Thrifting Tuesday!

Happy Mardi Gras everyone!!!  I have been seriously busy...not only is it the week before finals week (and I have papers and tests galore, believe me)  but also this week I started my new job at  Ann Taylor. And, as if that was not enough craziness for one week, I also started my new internship with Cincinnati Fashion Week on Sunday!  I am so excited to work with Fashion Week here in Cinci!!!  Of course, I will be blogging the updates for that so stay tuned!   Today's Thrifting Tuesday is my Thrifting Haul Video, with items thrifted from my local Goodwill store as well as my local Salvation Army stores.  I found some great things!  Enjoy!

Thrifting Tuesday, January 25, 2011

This week I want to show you an outfit that I actually re-designed months ago.  I wore this top when I went up to visit Stacey Kay at Kent in November.  I just never really took pictures of it un  til now, and so here it is!  The original dress was a crazy 80's piece from Goodwill, with a 100% sheer skirt and sleeves and a dropped but funky waist.  I didn't like the sleeves or the wierd really short sheer skirt or the dropped waist look, but I loved the fabric, black with silver threads woven in.  I also loved the neckline and how there were little rows of buttons across each shoulder.  Shoulder detailing is a major trend right now.  To make the sleeves more modern, I cut them back to cap sleeves and left the edges raw for an edgy look.  I did the same with the bottom of the top, cutting off the weird dropped waist elastic part for good.  The result was a cute top that can be worn with jeans, heels, and a long pendant for a night out, or with flats or boots for a day of shopping or hanging out with friends.  The top has just enough sparkle to be ready to party, but not so much that you cannot wear it for a day look.

Thrifting Tuesday January 18, 2011

The outfit that I have re-designed this week was a dress that I bought at goodwill.  It was a beautiful print in a large shapeless style with a giant and I mean GIANT hole down the back seam.  Seeing as how it was only $2, I bought it anyway to see what I could do to fix it, because I loved the sleeves and the amazing floral design, which I thought would be perfect for the Holidays.  I had it in my head for over a month what I wanted to do with the dress.  I wanted to take it in slightly, so it was a little more form fitting but still loose, because I enjoyed the loose look of it.  I wanted to fix the hole in the back by placing a big, black and gold jeans zipper down the back that I bought in the fabric store.  I just knew it would look great.  It would be perfect for Drew's Grandma's Christmas party.  I had been planning it since November.  Well, typical me I waited until the last minute to sew the dress, and this was also during my time of Non-Inspiration during my job-mental-breakdown fiasco, so there it was Christmas eve right before the party was going to start and here I was sitting at home with the old original dress in hand, not even having pinned it for fitting yet.  Rushed as I was, but still determined to get it done to wear to the party I enlisted my mom to help with the pinning and sewing.  Afterall, I thought, wouldn't two people be quicker and more efficient than one?  Well in our haste to sew the dress, my mother took it in too far on the bottom half.  I didn't really have time to try it on at her house, having to rush off to get gifts wrapped and prepare for the party and for spending the night at Drew's mom's house afterwards.  I trusted our original pinning measurements to be accurate.  Well, was I ever wrong.  At home, after wrapping what seemed like hundreds of gifts and my overnight bag and loading everything into the car, I got dressed and was bending over to put on my shoes when I heard the sound NO ONE ever wants to hear....rrrrriiippppp!  the dress split open up the side seam!  What was I going to do!? That was the outfit I had been planning for months!  And I hadn't even put the zipper in like I originally wanted to!  Having no time to change my outfit or really think about what I was doing I grabbed some jeans, threw them on, and tucked in the dress to create a holiday top.  It looked so cute!  And I still had the benefit of getting to wear the pattern that I loved!  It ended up being a win-win, and I was happy, though not 100%, with the outcome, and I still got compliments on the top!  No one ever even guessed that it had at one time been a dress!  Everything worked out well!  I don't have pictures of the original dress, or the altered one, but here are pictures of the "top" that I ended up with!

Thrifting Tuesday

On this hopefully re-occurring feature I would like to debut items that I have re-vamped or recreated entirely from thrift store finds.  I really became obsessed with the way New Dress a Day took an otherwise old, ripped, torn, or just plain ugly frock and re-created it into something that any fashionista would die to have in her closet.  I have done a lot of this re-creating myself in the past, with posts like my Thanksgiving Party Dress and my Leopard Print Top among others, but I wanted to make this something that re-occured every week.  I love doing it, and it definitely gives me something new and exciting to wear, which I can never seem to get enough of.  And the best part about it, besides the fact that one of these re-created outfits almost costs me nothing, is the fact that I made it myself and it is completely unique to me and my style.  No one else in the world has anything quite like it, which makes it really special, and really fun to wear!  And it is kind of fun getting to design something specifically for me, too, that I know will fit just right on me the way I want it to and look just like I imagine it looking....(well, sometimes....haha)  Anyway, the outfit that I have re-designed this week was a skirt that I purchased at the Salvation Army down the street from my house.  It was an old fashioned, vintage silk skirt, and cost about $3.  The skirt was originally very longgggg, but I thought it looked festive, and deserved to be holiday party attire.  It is high waisted, and I love the look of high waisted skirts with tops tucked in.  So I shortened the original length by tucking the skirt up inside of itself to form a poofy skirt look that was short and ready for a party!  I then wore it with a black sequin tank and black tights, with black high heeled boots to complete the look.    This outfit did "Double Duty" for me, allowing me to attend Drew's Mom's side of the family's Christmas dinner, but then afterward come straight home and host a Christmas/Birthday bash at our house for all of our friends.  The sequin top added just the right amount of sparkle!

Also, I wanted to share the bread loaves I baked today!