do it by hand, it would just take longer. It's a technique called appliqué, easy to do but looks really effective.

Next I cut the shape of Toby's beard in a darker brown fabric and again used satin stitch to attach it to the jumper.

Then sewed a nose shape using chain stitch and filled it in using chain stitch again. I used the same method for the eyes and the mouth, but used black thread.

I think it looked rather cute, and it could be done for anything really, as long as the shapes are kept simple enough.

If you are interested in anything that I have done, or would like me to sew something for you then just message me on here or contact me on my Facebook page or Twitter!!

DIY studded collars for an OOTD

Studs are everywhere now, studded shoes, bags, jackets, belts and collars. The may look good, but the price tag that comes along with them aren't. So of course I thought, I can do that for the fraction of the price and off I pop to eBay and get myself some studs. This is the seller I used and they were £2.50. 

I used a mint green blouse I had bought from New Look, I thought it would look good contrasted to the silver studs.

It was really easy to do, the spikes easily pushed through the fabric and I used a thimble to press over the spikes to secure them in place.

I added three rows of studs, as it prevents hair being caught in them! They look like collar tips almost. I added them to the pockets as well.

I think they look really good! and for £2.50 I can add them to anything, plus they are really easy to remove again.

I wore it recently with a skirt I had made from Liberty fabric and some vintage lace that was lying around my house. Looked perfectly summery.

This is one customization that anyone could do themselves, so I would deffo give it a go on a rainy day (plenty of those at the moment) or to give an old item of clothing an edgy new look. The result looks professional and expensive! No one would ever know that it only cost £2.50!!

x x x 

OOTD 9/8/2012 DIY ombre hair for summer

Recently I've been umming and arring over the ombre hair look, I think it is beautiful for the summer, but the thought of bleach on my hair and the expense was putting me off. Saying that most of my hair is extensions, so it is not my hair I'll be bleaching!! (well it is mine, I bought it!!). Next was the expense... so I must have watched a million YouTube videos and read a million blog posts of girls who did it themselves. From these videos and posts I decided that I could do that, looked simple enough, and the results looked good. So I took the plunge, it is only hair after all, it grows back, you can dye it back. Plus I've sort of got into the mentality recently of 'You only live once' so why not?

So I used Jerome Russell B blonde hair lightener. It was around £5 from Home and Bargain. It was one of the powder bleach ones. I bought two boxes as my hair is quite long, and my hair is almost black!!

So I followed all the tutorials I had seen, and after one attempt I washed my hair. It had lightened it, but it wasn't as light as I wanted so I did it on the very end of my hair two more times. This time I washed my hair and thought 'Oh my God it's ginger!!!' but thankfully it was just the light in my bathroom!! Again it was not the colour I wanted, but it had worked, just more subtle than I had hoped for. But ah well!! This is what it looks like.

So it looks ok I suppose but i don't think this hair will physically go any lighter!!

Anyway, so today is actually like proper summer, so you can actually wear summer clothes, so i thought I'd do a quick actual summer outfit of the day. So i'm just wearing a white vest from Dorothy Perkins (about £4), a grey jersey high low skirt from Topshop (£20), vintage gold, white gold and rose gold necklace from my nan, and Primark nude pumps with gold studs (£10), and Primark plaited belt (~£1). Excuse the pasty legs, they haven't seen sun in about a year!!

Hopefully I'll get a bit of tan on them today!! 

Much love x x

OOTD home made ombre shorts 5/8/2012

As I'm quite nifty with a sewing machine and feel I can turn my hand to most things, I decided to turn an old pair of ('boyfriend') ASOS jeans into some ombre denim shorts.

I chose boys jeans as they make better shorts as they usually have straight legs, making them easier to turn up (and then they don't dig into your leg) plus I like a looser fitting jean. So I cut them longer than I wanted them and turned them up twice and held them in place with a few stitches.

Next then ombre. So I took some ordinary household bleach (I think I bought mine in Home and Bargains for about 50p) and poured quite a lot into my washing up bowl and diluted it with a small amount of water. I then wet my shorts so that they were soaking wet. (I did this in the bath).   I then put my plastic gloves on (just the ones from hair dye kits) and dipped my shorts into the bleach/water solution. I dipped them as far as I wanted the lightest part of the shorts to be. I left the shorts dipped in the bleach for about an hour, (I would keep checking for the colour you want). As the jeans were wet already this allows the bleach to travel up the jeans, giving an ombre effect.

Once the desired colour has been achieved I then used my shower to rinse all the bleach from the jeans. These were then left to dry. It is then best to machine wash the jeans, just remove any excess bleach or dye to prevent it from transferring. 

I was rather pleased with the results and wore them in an outfit.

So I teamed my newly ombred shorts with a Topshop red checked shirt, Topshop silver and jade collar tips, Primark plaited brown belt, black tights and a pair of black creepers (not shown). 

This, believe it or not is a summer outfit!! (yes the weather is this rubbish in Liverpool) Let's pray for good weather so I can wear these bad boys without tights and a white vest!!

x x

Sew sew sew ootd 19/6/12

Sooo I've started up my own alteration, repair and customisation business!! And it's going pretty good so far! Made up! Needed a bit of money until I start my phd in October so I thought it would be a useful and creative way of doing it! I've just been doing repairs and alterations at the moment, but I've got a few more in the pipeline (costumes and patchwork quilts etc.)

So as part of this business I've been going through some of the things ie made over the years so that I can put them on my Facebook and twitter and I came across a skirt I made from liberty fabric years ago, and I thought it would go perfectly with my mint here blouse from new look and my gold jumper (miserable summer weather!) so that's what I teamed it with today! Shows how you can rewear things years later!!

X x

Homemade Sequin Collar Shirt

After having a bad experience with Missguided.co.uk with a no show order and then them sending me the wrong order I decided their sequin shirt wasn't that nice anyway and decided to make my own for a fraction of the price. It was really simple to do and I think it looks amazing.


So firstly I started with a plain black shirt (but you could use any shirt you wanted). I got mine from eBay for about £2. I then ordered a bag of gold sequins for 99p also from eBay. I thought gold would contrast the black shirt perfectly! I also chose sequins of all shapes and sizes but you could use all the same shape if you wanted!!

I then used the holes on the sequins and a gold thread to sew them onto the collar of the shirt, and this did take a few hours (but saved me a lot of money).

So all in all this cost me around £2.99 compared to missguided's £25.99 (I think) so I think that is such a good saving. This is such an easy way of personalizing anything, not just shirts. Plus I think it looks great.

So I worn it quite a few times but I'm wearing later for a house party to celebrate end of exams (yey!!) with a pair of jeans I cut off into shorts, a plaited leather belt and a pair of pumps.

Outfit of the day 28/5/2012

So today I'd last exam ever day! Thought this day would never arrive!! And yet again it is gloriously sunny outside.

So today I'm feeling rather patriotic so I have my soldier skirt from Cath Kidston on (will be PERFECT for next week!!) and I've just tucked a simple new look short sleeved t shirt into it. It has little rolled up sleeves an a little pocket on the chest, goes with almost anything. Jewellery is just my gold bracelet (never comes off) because I think it's too hot to wear anything fussy. Then on my feet are asos white pumps with little frilly asos socks, which look really cute.

Wish me look!

Outfit of the day 25/5/2012

So exam number 2 today, but it's gorgeous and sunny today so I'm wearing urban outfitters coral crop top, asos royal blue midi skirt, new look brown suede pumps and a topshop denim jacket for later.

Jewellery is a heart with an E on it necklace from urban outfitters and my standard gold bracelet.