Make Yourself a Floral Pencil Skirt

CAUTION: Take this tutorial with a grain of salt. I made it when I was jusssst learning how to sew and was basically just making stuff up as I went along. It'll probably still work, but there's also probably *much* better ways to do this. You have been warned!

I came across this gorgeous thing the other day:

and immediately thought - Buy. Buy now. I must buy this, now.

Unfortunately, the link on Fashiolista led me nowhere, and in this brief kerfuffle another thought was allowed to sneak its way into my mind, which was - no. Don't buy. You can't keep spending money on clothes, you already have too many clothes, and you don't have any money. DON'T BUY IT!!

So I decided to sew myself a very similar skirt, instead.

(Sorry I don't have any more photos than this today. I have been waiting all day for the sun to come out, but it's been raining and raining, and I haven't had any good light. I'll post some more pictures of me wearing it as soon as it's not raining!)

I'm sharing this DIY with you all because it actually ended up being super super easy and quick to do! Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the process, so you'll have to put up with my very professional paint diagrams instead.

Enjoy!

What you'll need:

- Some pretty floral STRETCHY fabric. Use anything with a floral, kitschy, "my grandma's old couch" pattern, as long as it provides enough fabric to wrap around your waist and hips (plus a bit extra) and not be too short, either.

- Thread and needle, or a sewing machine

- Scissors

- Sewing pins (optional)
- An iron (optional)

- A tape measure

- A pen and ruler

- A short zipper

Firstly, you need to make three measurements. They will take the names x, y, and z in the diagrams.

x is your waist measurement

y is your hip measurement (measure around the fullest part of your bottom. if you don't measure around the fullest part, your skirt won't fit!)

z is the measurement from where you took your waist measurement, down to the fullest part of your hips.

ie:

Next, cut your fabric into two identical rectangles, each measuring (your hip length plus 2 inches) x (desired skirt length plus 2 inches), ie:

Then hem up one inch on both ends of both pieces of fabric, and press with an iron.

Next, sandwich these two pieces of fabric together, the right-side up facing inwards (so you can only see the wrong side of the fabric). Pin the pieces together with sewing pins, so they are exactly aligned.

Choose which side you'll draw on (it doesn't matter which side). Then, draw your measurements out onto the fabric. Along the top edge, draw your waist measurement (x) exactly in the middle (you can get it exactly in the middle by halving the fabric and marking this with a small line, unfolding it, then halving your waist measurement and drawing each half-measurement out from that centre mark).

From x, draw a line down on both sides the length of z.

Then at the bottom of z, draw a line horizontally across at y, your hip measurement. 

It should look something like this

 

 

Sew from on both sides, from the edges of x to edges of y (see diagram below). Make sure you leave at least 1 inch on each side after you sew down from y.
From the diagram, you need to sew on the dotted line (you can draw this out with pen onto the fabric as well, if you'd like).

Turn the skirt inside-out (it should now be the RIGHT way around). Don't try it on yet! It won't fit just yet, you need to put the zip in! (I say this only because I tried to put it on here. And then felt really silly. Oh dear.)

Make a slit the length of your zipper in the middle of the back of the skirt.

Sew in your zipper! If you don't know how to do this, this site and this site explain how to sew in a zipper much better than I could (with only my paint diagrams, anyway).

Voilà! That wasn't too hard, was it? I think I may have made it look more complicated than it really is. It's really super easy though, I promise! Give it your best go ;)

Have a fabulous day!

Annika xxx

Why buy when you can DIY?

Here's four things that I made recently, after seeing similar things for sale online. I saved at least $100 by making them myself!

The Inspiration:

 Skirt - Not sure where this one is from, I couldn't find a link to the original source

 H&M Deer-print sweater

ASOS sheer patterned tights

New Look floral brogues

Okay.. so they don't exactly work together as an outfit, as such. I just wanted to get them all into one photo!

The DIY for the tights can be found here, the shoes here, and I will be posting separate DIYs for the skirt and t-shirt in the next few days! This is just a sneak preview ;)

Have a most excellent day,

Annika

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