Old to New

Tags

old to new, DIY, boyfriend jeans, cropped top, headband

When I posted about the jeans I dyed I mentioned that it wasn’t the first time I altered an old piece of clothing I wasn’t using as much into something new I now abosultely love. Here are two more examples. Unfortunately I do not have pictures of how I made it and what it looked like before, because it was all very spontaneous and quick.

Example # 1

3 out of 1!

This used to be a Charlotte Russe shirt with an included scarf. The scarf part was attached in the front and in the back. The shirt ended up with a tiny hole after doing laundry one day. You know those holes that the washing mashine likes to put in your favorite pieces, they’re so tiny you want to ignore them put when you put the piece on you just can’t, because the hole is always in such an obvious spot. In this case on my belly.

What I did:

I cut off the scarf and now use it as a.. wait for the surprise …. oh, the suspension… scarf!

The shirt still had the seams where the scarf had been attached to it. So I cut the lower part of the shirt off, creating a kind of cropped top. It was pretty baggy when I put it on and I didn’t like it that much at first. I started loving it, when I put a little knot in the front, which gives it a draping effect. It is a perfect cover up for tank tops and the like, especially when the top itself is a bit too baggy I can avoid looking like a giant rectangle with this little magic piece.

Now it’s baggy.. Pretty much the baggiest tank top I own.

Now it’s not… I like wearing this for workouts a lot.

I really, really suck at throwing things out. At least then I was able to think of a good use for the cut off bottom part of the shirt, too. I use it as a headband now! Depending on how you twist it it even looks like a turban.

Mini turban. Of course you can vary with the position in your hair.

This twist created the turban look. If you don’t want a turban on your head you can just hide the knot in the back of your head.

Example # 2

Boyfriend jeans

This used to be a regular pair of pants that had just gotten a little too big. Also, at a ‘how to dress for your body type’ class I was told to never pick jeans with a flap and button, which these of course had.

I had been envying the boyfriend jeans look on other people but just couldn’t find a pair that fit alright on me.

Here’s what I did:

I simply cut off a tiny bit off the leg. I was careful not to cut too much, because I wanted to fold over the ends and you usually need to do that twice for it to stay up. That’s exactly what I did, without even sewing the cut off part, you know I’m lazy! I have been wearing them a lot and love, love, looove how they look with a medium heel. So casual and still chic! At first I was worried about the edge because I didn’t sew it, but nothing has happened to it so far. I guess that is because the edge is folded in and is kind of protected this way.

Boyfriend jeans with little wedges

I also took of the flaps in the back. I just opened up the seam using a seam ripper. I decided to leave the button in to avoid a strange looking hole.

The removed flap, button still in.

Have you ever done something similar? I can’t be the only one who has a hard time sorting out and throwing out old clothes. I’d love to hear your stories!

xoxo

P.S.: For more on turbans check out these links
Khloe Kardashian’s facebook page
the beauty department’s post on turbans
Willow & Clay
College Fashion
YouTube tutorial on turbans

No More Power to Procrastination! (nearly..)

I always have a really hard time, getting myself together to do unpleasant things that just need to be done. Studying, cleaning, working out, you name it!

Recently I stumbled across this website called Daily Feats. There you can check in all kinds of things you do throughout the day and you collect points doing so. Those points can be traded in for real life rewards.

While you’re still kind of procrastinating when checking in everything you do, I feel it helps me stay on track and motivates me. It feels good to mark things you’ve done, even if it is only something small, and also you are reminded of other chores you still wanted to get out of the way, thus keeping you from wasting time any further. (After you’ve checked in all your feats that is, haha.)

I do it more for personal resaons than the rewards and thought I’d share it with you. I’m sure I’m not the only one who likes to put things off.

Let me know how you like the idea of the website and if you’ve joined. We could start up a team for even more daily motivation!

xoxo

Succesful Studying

Tags

bag holder, cup, DIY, mess, old to new, sticky tape, string

While the studying might not be successful at least I’m being productive in some way.

The study material is clearly buried in a quick DIY project.

What I made is a container for plastic bags. I like reusing them, but they're always all over the place. Not anymore now. (If you have an interest in cultural studies you might want to look at the list of topics I need to study.)

As you can see I used two plain cups, cut out the bottoms and put them together with sticky tape. You can put new bags in at the top and pull bags out at the bottom as you need them. I quickly used some string to fix the new bag holder to a shelf. No more bag messes!

It might not be the prettiest thing around, but it’s very useful and once again I only used material I had at home already.

Red = <3

Tags

clothes, clothing, dye, fashion item, jeans, old to new, pants, red, style

Colorful jeans are one of my favorite it-items this season, but I have a few issues with pants.

First of all, my derrière is rather well proportioned and most jeans just don’t have enough fabric to cover it. I’m not going to risk showing serious tush cleavage just because the pants are trendy!!
Secondly, if the pants do provide enough space it’s usually too much space and they end up being way too big around the waist.
Third, if the first major problems are not the case, I might get stuck in the pants halfway in. Why is that? My calves are unfortunately not as lean, slender and graceful as those of a ballerina and usually get in the way of skinny pants.

Having said all that, it’s pretty obvious I didn’t want to spend half a fortune on ill-fitting pants that I would end up not wearing.

So here’s what I did instead. (and it only cost me about 8 bucks and some patience!)

The pants before!

The dyeing in process. I made sure to move it every now and then to achieve smooth spreading of the dye.

Getting rid of the dye.

I’m washing out the dye to secure the color in the fabric.

Even when the jeans were still soaking wet you were already able to see the red. Yay!

This is a close-up from when the fabric was still really wet. But already nice an red.

As the jeans continued to dry the color came through beautifully.

OMG!!! I am fascinated with the result!! Especially in bright light the color is just amazing. I never would have thought it would turn out this great.

Me in my new it-jeans! In regular lighting the color is not quite as bright since the fabric was light to dark grey to begin with.

I really like the color, especially because it’s not too bright. That way it’s more flattering, I think.

Definitely red! Yay me!

Have you every modified clothes a little? Or maybe made something completely different out of them? I had so much fun doing this and am just obsessed with the result. Not to mention the low price for an up-to-date fashion item.

It wasn’t my first time taking something old an making something new. I’ll show you my other experiments soon!

xoxo
Mari

Framed (Fake) Jewels

Tags

arts & crafts, hand made, jewelry, nail polish, old to new

Here’s how I turned two plain, boring and not so useful picture frames into cute little jewelry racks. (With a little inspiration from a gift made by Nina).The funny thing is, I had all the materials I used at home already.

Step 1:
Thoroughly clean the surfaces that you will be painting. Otherwise the paint won’t stick as well and all your efforts will be futile. I used plain old rubbing alcohol and a cotton pad to do so. Depending on the material of your frame you might have to sand it, too. I was too lazy for that.

Step 2:
Because I had a multicolor design in mind and I didn’t want the silver color of the frame to peek out I applied a base coat of white. The paint I used is regular nail polish. Since the frames don’t have much surface to them you’re not wasting a whole lot of it. It’s available in most households with females living in it and you easily have a cheap variety. Also, nail polish sticks to, as far as I have experienced, most surfaces. It dries fast, too. Remember, that you might want to put paper or cardboard underneath your little arts & crafts project, so you won’t mess up your table or whatever surface you’re working on.

Step 3:
Apply the top layer of colors. Don’t be afraid of colors mixing or bumpy textures. As Bob Ross always says, it’s all happy accidents. I also think it makes your piece more special and personal. You could apply a see-through top coat, but again, I was too lazy for that. If it’s something that will just be standing around somewhere and will most likely not get in touch with other objects a lot you don’t really need a top coat.

I ended up liking the second one better than the first cluttered one, so I redid the first one. Could have saved myself the work of step 2.. oh well!

Step 4:
Take three rather long pieces of string and braid them. I made it long enough to be able to wrap it three times around the cardboard piece of the frame. You could also make three smaller individual pieces, but then you will need to do more gluing and I believe the string wouldn’t be as tight as when you continously wrap it. Maybe you don’t have as much jewelry and just need less length.
My string was nice and coarse with a lot of texture, I really liked that. You could also use wool – which I used in addition with one of the braids – or any other equivalent you can find at home.

Step 5:
If you dislike the background piece of your frame you would have to modify it before you attach the braid. I decided not to modify the background material itself, because I kind of liked the natural and rough look to it. I thought it went very well with my string.
Now, attach one end of the braid on the back of the cardboard or wooden piece. I simply used sticky tape. If your jewelry is all lose and you just hook it on to the string you can proceed to fasten the braid all around. I wrapped it three times, so I would end up with two lines for earrings and one for necklaces in the bottom. If, like me, you have your earrings on the little plastic piece they usually come with, you need to line them up as you wrap the braid. So you line up all the earrings you want to have in the first line and only fix it at the other side with more sticky tape and then continue wrapping. Make sure the distance between the different lines of braid is big enough, otherwise your jewelry will tangle and the whole thing will lose its effectiveness.

Step 6:
The easiest of them all: Put the pieces together and admire your fine work!
 
Did this inspire you to a little arts & crafts project of your own? Do you rather buy something store bought and save yourself the work? How do you like my results?

I’d love to hear your feedback!

In Barney Stinson’s words: New is always better!

Tags

belts, closet, clothes, clutter, jewelry, new, purses, space, walk-in

Yaaaaaaayy!!!

With 1 rack in

Close-up from underneath

View on one rack from above

Two shelves & racks + clothes

Tadaa!

I’m so happy I found a solution to store all my clothes in a half way decent manner! Let me tell you, if you work in a clothing store your closet is about to burst into pieces sooner than you think!

It still looks a little cluttered, but in my head it’s all color coordinated and just fabulous already. Sighhhh…!

Of course it’s not quite like this one or this baby, but for being on a budget it’s not that bad, I think.

There’s another shelf to come where I plan to put purses, maybe some shoes and, of course, these cute jewelry holders.

Arts & crafts project

I’ll show you how I made these in one of the next posts. Patience, now!

The girl on the light blue bike

Tags

bike, birthday, dutch, gift, light blue, parents, present, stare

When I was on vacation in the Netherlands with my parents we found this:

The blue beauty

It’s a second hand bike and my parents were so gracious to get it for me for my birthday. Yay me!!!

So now I’ve been riding about with my precious beauty and I get the feeling that soon enough all of Landau will know me as the girl on the light blue bike. While a bike like that is perfectly normal and often to be seen in the Netherlands it is rather exotic here. Maybe I should start a stare count

I am so happy to be a little bit more mobile again.

Thanks again, mom and dad!

Here are some more shots:

The blue beauty

Mind like a Sieve

Tags

50ies, carnival, costume, dress up, Fasching, Fastnacht, gal, Germany, Karneval, poll, skirt

I just realized that I never uploaded a picture of the winning outfit of the costume poll.

You have to apologize my rather forgetful brain (Most of you will have enoticed already..)

So, here it comes…. drrdrdrdrdrrdrrdrrrdrdrrrr (that’s supposed to be a drum roll. Come on, you didn’t get it?!?)

It was pretty cold that day, as usual for that occasion, so I had to modify the outfit with stockings and long sleeves. Still, I really loved it and had sooo much fun wearing it! I love dressing up!

Don’t belive it? Check out this pic from my recent birthday party:

Do I need to say more..? (Actually, yeah. If the pic doesn’t convince you, pay attention to the details aka nail polish)

The things I do when I’m supposed to study…

Tags

distraction, exam, mountain, procrastination, School, studying, test, university

Funny how I only feel I REALLY need to post something, when I urgently need to be doing other, more important things. It’s also interesting, that the things I post about are absolutely irrelevant and silly.

Anyways….

Procrastination

Procrastination

Procrastination

Procrastination

Early Bird Tweets

Tags

fashion, Khloe Kardashian, Loren Ridinger, morning, NYC, post grad blog, studying, twitter

I have had a twitter account for quite a while now, but I never really got into it.
This morning I was trying to avoid studying so badly that I took a closer look at the whole twitter thing.
Even though I think it’s impossible to keep up with everything without a smart phone, I was fascinated by the interesting things I found.

Some inspiring words (+ 1 pic)  for the morning:

@KhloeKardashian

Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

http://twitpic.com/40u6q7

@ForeverMalika

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation.

http://www.lorensworld.com/life-work/item/578-raising-your-standards.html

A little fashion:

http://thepostgradblog.com/post/3348491311/ny-mag-fashion-issue

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/fashion/new-york-fashion-week-2011-photos (People are thinking about NEXT winter already when THIS winter is not over yet???)

And a WTH?? one saved for last:

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20466952,00.html

And now, back to studying!