Friday Finds Dec. 11th

Today is a window shopping day. Being as I have to scale back my actual purchasing and what I HAVE bought is going to other people for gifts, I do not want them to see it. So here is a little bit of fun from Modcloth.

Sweetness Follows by Peldyn on Polyvore.com

Items in this set:
Fifties Sitcom Dress-Mod Retro Indie Clothing & Vintage Clothes, $110
Mod Retro Indie Clothing & Vintage Clothes, $75
Mod Retro Indie Clothing & Vintage Clothes, $15
Mod Retro Indie Clothing & Vintage Clothes, $40
White Poise Gloves-Mod Retro Indie Clothing & Vintage Clothes, $13

I love each of these items and if my husband chances to see this, I would be happy with any of them under the tree *grin*

Pel

Bridesmaids Skirts

Sewing my poor little fingers to the bone, I have skirts to show for it. They look so pretty!



Keirnath helped to cut them out. The fabric is a beautiful silk shantung.



Here is the vintage pattern I based the skirt off of.



You can see how close it is to the picture of the skirt the bride wants. I just have to adjust the pleats!




Keirnath shows how cute the skirt is on. Ignore the fact it needs to be pressed and hemmed!


So now I have to finish all the bodices and fit them to the girls and hem the skirts to the proper length. I will be going out to Brawley to do that next week. I will bring my laptop with me so I can upload pictures! I imagine it will be hectic, but I love being able to see Keirnath so much. I do miss her so!

Pel

Knitting Frenzy

With Yule fast approaching and money running out I decided to hand make a few gifts for friends and family. I do love the scarves that are in the stores everywhere. The cheaper ones are just that. Cheaply made and out of awful materials. The more expensive ones are so lovely, but out of my price range right now. Luckily I have a yarn stash. A very large yarn stash. My mother and grandmother both had scads of yarn and I got all of it. While I managed to sell some of it on ebay, etsy and at yard sales I have enough to keep me and my descendants knitting for years to come! I have one finished and only have another 6 to go. I plan on doing this in addition to making those 6 bridesmaids dresses I mentioned last week.

If you don't hear from me in the next few days, it is because I have been committed *grin*

Pel

Friday Finds Dec 4th

Forever21 gets all my loving today. While I shopped other places they were Yule gifts so I can not show them or the people I bought them for will know what they got! Same goes for some of the awesome things I got at F21. Sorry! But I can say that for stocking stuffers, check out their clearance section. They had an amazing selection of hair goodies *grin*

Now on with the show:


This is my new brown coat. I needed one to go with everything I wore that was not black or grey. At totally bargain at $48.90 I was going to spend almost $100.00 at another store. I am so glad I shopped F21 first! Notice the little floral hair pins, they have them in tons of styles and they come three pairs to a card for $5.80. You can gift them as is or break them up into single sets for stocking stuffers.



Watercolour dress was only $7.99 on the clearance rack. The fishnet stockings $5.80 and the hairband $7.80. I can wear this dress all year round with the right layering. F21 has lots of beautiful dresses right now on the rack. Someone on my list has one wrapped up, but I won't say who :)




A close up of the shoes. Oh my, I have been wanting shoes like these for a while. They are similar th Louboutin's Bloody Mary Shoe, but totally affordable at $30.99.



Since I had saved so much buying the brown coat when I saw the plum coat, I snatched it up. Toms was not really happy. He said I just lost any saving I would have made. But I figured I was going to spend $100.00 anyways and now I have TWO adorable coats and this one was only $45.00 so I still came out ahead! Okay so my reasoning was convoluted and Tom is probably right. I am such an impulse shopper!



Lastly is this red and black buffalo check top that was on clearance for $4.99 and the headband on clearance for $1.99. I feel so flashback 80's in this outfit, but in a good way!

Like I said, I got many other lovely things but they were gifts and so I can't show them. I plan on shopping some more at Forever21 for Yule gifts. They have such great deals on their clearance it is ridiculous!

Let me know where you are finding great deals!

Pel

Social Darling Frock GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

Another great giveaway from Grosgrain! Her blog has great tips and tricks for those of us who sew, so check it out and don't forget to enter to win this:


Social Darling Frock GROSGRAIN GIVEAWAY!!!!

Sigh, I am so in love with this dress.

Pel

Straw into Gold- To Dye For

From the Spinning Straw into Gold article I had a black skirt that was severely faded so I decided to do a little dyeing tutorial to show you how easy it is to revitalize faded clothing. You can do this on your old jeans or others things that may be discoloured.



Here is me in my newly dyed black skirt. Notice how much better it looks now>


I am ready to go out now!



Here is another tutorial if you want to try your hand at dying with onion skins. It is fun!



As mentioned in the first tutorial, save your dandelion roots because I am going to do a tutorial in a couple months on using mordants to get more than one colour out of a dye bath.

Happy dyeing!

Pel