Sunday, January 8, 2012

candy corn

So, I had this skirt:

I thrifted it, and then only wore it once because it was long (I had already hemmed it in this picture) and too too bright! 

So, getting some fun inspiration from - where else - Pinterest, I decided to bleach it.

But, still not being over my love of all things ombre, I decided to somewhat dip-bleach it. I'm not sure what to officially call my method, but basically, I dipped half of the skirt in the bleach, let it sit for a while, pulled it out a little, let it sit for a while, etc. 

(While all this bleaching business was happening, I watched this movie, A Day in the Life.. Basically, people around the world filmed what their life was like in one day and it was compiled into this movie - pretty unremarkable, except one scene which made my cry my eyes out. Seriously, I was caught off guard and found myself nearly sobbing. Kristofor even came upstairs to see what was wrong. The scene showed a cow being killed in a slaughterhouse - it was pretty graphic and I wasn't expecting it at all. I've seen Food Inc. and other shows, showing animals in horrible living conditions, etc. But nothing has ever made me consider swearing off meat, as much as seeing that. Did it keep me from going to Texas Roadhouse the next day? No. But, I didn't eat cow meat, because somehow it's easier to justify eating a chicken. Pretty silly.)




I didn't take any pictures of what I did next, but the bleach hadn't done quite as much as I wanted, so I thought I would try to dye the bottom of my skirt a bit darker. I wanted it to be pink, but...



 It's orange! Really orange.


My puppy is getting so big!

 Which is okay...

But it does remind me a bit of a certain Halloween candy..


Hahaha! Not quite what I was going for, but oh well, it was worth a shot. I could try hemming it even more, but not sure I want to.

I'll still wear it. Probably.

Monday, January 2, 2012

getting organized

Using my bad-quality iPhone pictures, I'm going to show a little before and after of my sewing area. (Did I mention I lost my camera?)


 I was using an old shoebox to store all my sewing materials, and the whole desk was a mess because I had nowhere to put things. So I took this 3-drawer organizer we'd been keeping all of our old shoes in and decided to re-purpose it. 




Inspired by this post, I decided to put some colored paper on the inside of the front of the drawers to add a little pop of color, and to hide what was inside them.
Inspiration






Ta - da!



Instead of mod-podging the paper to the inside of the drawers like she did on MadiganMade, I just taped them with good old scotch tape. I figured that would be easier to switch out in case I get bored of the colors, and I think it looks just as good. I have some semi-permanent vinyl letters that I used to number the drawers.. not that they need it, but I like the look and they come off easily.


It was super easy, and now my sewing area is really organized - we'll just see if I can keep it that way.  =)

sew sew

Kristofor got me a sewing machine for Christmas. I'm so excited - I've been wanting one forever! I've already hemmed two skirts that I didn't like to wear because they were too long, and have lots more ideas forming. 

The next project on my list is this skirt:

It looks super easy (I'm going to be omitting the pockets), and you can never have too many skirts! I wanted to work on it tonight, but then I realized I forgot to pre-wash the fabric... Arg. 

I'll post a picture when it's done. 

=)