DIY - Cushion cover...

For quite a while I have wanted to try out a sewing machine so when my next door neighbour said we could borrow hers to practice on, I decided to make something really easy to start with. Iv just moved to a lovely new house at uni so have made a cushion cover for my room. I absolutely love it.

Its not perfect but overall I am really proud of myself. I think the pattern is gorgeous, a bit vintage shabby chic. I might even use the left over material to make a bit of bunting or something, not sure yet.

Im not going to do a tutorial on how to make this as you will probably all know how to as I am a complete beginner. But anyway I am well on the way to buying my own sewing machine.

I never win...

I am not the luckiest when entering competitions and contests so when I recently entered a competition on Chars blog, http://charpee-charpee.blogspot.co.uk/ i didn't expect to hear much. But i am happy to announce that for once I have won something.

This is the necklace that I won in the giveaway, a lovely French Connection number. I can't work out whether the pendant is a mouse or birds skull. What do you reckon?

I am not sure whether I will keep it all as one necklace or DIY it a bit yet. I think the pendant would look lovely on a wire bracelet.

So anyway I thought I would share this momentous occasion and say check out Chars blog. And it has confirmed my plan to do my own giveaway. So when I hit 50 followers I will do one, not sure with what yet but its in the pipeline!

DIY lacy shorts...

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, its just been a bit hectic this past week and moving house = no internet. But I am back and here is a little shorts DIY that I did about two weeks ago.

I had a pair of River Island shorts which are very short. They look fine when worn with tights but I want to be able to wear them with or without tights and not feel really self conscious.

So I decided to add some lace. I went to the fabric shop and bought some cream strip lace which cost 35p a metre, some dark green thread and some needles. Its actually a lot easier to do than I thought it would be, I pinned the lace to the inside of the shorts and tried them on to see if I liked the length etc and then simply sewed all around the lace so that it was firmly in place.

Because I used dark green lace and sewed really close to the hem line, you can't see the sewing at all.

And thats the finished result. I am really pleased with how they turned out and in fact I think i prefer them with the lace than without. And I can walk down the street without hundreds of people seeing my bum cheeks waving at them. Its a win all round!

DIY dip-dyed denim shirt..

So I have attempted my first bleach dip dye. I had an old denim shirt that I never really wore and wanted to spruce it up a little bit. The images make it look far more green than it actually is and my aim was actually to make it white, but for a first attempt I'm really pleased.

I started off by just buying some really cheap Tesco Value bleach which was around 28p for two litres. I then marked on the top where I wanted the dip dye to start and to give me an indication of colour change. Then in a bucket I mixed a water and bleach solution. With the shirt on a hanger i submerged it into the bucket with a mixing stick and gloves and waited and then I waited some more and then waited a little bit more.

After about 5 hours of being in the bleach with no colour change I realised that the bleach mix was far too weak, I know its a long time to wait but I went out to bingo with my friends and just left it. I watered it down a lot to start with after reading lots of horror stories about clothes disintegrating etc however I think you would have to use the worlds strongest bleach for this to happen. Luckily my lovely mum had two stronger more expensive bottles of bleach which we threw into the bucket as well with just a tiny amount of water just to make it slightly more diluted. Eventually after waking in the night to take it out of the bleach, it worked!

Please excuse the no make-up look!

Although not perfect and not completely as expected, I really love my new shirt and am hoping to try a few more bleaching techniques like a bit of tie dye. If anyone has any other ideas or there own bleached clothes I would love to see some links.

Stud Lust..

Recently I have been loving anything studded, I have recently purchased a denim jacket and studs to DIY it myself. I will post pictures when I have found the time to do it. But here are a few studded items on my list at the moment.


Links are underneath the images...

Boohoo - £40

Emilee Black Studded Back Platform Shoe Boots - £40

River Island - £20

River Island Black Studded mini skirt - £20

Daisy Street Shoes - £19.99

Amber Studded Flats - £19.99

ASOS - £225

Just to show that studs don't have to just be paired with black and white.

Textile by Elizabeth and James

If anyone has any other ideas I could use my new studs for or any studded clothing around, comment below :)