Organizing Life: Black Week (1)

Hey there, friends! Before I share with you what I'm up to… I would like to show you this amazing poster! I know the quality is a bit off, I just couldn't seem to find a link to a person to ask permission to use the original. It all started with my favourite local ribbon suppliers, Ebony & Ivory! I have ordered ribbons from their online shop a few times and I like to just go over to their website to peruse their latest products. They have such a beautiful website, so when I saw they were on Pinterest, I followed them immediately! That is where I found this image… it was uploaded by Mosquitopress and does not have a source or link. I just had to share it with you because I am a Pluviophile. I love rainy days, they comfort my soul! They calm me in the strangest way…I long for rain when it doesn't come around as often as it should. I know many people wouldn't agree, but to me rainy days are amazing! I work better, I sleep better, I think better… but the best thing about rainy days, is that David would let me know he's making pancakes (crepes, as you know it) for dinner! What's not to love?

Getting back to my title, I'm "trying" to sort out my life! We will be moving soon and I have a crazy amount to sort through and throw out before we do. As you well know, I get my fabrics from our local charity shops, thrift stores and many times friends and family will give me bags full of scraps which were going to become landfill. Usually, all the fabric attained, is washed and then sorted into colour families. Now, I have been working with which ever type of fabric comes my way, but lately I have felt the need to work solely with natural fabrics and fibres. My plan is to use up all my thrifted synthetics asap. in order for me start focusing on the naturals. The first colour family is black, so this week will be dedicated to all black supplies I have. To use up as much as I can, to donate what I can't and so forth. Hold thumbs I make it through, because as my fellow creatives know, this is a colossal task!

Let the Black Week begin!

First things first, the fabrics are sorted by type, the small pieces are going to become flowers and the pieces that are big enough might just become pretty wearables! I have ironed the pieces which needed ironing and planned projects for the larger pieces. Starting with the small pieces, I cut them into various squared sizes and made roses using this tutorial. This method of fabric rose making is the quickest, easiest one I've come across so far. Then I made other roses using a combination of my own developed method and this tutorial. I also tried this very cute tutorial.




These pretties will become the most beautiful accessories will be available forsale soon. I shudder to think that some people just throw these bags of fabric in the trash when clearly these fabric scraps have super potential! Do you see the rose(above) with the pop of mint in it and the one on its left? They were what looked like the hem of someones nighties, just look at how pretty they turned out. Next time you shorten a dress or night gown hem, consider what you could make with the offcuts before you chuck it in the bin. My favourite quote comes to mind, "one man's trash is another man's treasure" that is just so true!

Hope you all had an amazingly creative Monday!

xxx

30 Days of Dresses: Dress #2

Okay, here is the dress you've all been waiting to see... the After of my Revamp post of earlier. I must say that I think that the outfit was mostly inspired by the adorable style of Kate from Scathingly Brilliant...

 -I am quite happy with how this dress turned out, it's crazy comfy-

 -Oh, that breeze... 

1. My lovely butterfly earrings are from my lovely Sister-in-law, Yuseon
2. My pretty deer brooch is from Tamarillo Designs 
3. My awesome vintage belt is from Hospice
4. My Minty butterfly ring is also from Yuseon
5. Minty flats from Mr.Price 

 -Mmmm, and that's why I mostly wear jeans nowadays-

xxx

My very first Vintage dress revamp

From time to time my grandmother would send a bag full of stuff with my mom with these instructions "give this bag to Chane', tell her that she can take what she can use and the rest must go to HOSPICE". Mostly such a bag would contain clothes that someone gave her that she can't use or doesn't like. Sometimes it's a whole lot of nonsense that she bought from her local animal welfare shop that she doesn't want anymore. But now and then she would send me something that she thought I would enjoy.

In this case, however, the bag was meant for the charity shop alone. Off course I'm first going to look through the bag before I hand it over... So in between a bunch of old men's work jeans, I found this over sized printed cotton dress. At first I thought I'd use the fabric to make something else but like all things handed down to me, it started growing on me. It's been almost two years since I found this dress and with inspiration from my new peachy cardi, Natasha's post on her first fashion remake.  Here is my first attempt.

-Okay, first step would be to try on the dress. Now you can see...lots of fabric-

-Next step, I turned the dress inside out (and upside down)

-Now I can start pinning where I would like it smaller and see, I raised the hem too(as indicated with blue above)

-Then take it off, run it though the sewing machine, trim where needed, turn right side out, iron and there you have it

PS. This was so much easier than I thought it would be... to see the end result, you have to wait for my 30 Days of Dresses: Dress #2 post, a little later...

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #7

How time flies! Monday already!? So here's what I made today... using scraps of various types of fabric collected over a period of time. I have started to sort all my thrifted and "hand-me-down" fabric into colour stories. This colour story is rich and luxurious, it carries a bit of a Medieval era mystery. Don't you think? I love how it turned out... I found a new fabric flower pattern here.

-love, rouge, velvet-

Happy Monday Makings #5

Just thought I'd try my hand at cross stitch and enter a competition at the same time. Most of you (South African friends) have probably seen the latest Visi magazine I love DIY cover competition. Well I decided to enter at the last minute, I chose a rose pattern. I've recently developed a very strong craving for all things rose-related so it just made sense. I used only left over scrap- and reclaimed yarn for this project. As most of my projects are done with reclaimed material, I thought to keep in line with the reduce/re-use/re-cycle theme.

-so here's to the love of DIY-

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #3

Okay.... I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Can you believe we're standing at the end of 2012?! With only 15 days 'till Christmas, 19 days 'till we move to our new home and 21 days 'till 2013! Not to mention all the December birthdays in between... So on this Monday, the 10th of December, a cold and windy overcast day, I decided to share with you my new Pink Roses. These are painstakingly made by cutting hundreds of little pieces of fabric, melting each and every little piece and then assembling them into these lovelies. They are then sewn together by hand with beaded details to make them oh so pretty. Most of the fabric I use is sourced from local thrift- and charity stores, some of my fabric is donated by my lovely readers and now and then my fashion designer aunt would send me her off-cuts. I see potential in everything, so this heap of off-cuts just became a lovely garden of pink roses.

-amazing how this bunch of pink can brighten up one's day-

xxx

Happy Monday Makings #2

Happy Monday friends! What a crazy-crazy year this has been...and even crazier past week! Through all the madness and having my posts heaping up like, I don't know what... I just had to share this quick post with you guys. I made this with the scraps I had left over from making my first ever crochet jacket (I will post this as soon as I've worked in all the ends:)) I hate wasting anything! I make full use of everything I work with... and I almost never throw anything away. I've been told that I'm a hoarder, but then you can't be an artist and not collect things... Just imagine this pretty necklace would've been in the bin had I not been a collector of "trash".   

-this was so easy to make-
-it took a bit long, though, the french knitting part-

-the pictures are pretty self explanatory, don't you think?-

-love my French knitting doll, an old school friend gave her to me-

-Thank you Katinka, I'm taking good care of her-

  -hope you like it and that you had a nice Monday-

xxx