MissAmy |

I worked the pearls & pins DIY necklace into this outfit.  This dress seems very 40′s to me.  I should have rolled bangs & red lipstick on, I suppose. It’s a very ladylike silhouette & I don’t often wear it because it just feels so dressed up.

The outfit is mostly on the very frugal side.  Everything is thrifted, except for the shoes.  They are Via Condotti & from TJMaxx.  Can’t remember how much I spent, but it could have been up to $40 or so.  I allow myself to spend more on Italian shoes & handbags.  Oh, and the cami underneath was new from Target…

 Via Condotti slingback heels, DKNY dress ($6, thrifted), Target cami, gold necklace (thrifted), pearl necklace (thrifted then combined with kilt pins from Joanns), pearl earrings from the hubby

As an apology that I haven’t been up to any new DIY projects to share with you, I’ve dug this post out of the archives.  This was useful for me when I made a simple curtain for my bathroom window, but I’m sure there are endless uses for this technique.  Enjoy!

Here is how to make nice & neat mitered corners:

2. Iron your hemlines to create a corner, using your manilla folder as a guide. Fold one hem, iron, fold the opposing hem, iron. Now you have a point but with overlapping fabric. How can we make this neater? Note: If you want to double fold your hem you would do that here. The rest of the tutorial would work the same. I just did a single fold for simplicity.

3. Mark your corner with your pins as shown – they go through only the top part of the fold so you can open them up in the next step. You want them to cross & to mark the edges of you hemlines.
4. Open your fold and then turn it inside out so that the pins line up. Your landmarks for sewing are where your pins line up & the corner mark that shows on the fabric from your pressing.

5. Position the corner on your machine. I usually start at the corner since it’s a little harder to see than the pins. Line it up & sew a straight line from corner to where the pins line up.

6. Turn it inside right now & check to be sure it looks great! Then, if it looks good, turn it inside out again, snip off the extra fabric & turn it inside right again for the last time. Note: I will make an excuse at this time that I was working with a looser woven fabric grabbed from the scrap bin. If you’re working with a tighter cotton, you shouldn’t get the waves that are showing on mine LOL. It should be nice & flat & straight. Good luck!

As you may recall, last weekend was my Swap Party.  I ended up with this great giant Tommy Hilfiger purse/tote.  My friend had originally intended it to be her diaper bag.  She said it was perfect except for the fact that it ended up being too hard to carry due to not having a shoulder strap.  Well, I snatched it up! 

This is thing is amazingly gigantic.  It was sooooo perfect for this week especially because I started back to the gym.  If you were a reader of my old blog, you may remember that I had issues with my schlepping so many bags for so many different activities.  No more!  This big ol’ thing solves those problems, besides being a really cute & summery mix of denim & preppy plaid.  I can get my normal purse stuff plus lunch & gym clothes (including sneakers!) in this sucker.  Total score!

I’m trying to post atleast one outfit per week, starting now.  This one incorporates the DIY leather cuff from yesterday’s post:

Nine West sandals ($20) & jeans ($15), Victoria’s Secret sweater (from ages ago), Target jacket ($7.50), DIY leather cuff, agate ring (gift)

The shoes are amazingly tall caged wedges by Nine West, with 2, count ‘em, 2 ankle straps.  They’re also colorful which makes them hard to match but I adore them!  I found the jacket on clearance at Target for $7.50.  It’s the first Chanel style I’ve ever owned & I’ve been wanting something along those lines for a while.

If any of you read my old blog you may remember when I tore apart a purse to make leather earrings.  (Just so everyone knows – the purse had weird mottled stains on the leather in many places.  Otherwise, I would have left it in tact & given it away or sold it on ebay.)

Anyway, I’ve had plans for it beyond just the earrings.  I wanted to make a bracelet from the strap.  This DIY might be the easiest I’ve ever done because I just supervised while my husband did the actual work LOL.  Below is the end result.  The strap was already the perfect length for the bracelet.  I just needed a gap cut in one of the rings so I would be able to slide the other into it to interlock.

So, husband went at it with a jigsaw.  He did a pretty good job.  He nicked the leather a bit, but it’s just for me so I don’t mind too much.

After I interlocked the rings, I just turned the open one so the gap is hidden under the leather fold. 

These are my favorite kinds of DIY – damn easy!  I also might be able to squeeze out a bib necklace from this same bag later, so stay tuned for that!

I am very honored to have been asked to participate in this awesome new site – Frugal Fashion Focus.  You’ll notice the badge & search box on the right column of my site.

It officially launched yesterday & I am glad to be on board!  It is a great place to keep up with the frugal fashion corner of the blogosphere.  I’ve been cruising through the site myself & not only are there great well known blog sisters (like Cheap Chica’s Guide to Style & Fab Finds Under $50) but there are some that I hadn’t been aware of  – Work With What You’ve Got, Steal the Style & Fashion Without Guilt.

I think the bottom line here is – add Frugal Fashion Focus to your must reads – either by adding to your favorites or subscribing to their feed.  It will keep you up to date on all things frugal fashion!

My Swap Party finally came to fruition this past Saturday.  I had a great time planning it & getting ready for it but I had an even better time when all my friends showed up!  Granted, I had a much smaller turn out than I expected but it was still loads of fun.  I think we did a wonderful thing – we cleaned out our closets, found a few things each to take home & now the bulk of the items are going to Goodwill.  If you can find a more frugal (or charitable) way to acquire new things I’d love to hear it!

On the menu were pb cup brownies, choc chip cookies, candy.  Non-sweets consisted of deviled eggs, crackers & cheese, hummus stuffed tomatoes, chips & dip & mozzarella sticks.  All pretty simple (but yummy) stuff.  The drink of the evening was the Blue Fizz – a mix of Curacao & champagne.  I had several! 

Toward the end of the night we ended up watching a movie on top of everything else.  It was a great night in with the girls – plus shopping, for free.  Can’t beat that!

Below are pics of us with our take home finds, as well as the stacks & stacks that will be donated to Goodwill.  I know we are glad to be a little lighter of possessions.  One friend even emptied an entire closet – the equivalent of half her wardrobe.

Carbon Couture has a great tutorial on her site on DIYing an LV necklace.  Check it out!

[Photo courtesy of Carbon Couture]

Also, The Glamorai had an interesting take on the “cool girls crafting ” phenomenom that has overtaken the web.  Be sure to read her post which, incidentally, references the LV chain necklaces as well.

Here is a new DIY, actually done by ME if you can believe that.  I was inspired by this little spot in Lucky magazine that highlighted zippers used as decoration on clothing & accessories.  The bracelet was what I looked at & thought, “I can do that.”  My version is a much simplified homage to the original (which you can purchase at KateCusack.com, price is $230 according to Lucky).

My finished version – I’m thinking it’s pretty darn cool.

And the how-to begins:

Supplies: snaps & snap tools, zippers, I was going to use a velvet ribbon but nixed that idea quickly. 
I started with a denim tube I had sewn from some fabric I had from when I hemmed my jeans. 
It’s just a tube turned inside out – I didn’t even finish the other end. 
I used denim & doubled the thickness so it would be a stiff enough base for the zippers. 
You could use any fabric but you may want to use stiff interfacing in between your layers.

 
 I attached the snaps to either end of the tube, creating a bracelet shape, which is the base that I attached the zippers to.
The only tricky thing with the snaps – find a very hard surface to use when pounding them on.
I found that the pergo floor in my office was not hard enough & ended up using my husbands metal vice.
Once I used that as my surface, they were no problem.

You’ll notice I used the finished end for the top, the unfinish end gets tucked under when I snap it closed.

 
Then I played with the zippers until I was sure what pattern/look I wanted.
I pinned the first one down so I could sew it.

 
I sewed the zipper in place.  You will notice below that I left the zipper long to cover over the snaps.
 

Then I pinned down the rest of the zippers & sewed them down.

I left the end long, so the snaps wouldn’t show on the finished bracelet.
When I was done sewing, I evened up the ends by cutting the zippers straight across at the end of the bracelet.

Lastly, I hand stitched the edges/end where the sewing machine wouldn’t get to, so the zippers weren’t flopping everywhere.

The end result, showing the closure.  I think next time I will put the snaps closer to the ends of the bracelet.
It pops up a little bit & I wanted it to lay totally flat.
But, you know, trial & error, that’s how we learn.

If you have any questions about the steps, email me at amy at amycarriere.com.  I may end up doing a tutorial on adding snaps or even creating the tube that I used as a base.  Not sure if anyone would need any of that, so let me know if you’d like to see it.

My nephew sent us a Flat Stanley type project for his kindergarten class.  His is a gingerbread man that he decorated to look slightly sinister in my opinion.  He’s sleeping in the garage, that’s for sure!

Anyway, while he was in town, we decided to treat him to some sightseeing around our little resort town, as well as taking in a Warhol show at our local art center.

Here we are outside of the The von Liebig Art Center.

Entrance to the Warhol show.

One of Warhol’s series’.

Stanley, posing with one of Warhol’s most iconic portraits.  The soup can was at the show as well!

Stanley was trying to get us to go to Miami, but it’s a pretty long drive so we skipped it.

Yachting, anyone?

Always remember to watch for manatees while boating!

Thanks for the visit, Ginger Stanley!