Towel-head Dress Challenge!

A little while ago, we received a package via USPS that said CHOCOLATE on the outside.

It was a pretty big box to be filled with chocolate - my small crock-pot would've had room to slosh around inside that box.

I was excited. 

But then I realized, this probably isn't really chocolate. (I suppressed the tears.) But then I realized, what else would somebody send me in a box this size?

DRESS DONATIONS!

Woohooooo!

You may recognize that dress on the far left, and remember what I just did with it :)

 In case I haven't made it clear, pretty much all the refashions you see here are done with donated items, because I'm not just refashioning for refashions sake (or for my own closet's sake), but to sell the refashioned items for charity!

But what about those four other dresses?

I started trying them on, and while they all basically fit me, I began to realize that they're all kind of the same dress, with slight variations.

The Pink Gauzey Towel-Head Dress

The Black Drop-Waist Towel-Head Dress

The Green Stripe Towel-Head Dress

The Shiny Periwinkle Towel-Head Dress

So here's where I need YOUR help! I want to refashion each of these dresses into something every-day wearable, and I want each one to be different! What should I do?

Comment here or on Facebook!

If I use your idea, not only will you be credited, I'll send you a special HopeCycle prize! (There may or may not be cookies involved.)

But seriously, guys . . . . .

these dresses need help.

Save the Towel-Heads!

Prim Prom Dress to Polka Party SHIRT!

So last time you saw me take this dress, and do this with it!

And somebody already has called dibs on it. :) Love it when that happens!

But what about that lonely upper half?

Cut off from its friends and family, poor dear . . .

Of course, you can already see where we're going with this. :)

So first thing I did was pull out my wood-burning tool and wood board!

Lifted everything up to get to that very bottom layer.

If you happen to have a burning tool and are interested in experimenting with cutting synthetic fabrics this way, here's what I do;

Use your pointiest tip, and turn the heat to medium (if your tool has heat options).

Always remember; you NEVER change out that tip while your tool is on! You want to keep those God-given finger prints!

You have to move fairly slowly through the material to get a clean line, and it helps to hold the fabric on each side of the cut. If you don't pull the cut slightly as you go, then the newly-melted fibers will just stick back to each other and you'll have to re-cut it.

Carefully . . .

 

Slice!  ...the hand position is optional.

So I cut/melted a loose scallop pattern through all three layers of material, alternating where the peaks and dips would be, so you'd be able to see the different layers peeking through.

And there you go!

A cute baby-doll style shirt!

Gotta love that lace-up back.

Dress it down . . .

 . . . or dress it up! (And remember this skirt??)

Sometimes the best refashions are the simplest. :) This item is not yet up in the Etsy store - let me know if you're interested!

Tune in next time! Mwa! <3

Prim Prom Dress to Polka Party Skirt!

Here's to hoping the hottest part of the summer is behind us!

With temperatures ranging around 90 every time I came home from work, lemme just tell you . . . there wasn't much going on but sitting in front of a fan and eating ice.

But we've been blessed with cooler weather, and lookee what I have for you! Refashions! Yay! :D

It all started with this dress.

It's so pretty!

 Don't let the moody picture fool you. That's not how I felt about this dress. I felt more like this;

omigoodnessi'msoexcitedeeeeeeeek! Like that.

And I even asked the Facebook HopeCycle followers what they thought I should do with it! Some great ideas, guys. :)

But first - look what I didn't show you!

It's a corset back - with a modesty panel! Sweet!

What to do?

I started by deciding where to cut, and pinning all three layers of the skirt together so they wouldn't shift.

Safety pins, so I can't stick myself :D

Aaaand chop!

Lopsided chop! That's okay, it's fixable.

Today I'll show you what I did with the bottom half!

All my pins still in place, I put the whole thing through the sewing machine to make sure it held together just how I wanted.

Lemme tell you . . . that was a lot of material to shuttle through!

All sewed together!

I then turned the skirt inside out . . .

Look, it has crinoline!

And then I pressed the top part down, all along the seam-line I'd just made.

Nice and neat!

Then I folded it over again, so I have a nice inch and a quarter waistband for my inch-wide elastic to fit through.

Measuring and EVERYTHING.

Next, I switched white thread into my machine and verrrry carefully sewed along the very edge of the waistband.

Verrrry slowly.

Then I threaded the elastic through the little gap I'd left (safety pin in the end of it, of course), and then sewed the elastic ends together and finished by sewing the little gap closed! 

And LOOK!

It's like a tulip skirt! <3 Just the teeeensiest bit of high-low action to give it character!

It makes such a cute tea-length skirt!

It's so wonderfully full and poofy!

I love it when you pair something soft and feminine with something more edgy

So yeah. This is one of those items that I might have a hard time letting go of. BUT it's for a good cause! Check it out over at the Etsy store - all profit from the sale will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America!

Mwa! <3

Black Lace Skinnies - boot-cut to skinny DIY

So when I first saw these pants, I was unimpressed. However! After this refashion, I almost want to keep them for myself!

But they started like this.

Black lace over black pants! Dated? Hmmm.

This ended up being a really simple and quick refashion! I simply put the pants on inside out, and pinned along my legs to take in the pants.

Safety pins, so I can get in and out without skewering myself!

And then I just sewed up both sides! (I didn't take a picture, because . . . they're boring. I'm sorry.)
They actually needed to be taken in all the way up, so I sewed about an inch, inch and a half all the way up from the knee. On the left side and I stopped right below the zipper.

And here's the result!

~Fancy paaaaaants!~

Higher waists are in right now, so it's a great time to raid your thrift stores for all those mom pants that need just a tad of updating!

Fancy pants in the sun!

My pet peeve is telling me I need to point out . . . notice how these are fairly fitted, yet still loose? Notice how they aren't painted on - notice how they aren't leggings??

LEGGINGS AREN'T PANTS. STOP COMMITTING THIS ATROCITY.

Leggings are just opaque tights. You don't wear just tights and a shirt. Don't do it with leggings.

There, I'm done. Phew! ^^; Back to the pants!

They look good with blue!

They look good with flats!

You should really just go buy them. Right now. $20 in the Etsy store! Support the fight against Sex Trafficking in America!

Thanks! <3

Regular A-line to Fabulous Fifties skirt!

This refashion has been in the works for a little while! Mainly because I'm a busy pumpkin. And possibly lazy. But mostly busy!

But it started out like this!

So laz - I mean busy, I didn't even model it!

It's pretty! I love that print. But it needed something more . . .

I decided to go with this pretty red!

Leftovers from this little red dress - for sale!

I then cut matching slits all the way through the skirt.

Next time I do this, I'll remember that I've got a measuring tape in the closet. But this time I just eyeballed it!

Then I cut the red material in half, and then in half again, resulting in these matching pieces!

You can tell I was doing this at night . . . blurrrry . . .

Then I had to mess around a bit to figure out how to make this work (which is what happens when you're just making stuff up. Dangerous business). I finally figured out that I had to pin it right-sides together in order to have the seams on the inside of the skirt.

Pin pin pin!

I did that all the way around, and put it through the machine!

Making sure to take the pins out as I go, so I don't break another needle . . .

So I'm sure you've figured out I'm adding pleats to this skirt! So I had to sew the pleats on the outside in order to have the seams on the inside, but then I just pulled the pleats back through the opening. But then what to do with that loose top bit? (Sorry there's no picture to explain what I mean by that - but we only sewed the sides down, so there was extra material flopping around at the top of each pleat that needed to be taken care of!)

Just sewed it to the inside hem of the waist band! Win!

Ta-Dah! From regular to retro!

Yay, pleats!

I really love the modern-but-also-fifties look of this skirt!

Too bad you can't see my shoes - they're fabulous, too. :D

And look how fun and full it is!

"I feel pretty, oh so prettyyyyy . . ."

So now you know how to add pleats to a skirt without completely deconstructing the whole thing! Hope it helps!

(Update:) This skirt has been sold, and 100% of the profits will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America! Hurray!

Much love! <3