Tagged: diy

and the winner is….

giveaway winner - number 6!

Tig! Commenter number 6, whose favorite color is kelly green. Congratulations, Tig!

It was fun to see what everyone’s favorite colors are! Lots of people like purple, which was funny to me since I am not a purple person. Although apparently, purple is the hot color for fall! And it has been growing on me lately.

My favorite color is turquoise, really any shade between blue and green (but closer to the blue side). When it comes to a second favorite color, though, that’s tricky. I love green and blue and orange and yellow… I have pink days, too. It all depends. I love colors!

Yesterday I finally got around to fixing up a little shelf unit I picked up at the Goodwill more than a year ago. It was a bathroom fixture, a little cabinet with a towel rack and shelf. It was quite beat up, wobbly, and dirty… but it had potential. So it came home with me.

white shelf before

I first bought it because I loved the knobs on the doors. I wanted to paint the unit a solid bright color, and leave the knobs white. But cabinets are rather impractical for me, because then the space in front of them can never be blocked.

The back piece was flimsy cardboard-like stuff, and it was starting to mold. It was the first thing to go. I took off the doors, figuring it’d be easier to paint that way, and realized: this is a cute shelf! Little shelf sat in my room lodging fabric during the school year, growing steadily weaker since it was missing a proper back.

That is, until yesterday! My wonderful brother Ben helped me use the circular saw to chop off an appropriately sized piece of pegboard that we had sitting in the basement. I decided to paint it… considered white, then light pink, until I realized: this can be whatever color I want it to be, really and truly. It doesn’t have to match, it just has to be awesome. That’s when I pulled out the orange bottle.

And I’m glad that I did!

orange shelves

Little shelf is quite happy now, with a solid back attached to all of the shelves and the wobbly shelf re-nailed to the sides. It’ll be perfect in my dorm room for holding all my little shoe-box sized bins of whales, mousies, pouches, and supplies. Hurray!

Speaking of moving into the dorm… I’ve still got quite a few whales who would be much happier with real homes than crammed into these plastic bins. Wouldn’t you like to have one?

busy little bee
buzzing flower to flower,
sustained by its work.

fashion friday

rain falls, clouds open,
sun dries the earth, whispering,
“time for something new.”

black stripe shirtLately I’ve been in a peculiarly fashion-conscious mood. While I like to think most of my outfits are fairly cute, they typically consist of jeans and either a Threadless tee or one of my handmade shirts. I think it’s an annual feeling that I share with the rest of the world: we’re going back to school! we want to look cute and slightly different from last year!

heart print t-shirtI’ve been digging through the fabric bins, finally bringing a few of my visions to life. I’ve lost the long sleeve to my favorite and vastly edited t-shirt pattern, which has slowed me down considerably. I plan on hacking through my thermals that I got on Jo-Ann’s clearance to make a few cute and cozy things for Cleveland winters, and I have some fuchsia jersey knit that I’m playing with… I’m hoping it will turn into a cute jumper-esque top.

These pictures are of shirts that I made during my spring break shirt-making frenzy, and hadn’t photographed until now. My wonderful brother has been taking loads of pictures, enough for me to decide which I look least goofy in (he typically gets me to make lots of faces, from big laughs to pure exasperation), and I can finally share them with you!

The first shirt was a recon, originally a large, overstretched, unflattering turtleneck… a 25-cent find at my favorite annual flea market. This is the before picture, although I had already severed the sleeves:

black stripe shirt before

I always cut the sleeves off as the first step in my reconstructed shirts, because as much as I dislike installing set-in sleeves, it makes the fitting process much easier. I sliced and trimmed and fixed the neck, tightened and shortened the sleeves, and made it fit. I love recons because you can re-use the bottom hem! My one regret is that I did not think to match the stripes of the sleeves with the body. They match with themselves, but not all the way across. (sigh)

The second shirt was made from scratch, and the pattern was built by tracing one of my favorite shirts that features a scoopneck and a raglan cap-sleeve. I used baby heart fabric (i always fall for baby/juvenile prints) and super-stretchy turquoise rib knit to make this cute, summery top.

Yesterday I reconstructed a men’s wool sweater to fit me wonderfully; I think it might be the coolest article of clothing I’ve made so far, and you can’t beat the $4 price tag for real wool! I’ll get pictures as soon as I can stand to wear it for more than a minute in this heat.

Another teaser – I’ve been doing lots of hair-thinking lately, and I’m debating whether or not I should get bangs… but along with this decision making came a brilliant idea for a super easy and wearable ribbon headband! (i’ve never been able to stand the pain of wearing a headband for more than a few minutes.) I’ll post the tutorial tomorrow.

have a wonderful weekend!