Fringe Scarf

So apparently fringe is making a comeback and I'm perfectly ok with that :) I saw something similar to this floating somewhere on the internet and decided to make one of my own out of, you guessed it, an old t-shirt! It's a pretty simple DIY so let's get started!

Alright so first you're going to want to grab a t-shirt you don't wear anymore in the color of your choice.

My color of choice is teal...obviously... :D

Next you'll want to make a cut from armpit to armpit

(this will give you lots of fabric to work with, better to have more)

Now, begin cutting your fringe on the raw edge

Leave a few inches at the top for the "scarf" part like so

Once you've cut all the way around give the pieces a tug

I suggest at this point to try on the scarf, odds are it will be a bit long.

Here's what I did.

Lift the back of the scarf until the front sits where you want it to.

Pinch the fabric at your neck (where the new back will be), remove, and pin where your fingers are.

Cut the scarf there to make it shorter, like this!

Now flip it around so it's inside out and sew up the sides

 At this point I decided to put in a few stitches to secure the top down.

With the scarf still inside out fold the seam down to the fringe and add 3 or 4 stitch points just so the seam will stay down and not be popping up into your face.

 Here's another thing I chose to do, but you can totally just leave the fringe as is.

I knotted the tops :) So if you wanna, follow my lead!

And there you have it! :) a lovely fringey scarf

As always, thanks for looking! :)

~Shannon

Shorts alteration :)

Alright so a lot of people might not know this but over the past few months I have been really working on my weight loss. I have lost about 30 pounds since October 2012 and 40-45 pounds since high school. I was a big girl lol Most of the time I would wear jackets (no matter what the weather) because I just hated how I looked but wasn't sure how to lose the weight and stay motivated. 

But I finally did it and the sob story is over! 

Anyway, as the warm weather started I was looking through my shorts and whatnot and realized that all of my summer clothes didn't fit me anymore which was kind of a bummer :/ But then I realized hey! I'm a DIY-er now, why not try and salvage these! So that's what I've done. I took my too-big shorts and revamped them and I'm so glad I did :) Here's how it's done.

Alright so here are the shorts as they were...

As you can see they are a few sizes too big for me now...

So that's one thing we need to fix

And also the length. I'm getting more confident with myself so I think 

it's time to hitch up the hem line :)

Alright so what I did first was figure out how short I wanted the shorts to be.

Then simply cut them! :) If you want to sew around the bottom to finish

it off be my guest, but me being my lazy self, I left the edges raw.

Next! Turn the shorts inside out and pin up the sides, 

creating a new side seam, so the shorts fit your legs and waist better :)

(no my shorts aren't inside out, I messed up. 

But trust me when I say to just turn them inside out...)

Now sew up along the pins to create a new side seam and cut off the extra edge!

Now turn them right side out and try them on! :)

*crossing fingers that they fit*

And yay! They do! haha :)

With a little room to spare :)

So there you have it :) I hope this helps!

Thanks for looking! :)

~Shannon

Shopping Help!

Alright so this one is just going to be a bit of a ramble but hopefully it will help someone out there. :)

Personally, I LOVE shopping. But, I rarely ever find anything for myself. I'm the kind of girl who takes other people shopping and puts them in the outfits that I think would be cute on them (whether they like it or not haha). When it comes to myself- nope. Not happening. Anyone else like this? Well then listen up! :)

I feel like people like me need to go shopping with...well, with people like me lol Go shopping with a friend who will hand you random cute pieces and even things you would never pick out yourself. You never know what you'll end up LOVING once it's on you :)

Also, know how to dress yourself. Experiment! Find what you like, what you don't, and what makes you look amazing! Knowing what styles flatter you best and what simply will not work will help your shopping experience go over so much more smoothly! (and who doesn't want that?)

There you go, my tip of the day. Happy Monday everyone!

Loves!
Shannon

From Old T-Shirt to...?

Ok so seriously, I do not know what these things are called! They aren't really shrugs, they aren't shawls...the heck are they?! Well anyway...I made one from a t-shirt...so here we go!

First, grab a shirt!

Let's take off those sleeves!

Now make two vertical cuts up the front of the shirt like so...

(These actually ended up being a little too far apart for me. 

I wish I had made the cut narrower so...keep that in mind. Trial and error my friends!)

Now fold the shirt...thing...inside out, matching up the front cuts

We're going to do somewhat of a high-low cut starting at the front and working our way to the back of the shirt. (if you want the bottom even, let it be)

And here's how it should look! :)

(see what I mean about it being cut too wide? yeah...oh well. still cute!)

Thanks for looking! :)

~Shannon

Easy Swimsuit Fix

Alrighty! So I found this super cute swim suit and it was super cheap so I snagged it. 

Only problem was it had no straps...and I am not well endowed enough to keep the suit up myself if you know what I mean lol so therein lies the problem. Luckily I had a great idea!

Another suit I had was black and had halter ties around the neck. All I had to do was transfer the ties and voila! Swimsuit issue fixed! :)

So I layed out the old top and chopped off the straps.

Then I placed them on the new suit where they needed to sit and sewed them on, simple as that!

Here's how it looks on :)

(no judgements! lol)

Moral of the story, don't get discouraged or throw out an item just because you think it won't work out for you. Chances are there is something you can do to fix it or even make it better! :) cheers!

As always, thanks for looking!
~Shannon

Recycled T-shirt Braided Scarf :)

Alright, this one was kinda tedious and time consuming, but I think it turned out pretty cute :)

You'll need an extra large shirt in the color of your choice. (remember, the bigger and wider the shirt, the longer your scarf can be.) I saw someone else do this and they used two different colored T-shirts for the scarf, but I just skipped a step and used a striped shirt in cute colors and went from there.

Now lay your shirt out and cut off the bottom hem and as close to the bottom of the sleeves as you can. 

Then cut up one side seam so you have one long rectangle of fabric.

You can make the cuts for your braid pieces anywhere from a centimeter to an inch wide (or however wide really, it's up to you) depending on how big you want the braids to be. Or follow the pattern of the stripes if you're using a striped shirt. My stripes happened to be about a centimeter wide. Your cuts don't have to be perfect. If the edges aren't straight that's ok, they'll roll up later anyway. Also, if you're working with a striped shirt you have the option of cutting on the stripe lines (so each piece is only one color) or halfway between (so each piece has some of both colors) depending on how you want your braids to look.

*Make sure to lay out your pieces in some kind of organized fashion! They tangle ridiculously easy!*

Now take your pieces and stretch them out so the sides curl in. The pieces should about double in size.

Now you can start braiding! (beware- this does take a lot of time and patience) Take 3 pieces of fabric and put them together. Leave a couple inches at the top and then tie a knot. 

Anchor your strands to something (ie: a table) and get braiding!

When braiding the longer strands I found that they get tangled SUPER easily. I ended up balling up the loose ends like so and just braiding those until I got closer to the ends. 

For shorter braids you'll obviously want to cut the strands. Some I cut in half, others I just cut a few inches off the end. It's really trial and error and personal preference at this point.
Here's a diagram so you can have an idea on how long you want to make your braids
depending on where you want them to land :)

Once you have all your pieces braided lay them out and situate them as you like. 

Now make sure to untie all the ends and lay them on top of each other. 

Use some left over fabric (I had some from the shorter braids) and begin to wrap it around the loose ends, securing them in place. Tie off and repeat as necessary.

And there you have it! :) Nothing crazy hard, just a little time consuming.

Thanks for looking! :)
~Shannon 

DIY high-low dress/skirt

Again, I am so sorry dear blog readers (does anyone really even read this? ...*shrug* oh well) this post does not have step by step pictures. It's another project I did before the blog idea, but it's easy enough so...bear with me. Alright here's how the finished product looks!

The length at the sides (and back but you obviously cant see that) is the original length of the dress. It was already on the shorter side (as far as high-low's go) so I didn't do too much altering. Alright, here's what you gotta do.

Put on the dress/skirt and decide where you want the new hemline to start. Mark that in the front middle of the dress (between your legs *snicker snicker*) with chalk/white crayon/a sewing pin, however you want to do it as long as you know what it is.

Take the dress off and fold it in half so the folds run vertically up and down the front and back of the skirt (the mark you made earlier should be sitting on the front fold) and the side seams line up in the middle. Pin at the seams (and a few other places toward the front if you want) just so the dress doesn't slip. You want the side seams to match up. Unless you're going for an a-symmetrical high-low...then by all means, ignore what I'm saying.

Now, starting at your mark, make a cut that arches all the way down to the side seam. It should look like a half rainbow shape. More than likely when you open the skirt you'll have a weird cut line in the front middle. It always happens to me, all I do is cut it again so it's even and pretty. Then I do the same thing with the rest of the new hemline, making sure the line is fluid. No funky cut lines for our lovely high-lows! 

If you decide to you can fold your new hemline under and give it a quick run through the sewing machine to finish it off, but me, I just left the edge raw. It looked fine to me :) And that's it! 

Thanks for looking! :)

~Shannon