At my desk

Been working on some ideas for a set of wedding stationary. Waves and fun curly cursive fonts. This is just some preliminary doodling but I'm excited to see what it ends up turning into.

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Even if I'm feeling a bit blue, a color organized closet will cheer me up without fail.

striped dress re-do

I've had this striped dress for a while. It's been lingering in the back of my closet for months and was about to make the jump to my "to donate" bag when I realized I hadn't worn it in months. However, I'm all for trying to bring new life to old things, and I love stripes, so I decided to try to make it into something I would wear.
The main problem was the dresses length. I am very tall and the dress ran a bit short, to the point where it was near scandalous even with tights. So I took a foot off the bottom and made it into a top. I even shortened the sleeves to a more appealing length.



















Considering I've worn it twice in one week I a going to chalk this up as a win.












































I was also able to turn the discarded skirt material into an infinity scarf which means that every bit of this old dress was used in some way which makes me pleased as punch!

dress pattern

Once upon a time I found a dress. It was the perfect dress in fit and style and I wanted to wear it every day. I think most women have a similar piece. Something that is so "just right" that you don't know how you lived without it. And I have come to the conclusion that I would probably be happy if I had a closet full of this magic dress in various colors and prints.
In an attempt to make that a reality I drafted a pattern from my perfect dress and decided to try my hand a sewing a real dress. Not a jersey t shirt dress (my usual flavor) but a fully lined, zippered, darted, legitimate dressmaker dress. I figured I would make the first try of this home made pattern out of a thrifted vintage sheet so as not to waste any good fabric if my attempt went awry.

It was a fairly simple pattern, with a wide waistband and full 10 gored skirt. I decided to add an additional pattern (tiny hot pink polka dots  after I had cut out all of the pattern pieces. It's very subtle but a fun addition.

 I had to make several tweaks as I was constructing my trial dress, but I made sure to diligently alter my pattern to reflect what I discovered but overall it only took five hours which seems pretty quick considering I added rickrack trim to the hem and hand sewed the waistband lining in. I think I will make another go but alter the bodice to have a different cut as an alternative, perhaps a sweet boat-neck  I will see how my fancy strikes me but all in all this first take on my new pattern made me feel that my dream of having a "uniform" of perfect dresses is totally within my grasp!

At my desk

I had seen something (maybe on Pinterest) about making gold nugget post earrings out of modeling clay and I of course cannot find the original image that was stuck in my head, but it did get me thinking that I could probably make them with a hole through so that they could  be strung like beads. I made about a dozen in a variety of sizes and painted them all with gold acrylic paint. It took forever to paint all the little sides with multiple coats so they would be more convincingly solid gold.

I strung the beads on silk beading thread with some gold tone seed beads for dividers and then used some chain I already had on hand to make up the rest of the necklace length. I wouldn't say these would fool anyone as real gold but they are pretty fun none the less.

At my desk

I made this monogram stamp I made for a current project. I was trying out this gold ink for the first time. It is gorgeous, very metallic and solid, but unfortunately  it seems to take an infinite amount of time to set, I may even need to experiment with some sort of clear coat over it as the gold seems to rub off on everything.

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I made an (early) birthday cake for my papa last weekend. It was carrot cake, and a delicious one at that (all that cream cheese frosting......mmmmmmmmm). I felt it looked a bit too simple though with it's rustic creamy frosting job, so I added this dapper fellow, appropriately attired in hat and rhinestones for the festivities.