recap

Mini / Maxi dress

Future basic tank

Collars

Floral shorts

Ombre skirts

Paint pants

Metallic peplum blazer

Splatter skirt

Candy stripe dress

Velvet peplum top

I've been looking through my 'DIY history' and decided to do a recap post on my favourites. This is partly spurred on by the fact that I'm in the process of a whole new load of DIYs which I'll be putting up for sale. Sometimes I'm tempted to sell some of my designs when people tell me they'd pay for me to make them something or buy an existing piece off me, but the problem is that most of the time I've made something out of a small piece of fabric, without a pattern and fitted to my body measurements so it's extremely hard to replicate. Another issue is my emotional attachment to pieces, I may not get a whole lot of wear out of some stuff but just the thought of never seeing designs again is enough to haunt me! Sounds silly, but when I slave over a piece and end up producing something I'm seriously proud of it sits close to my heart. SO that's why I'm making pieces specifically for sale! It will be a mini collection of painted skirts and jeans, all exclusive styles. So far I've finished one skirt and started a second, hoping for them to be done and up for sale before July starts. Watch this space!

accessory lust

Lusting over these gorgeous accessories that will liven up any wardrobe. Need them all!

Zara gold ankle strap sandal

Zara white sandal

Zara pink sandal

Zara blue colour block sandal

Asos mesh gold tipped collar necklace

Mania Mania Mystic necklace

Gala Curios gold-oil pyramid ring

Deadly Ponies bone ring

Acne Jasper bronze silk & leather pouch

Katzi Oyster bag

Deadly Ponies Mr Hutch duffel bag

Acne Beau bag

paint pants

All my creative energy had been bottled up inside me for so long until I finally got around to doing a long awaited DIY painted jeans project yesterday! So so simple I'm not sure why I didn't think of it earlier, but I guess it's true that the best ideas are the ones you leave brewing for a while.

I bought these jeans from Primark when I was in London in February. I'm sure most people know about the craziness of Primark and how you just don't bother trying to line up for the change rooms, so it's all a bit of a lucky dip sizing-wise. Thankfully these jeans were a perfect fit, although for £11 it wouldn't be much of a loss if they didn't!

Materials:

Any odd pair of jeans (light colours work best)

Acrylic paints

Textile medium (I used Chromacryl)

Paint brushes (various sizes)

Instructions:

No prep required, but if you are using brand new jeans it's probably a good idea to put them through the wash first to get any excess dyes out.

Lay your jeans flat on a surface with newspaper or a drop sheet underneath, slot extra newspaper inside the legs so the paint doesn't seep through either side.

Mix up your acrylic colours with textile medium in separate disposable tubs/bowls (the medium should come with instructions, mine said to use 2:1 parts paint to medium).

If you plan on using light colours or not covering the entire fabric with paint put down a thin base coat in white or any background colour you like.

Then, go nuts! But not too nuts, you should try and just stick to a few complimentary colours and have a theme going (mine was inspired by lush tropical rainforests). It's really easy to go overboard with the paint so step back every now and then to think about your work (sorry if I sound like your 8th grade art teacher!).

If you're not very artistically confident and are lucky enough to know an abstract painter, get them involved! But I'm pretty sure anybody can whip around a paintbrush as I've done, so don't be afraid.

Hang the jeans up to dry. When the paint's completely dry iron the jeans under a tea towel or scrap fabric on the hottest setting to set the paint. Hand wash them in cool water to make sure the paint doesn't run (if it does though, there's basically nothing you can do except try and set the paint with the iron again). If you're paint runs it means you haven't used enough textile medium, so my advice would be to try and wash it all out and start from scratch unfortunately.

Wearing with: Style Nanda top, COS necklace, DIY perspex cuffs (as seen HERE), Windsor Smith Loren heels.

LDN purchases: part two

Probably THE funnest piece of clothing I own. I'm not one for tube skirts, but I just had to grab this when I saw it in Topshop as it reminded me of the Austrian alps we drove through on our way across Europe.

Wearing:

Urban Outfitters lace fringed crop bra

Motel skirt

COS metal collar necklace

Murano glass ring from Venice

DIY perspex cuff

collar crazy

Went a little collar crazy this past week after being inspired by one of my all time favourite blogs A Pair & a Spare, so much DIY collar inspiration it's quite overwhelming! My friend kindly gave me her childhood box of sequins so I could make a crazy sequined collar. Very happy with the results, but to be honest it took about five times longer than I expected! Went with the totally 'random' approach, which involves methodically placing the different colours and sizes so nothing doubles up. I left the stand on the collar (which was cut off an old denim shirt kindly donated by my dad) because I didn't want it sitting flat around the neck, but they look just as good without the stand.

The second collar I did wasn't much trouble at all, since I had this strip of silk I had painted when I was in high school! Also found an old (op shop) Country Road shirt hanging around the back of my wardrobe, it has a lovely frill at the neck, but the collar was stained which made it perfect for a collar makeover! After I finished sewing the fabric onto the collar I realised that the silk was probably painted with ink, meaning I can't get the collar wet or the ink will run all over the rest of the shirt. Woops! I'll just have to be super careful when I wash it.

Hope everyone's enjoying their weekend!