DIY Rubber Stamp Tights

I'm working my way through this 6-pack of sheer tights that I bought, DIYing each one in a different way. This is number 4! I've changed it up here a little; instead of using stencils for this one I'm using a rubber stamp, which I made myself. I've also done love-hearts again, but you can make these with basically any kind of design! Here's some quick designs I made to get you into the mood + give you some inspiration!

 

 

So here's the DIY bit!

What you need:

- An eraser

- A small, sharp knife of some kind, like a craft knife (...but be careful!)

- Some scissors

- A pair of sheer tights

- Some fabric/acrylic paint

- Clear nail polish
- A paintbrush (optional)

- A hairdryer (optional)

- Time!!

1. Make your rubber stamp

- Get an eraser and draw your design onto it with pen.

-Cut off the excess outside bits with scissors.

- Using a small, sharp knife, carefully work your way around the lines of your design. Carve and peel away the excess parts of the eraser. Your design should stick out from the rest of the eraser at least 1/4 of a cm (1/10th of an inch).

- Using the paint you're planning on using for your tights, test out your stamp on some pieces of paper. You'll be able to work out if your stamp is the right shape, what amount of paint to use, and also how much pressure to use when stamping. Here above, you can see that the stamp still needs some trimming around the edges.

- I'm happy with how they're turning out now. Time to start stamping some tights!

2. Painting your tights

- Wear your tights. Press your stamp against your tights/leg. 

What happened when I did mine, in about half the stamps, only the outline of the stamp worked (I guess because human legs are generally quite soft and squishy compared to paper on a table, or something). This actually looked pretty cool, and in the other hearts where more of the paint transferred than this, I used a paintbrush to fill them in completely.

- Once you've finished painting the fronts of your tights, either use a blowdryer to dry the paint, or wait about half an hour.

- Then, using clear nailpolish, coat all the painted sections completely.
- Use a blowdryer to dry (or wait for a while again), then wait at least another half an hour, then carefully peel off your tights. If there's HEAPS of paint still on your leg, stop, and let it dry for longer, or they won't work out.
- Wear your tights backwards and do the other side!

Pretty cute, huh?

Total cost: about $2 - $3.

Also, you should probably listen to this while DIYing. It's called "It's Nice to Be Alive" by Aussie band Ball Park Music, and it is probably the happiest song ever; I had it on repeat basically the whole time I was painting my legs today.

Enjoy your day!

Much love, Annika xxx

Cat eyes, oh my! + Modcloth loves me & Happy Valentine's Day!

What I wore to uni today! (Slightly valentines themed. Very uni themed. I'm quite nearly unbearably hipsterish, even though I'm pretty sure hipsterish is a word I made up just then.) I'm starting properly in just over a week! Very exciting times.

Wearing:

Dress - Forever 21

Cardigan - Forever 21

Tights - DIY

Bag - Vintage

Collar - DIY

Shoes - Vintage

Ring - ebay

Glasses - ebay

Hat - From Markets in Osaka

Belt - Vintage

Also, I was super excited today, after coming home from a long commute and a long day of studying very studiously, to find that Modcloth loves my DIY tights! MODCLOTH!! LIKES! MY! TIGHTS!

Have you seen the tights they sell on Modcloth? They're incredible! So I was pretty stoked!

Happy Valentines Day,

Annika xxxxx (extra x's because it's Valentines day. Oh yes.)

Cat eye glasses!

I've been so eagerly awaiting these in the mail - cat eye glasses! And they finally arrived today! For anyone who wants to know where they can get themselves a pair - go here! I just wanted to take a quick photo of them and share them because I am in looooove. Be prepared to start seeing them in a lot of outfit posts! 

(When I was looking at this photo again, the perspective of the shot made it look (to me) like the glasses had taken on a life of their own, and my head of hair was a little cat-eyed blue monster. And it amused me a lot. So I made this.)

I think I've gone mad.

Happy days!

Annika xxx

Thrifting Heaven

Yesterday, I brought back the most AMAZING haul from a thrift store. I usually don't bother boring you all with my thrift store adventures, as they're usually pretty uneventful. Yesterday though, I had the best luck. It was probably the best thrifting I've ever done. I owe it all to an op shop that I've never been to before (and will try my hardest to keep the whereabouts of all to myself ;) ), but will now be making into one of my regular stops. It's so rare for it to happen these days, but you know when you go into a thrift store and it's run by really old ladies who are super sweet but really don't understand the value of vintage clothing/haven't sold out to the vintage trend like ALL the other op shops? And so they don't realise that an amazing velvet/lace bodycon dress or pleated chiffon blouse or multi-toned perforated brogues should be worth WAY more than $5? And no one else knows about this op shop because it's kind of hidden and kind of hard to get to? And hipsters have also yet to discover this place because it's located in an extremely untrendy suburb? WELL. That's exactly what happened here. I found an amazing little treasure trove of cheap, undiscovered amazingness. These are the beautiful things that I brought back home with me, very, very excitedly (my mum was like: um, Annika, are you ok? Why are you shaking??)

On top of this, I also bought a length of black velvet fabric, a length of navy velvet fabric, some floral print black fabric and some light coloured paisley fabric, each being only 50c! They'll be going straight to a DIY project ;)

Best thrifting day out.

Love you all!

Annika xxx

A sweet way to update your wardrobe: DIY peter pan collars onto old shirts

Just a few hours ago, I found myself trawling through endless online stores in a zombified state, systematically adding hundreds of pretty things to various shopping carts and promising myself that I wouldn't buy anything (although already knowing in one part of my mind that I would). This is a scenario which occurs all too often. Today, however, some ridiculously self-disiplined part of me spoke up and went: NO! ANNIKA! YOU SHALL NOT BUY - YOU SHALL... CREATE! Go and make something of the ridiculous amounts of clothes that you already own (and don't even wear, may I add)! Go and embrace your creative side! Go on, do it!

And, well, I thought that this part of my brain had a pretty good point. So I dragged out of my wardrobe a whole heap of basic t-shirts and singlets and pretty floral tops which I once loved but now think are incredibly boring. I also pulled out of my vastly expanding pile of fabrics some lace curtain fabric that I bought from a thrift store for $1. "Right", I said to myself, "make something cool with these things".

And this is what I came up with:

(Plain grey t-shirt from Forever 21)

(Cotton On floral singlet)

(Floral blouse from General Pants Co)

(Banana Republic plain white long-sleeve tshirt)

(Half lace/half chiffon top from Forever 21)

So I thought that this is a pretty good way to update your wardrobe (the top half of it, anyway) if you're feeling a little bored with it. And it was (basically) free, as well! You just need to visit your local op shop and browse through all the old bits of fabric and upholstery (most thrift stores will have a sad looking basket sitting in a corner/under a table somewhere where you can find this) and put up with looking a bit mad because you're purchasing a whole bunch of unmatching, old lacey curtains. But these old curtains often have the most interesting and incredible patterns on them, and are just way too lovely NOT to be put to good use.
These are two examples of ones I bought ($1 each!):

The second one is particularly good, because the scalloped edges of the fabric provide natural peter pan collar shapes. And how adorable are the little birds??

Once you have your lace, you need to source an old/unloved t-shirt or singlet that would look pretty paired with it (basically anything. What doesn't look good with lace?).

Now here's the DIY bit:

1. Place the lace/curtain fabric (wrong side up, if it has a front side) over the front of the t-shirt.

2. Draw onto the back of the lace with a fabric pen (a normal pen works just fine as well) the shape you think the collar should be. ONLY do one half of the collar (you will see why in a moment). Use the collar of the t-shirt as a guide for one edge of the lace collar, and judge for yourself what the other edge should look like/how big it should be. In any case, the shape you draw onto your lace should look something like this:

3. Cut out this one half of your lace collar. Then, to get a symmetrical collar (always good), flip this piece you just cut out over, and use it as a stencil to draw onto the lace again, and cut out your other half. You should now have these two pieces from your lace:

4. Use craft/fabric glue to attach the two lace pieces (front side up) to the front of the shirt, like this:

You can glue the whole bit of lace onto the front of the shirt, or alternatively put just a thin line of glue on the edge of the (t-shirt's) collar and just stick the inner part of the (lace) collar to the shirt. And now you're done!

Here are some outfits that I put together with my newly collared tees:

I'll figure out a good way to update the lower half of your wardrobe now, and get back to you on that! I'm sure it will involve lace. I am entirely obsessed with any intricate or interesting lace pattern recently. A good DIY for updating old/basic/boring shoes, however, (if you're interested) can be found here.

Hope that you're having the sweetest day,

Annika xxx

I wear my heart on my legs, not on my sleeve...

Yes, yes, it's another (slightly) Valentines themed post. For this I apologise. But I did some more DIY tights, and I think they're pretty cute, so I wanted to share them with you! Plus I also did some awesome thrifting today (a post to come about this tomorrow), so I also wanted to show you some of those finds :) I found this bag, top (actually a dress) and shoes today!

 

Wearing:

 Tights - DIY

Collar - DIY

Top (actually a dress) - Vintage

Skirt - here

Hat - here

Bag - Vintage

 Shoes - Vintage

Love you all!

xxx Annika

Oh, hello there Mr Saint Valentines, Sir. Do you like my tights?

Just a quick outfit post. You can find the DIY and full post for these heart-print tights here.

 

Wearing:

Blouse - here

Tights - DIY

Bag - oasap.com

Belt - Vintage

Shoes - Forever 21

Hat - here

Side note: I'm not blonde again. I would be mad had I changed hair colour yet again. And bald. No, these were taken just before I went blue again, after bleaching out the lovely green :)

Hope you have/have had a super day!

xxx Annika

DIY Floral Brogues (a neat way to update your shoe collection)

 I bought some fairly basic but nice shoes the other day from Rubi Shoes, then promptly went mad and half-destroyed them. Well, what I was trying to do was to paint them and make them look all oxford-style and elegant, but all I managed to achieve was... well... this.

It wasn't pretty. Paint + shoes + the place where your foot bends so that you can walk = a flaky, crumbling, crappy looking mess which look like you've walked through a construction site then through wet paint then back through the construction site again for some reason.

LUCKILY, as I also used a really crappy paint, it washed off. I was on a mission though, and still wanted to DIY these shoes SOMEHOW. So, from my ever-expanding hoard of fabrics I grabbed this quilter's fat-pack I bought the other day at Spotlight (because it was on sale for $1.50, and the pattern was pretty). I cut out 4 strips measuring 28cm x 12cm (11in x 5in) , removed the shoelaces and then glued them (using craft glue) very carefully to the top parts of the shoes (the parts within the pre-made borders).

I didn't risk covering the toe area again, as I had learnt that that area gets very creased by walking.

Then I used my precision knife to cut out very carefully along the ridgey bit of the shoe, and glued these edgey bits down with craft glue.

Get one of these knives, they're very good for this kind of thing, and for general DIY-ing. Don't try and use scissors for this DIY, it will either be very very very hard, or won't work.

I then had a bit of an issue poking back through the shoe-laces hole, but managed to eventually fix it all up. And look how they turned out!

 

Well, they're at least much better than my genius painting idea. And no one else owns a pair like them. I was pretty happy with my DIY shoes in the end!

Find an old pair of flats or basic brouges that need an update, and try it out yourself!

Have a stunning day!

Annika xxx