DIY Skirt & Bowtie makes a very Merry Christmas

Red velvet – an essential item to get you into the Christmas spirit.

Velvet – a very annoying, easily frayed fabric, providing much fun for the family and visiting relatives as you stress about hand sewing the hem all “shrumpy” and lament that you don’t have a sewing machine.
A sewing machine – a lovely surprise present which is given to you by your parents a day before christmas because they can’t let you suffer with hand sewing any longer.
Annika – a very happy girl.
A finished DIY velvet skirt – a half hand-sewn, half machine-sewn little velvety bundle of happy and christmas spirit!

Also, the story with the balloon - my uncle is a professional magician (seriously, probably one of the coolest jobs you could have + make money from) and whenever we have a family gathering, he is forced into doing a magic show for us all. Hence making balloon animals, and balloons that look like love hearts. So I thought it would be nice to incorporate it into my Christmassy outfit.

I even went so far as to paint my nails in Christmas colours! Haha. Vote for me on lookbook :)

I really hope that everyone has a lovely Christmas time!

Thanks so much for all your lovely comments as always!

xxx Annika

Little Daisy Dress #2

I was about to sell this dress as I've had it for years and haven't worn it in forever, then decided it's actually really cute and put together an outfit around it.

So bad at getting rid of clothes.

Still, enjoy the photos! Maybe I'll be able to part with my clothes one day... but today is not one of those days.

Annika xxxx

Tulle Therapy

I had been in hospital for a while when taking these photos (totally trending the hospital tag on my left wrist there), and really over wearing a shapeless white gown everyday. So, out on a day pass, I had to dress up as much as I could to make up for it, and take some photos of course. Dressing up and taking photos helped with the general boringness of being in hospital and sickness. Also, so did DIY. DIY was a great boredom-killer. Making millions of little velvet bows not only helped me to get good at sewing, but I also now have millions of little velvet bows to attach to both clothes and my hair. Win win win!

Hooray for DIY & Tulle Therapy!

Heaps chuffed about my bow and collar, which I DIY'ed up myself.

Wearing:

Tulle Dress - wholesale-dress.net
Petticoats (under dress) - wholesale-dress.net

Socks - Japan (Tutu Anna)

Perforated White Oxfords -  wholesale-dress.net

Collar - DIY'ed by me

Jumper - Vintage from Thank You Mart in Japan

Belt - Vintage (Lifeline)

Bag - wholesale-dress.net

Velvet Bow Hairpine - DIY'ed by myself

You can vote for this outfit on chictopia too if you're feeling particularly lovely!

Annika xxxx

daisies and sheers

Wearing:

Shoes from Rubi Shoes

Dress by Chicabooti

Collar is Self-Made

Tights from Wholesale Dress

Map Print Bag from Wholesale Dress

Belt from markets

Sweater from Forever 21

ps. got out of hospital yesterday :):) hooray!

Blogging to ya'll from a hospital bed

Just because I've found myself stuck in hospital this week, doesn't mean I can't get stuck into some DIY. In fact, hospital is more or less the perfect place for whiling away mindless hours hand sewing and cutting up fabric. And as I'm stuck in a ward of old, seriously old people, I'm competing with a whole lot of little old ladies to become the best sewer in this place. The DIY is ON! (I'm so lame.) I convinced my lovely mum to go and buy me a whole bunch of stuff from spotlight, winning a whole big bag of material and thread with sympathy for having to be in hospital (muh ha ha). So i figured as I can't do any outfit posts at the moment (a lookbook on how to best decorate ones shapeless white hospital gown, perhaps?), this is what I've come up with after a few days of mind-numbing boredom (keep in mind I also have a bunch of leads connected to me and an IV in my arm so my sewing skills have been somewhat compromised (so no laughing)):

- A mustard scalloped peter pan collar with embroidery details

- A plain mustard peter pan collar

- Several velvet bows in all sizes, with both bobby pins and safety pins on the back to create bows for my hair and bowties for my clothes

- The beginnings of a red velvet skirt (and there will also be some red velvet bows from the offcuts, I'm sure)

- And some more peter pan collars of all colours, sizes and shapes (did I mention I'm planning on becoming the queen of collars?)

And of course, there's some (bad quality) photos of this for your viewing pleasure if you all care to scroll down the page just a little bit.

Hopefully I'll be out and blogging again just before Christmas. Much love to you all :) xxx Annika

DIYing Peter Pan Collars

I didn't have a thing to do today (and the weather is entirely miserable) so I spent it making 3 quite nice scalloped peter pan collars using some bits of old felt that I found in a box, some random buttons and a hole punch, inspired by the fantastic Honestly WTF DIY blog. I'm a little bit proud of them because they look quite nice and didn't cost me anything to make, and I also wanted to post photos of them because I totally shook it up and changed the DIY just slightly to make a double layered peter pan collar as well. Craaazzzy! Haha... ahh I need to find other things to do in my life. Anyway... enjoy!

 With the first one I just followed the DIY on the blog, and it ended up just like they said it would. Easy enough.

 As I had nothing else to do today, and some spare felt, I made a second one and embellished it with a golden button and some black felt.

 The third one I made was completely purple, but the idea of it is so I can layer it with the other two. It's the same size as the others (because I couldn't be bothered cutting up another template), so I just kind of plonked it under the other one. Who knows if this will actually sit well once worn out. Still, it looks pretty cool!

(Above picture) Layered with the first collar.

(Below) Layered with the second collar.

So really I made FOUR collars. Well now. That's pretty nifty. All in all a productive day :)

Have a nice day all!

Annika