Last Minute Chambray

LAST MINUTE CHAMBRAY

Yesterday morning before work I had a baby fit. A little tantrum. A hing ding! 

Why? Well, going against the "good sense" part of my brain, I neglected to select an outfit the night before for my workday, which was a little higher priority than usual because of a school event.  Still, I managed to construct something I really liked in the wee hours of the morning but it involved a silk shirt. A very WRINKLY silk shirt. So, first mode of attack; I sprinkled it with water generously and tossed it into the dryer. Even after 15 minutes, the drying was completely ineffective, so I moved onto phase two: ironing. My iron with steam also failed to remove the stubborn silk wrinkles which were now causing me to twitch a little (ten minutes until I had to walk out the door).

I abandoned ship.

Moving on to other blouse selections in my closet, I threw on something different and managed to button it nearly completely until I reached the bottom...missing....button. (Expletive).

Shirt two: another missing button.

If you can believe it...shirt three....another missing button. (What the...???) HULK SMASH!

At this point I was furiously running around the house in my bra with a cup of french press, ready to violently explode anything in my path with fire-powered laser eyes.

As a last minute ditch effort, I threw on my trusty chambray shirt and a charcoal blazer (all thrifted, of course) with some black pants and these great peep toe bootie heels. 

I looked over my outfit. My blood pressure began to reduce, and I felt a sigh of relief.

Catastrophe averted. 

I liked the last minute ensemble enough to snap some outfit shots on my lunchbreak. Hope your morning was much better than mine the day these photos were taken!

 

 P.S.! Excuse the rough cuticles and less than perfect painting, but I wanted to share my cute mani-a layer of gold with a metallic maroon stripe, also "once-overed" with chunk glitter!

It's a Plaid World!

It's a plaid, plaid world!
I love this outfit. SO much fun. So festive! But, you don't have to wait for Christmas time to rock plaid! As you can see from the picture above, I took this thrifted vintage Cathy Daniels plaid blazer (I bought this at Hope's Outlet in Grand Haven, MI for $1.59!) and paired it with dark skinny jeans, a purple vintage rhinestone brooch, the snakeskin Micheal Kors belt (all thrifted items, ofcourse) and red Nine West Platform heels. I did red and gold nails plus a fun cocktail ring with this outfit, along with a dark blue vintage clutch. My favorite part was the fun purple eyeshadow. I dig the way it worked! Very fun and colorful, yet "put together". I'll apologize ahead of time for the "flash"-y photgraphy and lovely (kidding) background of my back porch coat rack, haha! However it was late evening and I was headed out for a performance with my solo acoustic act(Ida's Rope). I didn't want to miss an opportunity to catalog a favorite outfit with you all...so I compromised the photo quality a little in this post. Have fun--get out there and pick up some plaid at your local thrift store!

Sleeveless Blazer DIY

Yesterday, I took an an InStyle DIY project on: create a sleeveless blazer with an over sized men's suit jacket. The project was supposed to be simple: just cut the sleeves off! No...that wasn't happening. I griped about it on my Facebook page. I actually ruined the first hounds tooth men's blazer and that was simply because I followed the advice in the DIY, lol. (No offense to InStyle). Good thing it was only $1.59! I would not recommend that project unless you sew and are comfortable with at least a basic hemming stitch. Also, my advice would be to choose a lighter jacket, as a more bulky men's jacket (as advised) will be harder to hem and also (in my opinon) does not fit as well, even when belted. The other problem is bigger and more deeply sewn shoulder pads. As far as the "jacket down", I will be using the fabric from that for other things...so look for up-cycled hounds tooth in the future! :)

IF you wanted to do a men's jacket WITHOUT sewing, in my opinion, a better option might be to buy a small one, remove just the shoulder pads, and then try a 3/4 length sleeve, and maybe even "cinch" it. Then adding a feminine brooch or a belt might create an overall edgy, yet feminine, look.

So...back to jacket story. I bought a second thrift jacket, a women's jacket, that was closer to my size. Cut the sleeves off, double and top-hemmed hemmed them, added a cinch in the back, embellishments on the shoulder, and vintage abalone buttons all around!

This was the result! I think I will wear this belted with maybe black leggings/pants. I have a super cute mustard yellow beret that would look great with it. More on that later! Overall, this project took about an hour and was at a beginner sewing level.