DIY Fashionista – Geneva Vanderzeil

DIY Fashionista encourages you to rejuvenate your wardrobe in new and cost-effective ways, through refashioning items you already own and making low-cost pieces look high-end. The variety of the 40 projects is brilliant there is everything from how to draft your own simple shorts pattern from scratch to updating an old pair of boots with fabric inserts. Throughout the instructions are very easy to follow and each project is given a time frame, so before you even start you’ll know if it’s something you can do quickly before you walk out the door or if it’ll take a couple of evenings. However most of the projects should take under an hour to make, so are perfect for those with busy lives, Geneva even makes the great suggestion of inviting your friends round to a DIY fashion party!

Its packed with useful information including lists of the basic equipment you’ll need, where to source items and of course step by step instructions to creating some stunning pieces. This book is the perfect springboard for anyone considering refashioning their wardrobe, it’s even full of inspiration to start thinking up your own projects.

As I’ve only really refashioned clothes before and never even thought about updating accessories I was really excited about this part of the book. It didn’t disappoint as the 15 projects included are super stylish and wearable! I made two accessories projects, the Cap-toe shoes and Peter Pan Collar necklace.

To make the necklace I used broken chains I had in my jewellery box and a pair of tweezers, it was really simple and quick to make. The final necklace is really cute and a great way to update a plain top or dress.

While I bought these pink H&M shoes in the sale a couple of weeks ago, but since I haven’t got round to wearing them yet I figured they were ripe for a refashion. I followed the instructions, but added an extra layer of varnish over the paint. They’re cute but I think they need a little extra something, maybe some lace or ribbon across the join?

There are a lot more projects I’m planning on attempting once I’ve sourced the right bits and pieces. I especially love this dip dye dress it’s so pretty and simple to do, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for the perfect plain dress. While these glitter straps are going to make me look at sandals shopping this summer in a whole new light. The watch idea is great and I know I have a watch face with a broken strap knocking about somewhere so when I eventually find it I’ll definitely be adding fabric straps!

Geneva Vanderzeil founded the most amazing and inspiring fashion DIY website called ‘ A pair and a spare‘.  Her projects have been featured in popular fashion magazines and websites including Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

DIY Fashionista by Geneva Vanderzeil

Published by Carlton Books Ltd, RRP £16.99 , Available on Amazon UK here

Me Made May – Week Three

Another week of Me Made May and there are a couple of repeat outfits in here, I’m really starting to struggle to find new ways to wear my clothes! I’ve also finally given in to mirror shots! Me Made May is hosted by Zoe over at ‘so zo… what do you know?‘, I’ve challenged myself to wear something handmade/refashioned every day this month.

Day 15

My favorite Dress!

Dress – H&M

Jeans – New Look

Cardigan – Handknit

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Day 16

Dress - Handmade

Cardigan – New Look

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Day 17

I love the exposed zipper on this dress

Dress – H&M

Cardigan – New Look

Leggings  - Refashion

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Day 18

Girls night out!

Dress - Handmade

Shoes/tights – New Look

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Day 19

Really hungover Sunday

Top – Handmade

Jeans – New Look

Cardigan – Primark

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Day 20

Dress & Jeans – New Look

Cardigan – H&M – Refashion (elbow patches – not yet blogged)

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Day 21

Teddy Bear Picnic

Dress – Handmade/refashion

Legging & slippers – Primark

Belt – Accessorise

Girls Night In – Hannah Read-Baldrey

‘Girls Night In’ by Hannah Read-Baldrey contains all the ideas you’ll ever need for a great girls night in! It starts with some stunning decorations and really helpful planning advice. Then there are party games, interesting craft projects, fun beauty tips, yummy recipes and crazy cocktails. It really is like five great books in one!

Whether your planning a huge blow celebration or a quiet night in, this book is jam packed with ideas and helpful tips. Including quirky popcorn recipes,  invigorating (all natural) face-masks,  film and music suggestions and of course some seriously delicious looking cakes!

Although the theme of this book is a girly party, it’s really versatile and there are lots of amazing craft projects which I’m just going to make for myself! Starting with the stunning fabric covered shoes (pictured above – bottom right), I’m still on the look out for a perfect plain pair to jazz up. I was half tempted to have a little girls night in with just Lily but at four she’s still a little young, I’m sure we’ll get a lot of use out of this book when she’s older though, I know I wish I’d had it for teenage sleepovers (minus the cocktails of course!).

If you haven’t guessed already I love this book! There really is something for everyone. I especially liked the beauty section and tried out two of the nail art ideas, they were really simple to follow and I’m usually rubbish at this sort of thing!

My besties live all over London so arranging a girls night in can be a little awkward, but since we were having a girls night out I thought I’d get them involved in trying out some of the ideas from the book. I made up the photo booth props, which was so easy with the helpful templates at the back of the book. We had a real laugh pulling funny faces and the photos are so much better then the usual drunken pics we normally end up with, it was so much fun even the bar tender gave it a go!

I made them a cupcake in a jar each to take home, I went for lemon cake instead of strawberry and butter-cream instead of fresh purely because I wanted something that didn’t need refrigerating (And yes I cheated with Betty Crocker!) . Magda eat hers the morning after, not exactly my idea of a hangover cure! The ones in the book definitely looked a whole lot yummier than mine (even adding smarties didn’t help!). I’ll be making them again though as the strawberry ones would make a perfect picnic treat for my little girls.

To be honest when I first received this book I read it cover to cover and although I literally fell in love with it straight away I wasn’t really convinced that a girls night in like this was the sort of thing I’d do with my friends. But now I’ve showed it to them we all can’t wait to plan something! They really want to learn to make their own nickers, little dolls of each other and try out the giant titanic cocktail, while I just want to sing along with the fantastic playlist (available on Hannah’s site) in the comfort of my own home .

Hannah Read-Baldrey is a stylist and author who co wrote ‘Everything Alice‘ and ‘Everything Oz‘ (two books which have been my wishlist forever!) she also writes an amazing blog called ‘Couture Craft‘.

‘Girls Night In’ by Hannah Read-Baldrey

Published by Quadrille, RRP £16.99, Available from Amazon uk here

Crafty Sunday

Last week I’d made loads of plans of all things I wanted to make this week, but when Monday rolled around my cold was just too much and I felt totally exhausted! So I spent the beginning of the week just slowly knitting the above collar pattern from ‘Knitting Vintage‘ by Claire Montgomerie. It took a few tries to get right, but that was more because I wasn’t following the instructions properly! I think it’s cute and I love this coral coloured wool so much, but it just isn’t me I’ll probably end up adding it to something for the girls.

I’ve been sketching out some dress designs and summer clothes ideas for the girls, prompted by the fact that I keep getting great ideas as I’m falling off to sleep and then forgetting about them for days!

I’ve already made a start on making one of my designs into a cute yellow gingham dress, the only modification I’ve made so far is to add some welt pockets. It was the perfect excuse to finally use Margaret Butler’s Clothes book, its packed full of useful tutorials, although I’m going to have practice some more as mine are a little scruffy.

I recieved two new books this week for review from Collins & Brown Knit your own mustache by Vicky Eames and Pattern Cutting  made easy by Gillian Holman. I can’t wait to knit my brother and sister in law some fun treats and there are some really cute animal ears that the girls will love! While I’m pretty sure Pattern cutting made easy is going to completely change the way I think about making clothes, it literally opens up infinite possibilities!

Me Made May – Week Two

I’m going to start off by being honest, I didn’t actually take a photo of myself everyday this week. I’m just not organised enough! So I spent yesterday afternoon recreating some of the outfits I’ve worn over the last week. Even though the order might be a little out I did actually wear these clothes so I don’t think it matters too much, does it? Also I’ve had a bit of a yucky cold so excuse the PJ day, I wish I could have spent the whole week in them! Oh and the fact that I haven’t ironed anything and forgot to put jewelry on!

Day 8

Dress – Refashion New Look

Cardigan – H&M

Belt – New Look

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Day 9

Cardigan – Vintage C&A  (I am literally in love with this cardigan so expect to see it a lot!)

Dress – Primark

Leggings – Refashion Primark ( I cropped them and made them high waisted)

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Day 10

Skirt – Handmade

Cardigan – Vintage

Top - Handmade (little sew & sew)

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Day 11

(I’m not sure why this photo is so blurry! But I’ll wear this dress again next week and take a better picture!)

Dress – Handmade

Cardigan – Primark

Belt – Accessorize

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Day 12

Top – Refashion

Cardigan – Next menswear (stolen from Terry)

Pajama bottoms – Primark

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Day 13

Top – Dress E – Handmade

Jeggings – Uniqlo

Cardigan – New Look

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Day 14

Top - Handmade

Cardigan – Primark

Jeans – New Look

Crafty Sunday

Sorry there was no crafty Sunday last week, but I hadn’t made much so at the time it seemed a bit pointless, but now I’ve got loads to post so maybe I should have done!

Anyway I spent most of the week doing embroidery trying out the projects from ‘Little Sew And Sew’ by Christine Leech, I really loved it and you can read my review here.

Yesterday evening while my boyfriend was watching Avatar for like the hundredth time, I made a start on the ‘Licorice’ dress from Sarai Mitnick’s ‘Colette Sewing Handbook‘. I cut the pattern pieces ages ago, but I’ve just not been motivated to actually sew it together probably because I wasn’t sure if it was my style and now that it’s almost finished I’m still not sure. I haven’t made any major modifications to the pattern, but I left out the zip as I found I could get it on and off just fine without it, all that’s left is to add the elastic to the arms and sew together the matching belt. There are some really cute variations and modifications of this dress on flickr and I really wish I’d seen these before I started sewing mine!

A little while ago I also made the ‘Meringue Skirt’ also from ‘The Colette Sewing Handbook’ I haven’t really found anything to go with it yet, but you can see a picture of me wearing it in my last ‘Me Made May‘ post. I love the bright colours, but the inside waist facing starts bunching when I’ve been wearing it for a little while so I’m going to have to hand stitch it down. I think maybe this is down to the interfacing I used?

Yesterday my mum took me to the ‘Wimbledon Sewing Machine‘ shop, I haven’t been in there for about ten years but it’s just as I remember it, the staff were really friendly and there is a brilliant haberdashery. My mum treated me to a load of fabric and sewing bits, I think the boat fabric is just perfect for little girly summer dresses.

I also went to the car boot yesterday which wasn’t great for my stash-busting! I bought two pillowcases and a dress pattern, the women I bought the pillowcases from had loads of beautiful vintage bedding, but unfortunately she wanted an awful lot of money for them. I also picked up these cute wicker picnic baskets to store fabric in, at £6 for the pair they were a real bargain!

This isn’t really craft related but I bought this beautiful scarf at my local charity shop for £1.5o and when I got home and googled Jacqmar I found out how collectible they are. There are so many beautiful ones available on Ebay and they’re just the right size to use as hair ties, I’m seeing a new obsession coming along!

Lastly I just wanted to quickly share two books which the lovely people at Carlton books have been kind enough to send me for review, they haven’t arrived yet but I’m excited to see what they’re like! I already have ‘Knitting Vintage‘ by Claire Montgomerie (I’m still knitting my way through a cardigan pattern!) and I really like the variation of projects so I hope ‘Fashion Crochet‘ is just as good. ‘Diy fashionista‘ is by Geneva Vanderzeil who has the most amazing website called ‘a pair and a spare‘ where she shares really easy ways to update clothes and accessories.

Little Sew And Sew – Christine Leech

Little Sew and Sew is a collecting of stunning practical embroidery ideas by Christine Leech, the designs are wonderfully kitsch and modern. Inside are 16 set projects, but with over 50 embroidery designs it’s definitely a book to come back to when looking for inspiration. At the start of the book Christine clearly explains how interchangeable the patterns are, for example the elephant cushion design could easily be embroidered onto a tote bag or just elements of a design could be used. So maybe a top like the one on the cover could be made with the sheep from the pillow case pattern to make a cute pajama top.

The great thing about this book is how clear the instructions on how to embroider all the stitches are, they are clearly laid out throughout the book and referred back to whenever used, if your a novice then all the help you need to get started is there. I haven’t done embroidery in quite a while and it was really helpful to read back over these guides, especially for french knots! I also love how useful the projects are, with two under fives I can never have to many seat cushions (grubby fingers!) and storage boxes (too many toys!).

I’ve made two projects from the book this week, the babydoll top on cover and the kissing kids bag. I altered the top by adding spotted fabric to the band and straps (which I made wider) and by using all different colours of floss. I love the finished top, especially the back detail where one side sits over the other rather than having a center seam. I think I still prefer the original to mine so when I’ve finished stash busting I’m definitely going to make it again. On the stash-busting front, I used all my left over embroidery floss on these two projects and all the fabric comes out of my stash, the top is actually made from a pillowcase!

I started off making the bag for myself, but really I should have used darker floss or a lighter fabric as the design doesn’t stand out as much as it should. So I added lily’s name below the picture and turned it into a simple rucksack to hang on her peg at nursery (she REALLY loves it!).

This pillow case is my favorite project from the whole book and I really want to make one for Rosie with her name embroidered in the middle, there are some amazing letter fonts at the back of the book and I know it’ll become something she’ll treasure for a long time.

I’ve really enjoyed reviewing this book, there is something so relaxing about embroidery and if you’ve never tried it’s something I’d definitely recommend. The end result is always so beautiful and adds an instant mark of quality to a piece, it’s really inspired me to try and add more hand sewn details to my projects.

Christine is a life long crafter who’s works within the creative side of publishing, she writes the most stunning blog over at Sew Yeah where you can check out  her other projects and some great free tutorials!

Published by Quadrille, RRP £12.99, Avaliable here from Amazon