Guest Post: Skirt to Dress DIY

So today I have my very first guest post! Berenisse has been one of my best friends for the past two years and is seriously one of the most awesome people I've ever met. Not only is she originally from Peru, but she's also like quadlingual (working on languages five through 30 as we speak), a wonderful painter and artist, and a fellow DIY'er! She also leaves today for a six month journey through Hindu temples across four continents, which she'll be blogging about in English and Spanish over on Between Two Worlds.


In honor of her departure, I asked her to write a guest post about a recent lace skirt-to-dress DIY she did. And here it is!

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I started with a long flowy white skirt that was given to me by a person who loved the fabric but was too short to wear it as a skirt. Before making any alterations I attempted to used the skirt as it was as a dress by adding a belt.

However, I was not happy with the length or way the bust looked, so I took off a few inches of the bottom of the skirt and decided to reuse the part that was "cut off" from the skirt.

The cutting part was easy peacy! All I did was carefully pull the thread that attached the "excess" from my skirt and boom!

Carefully taking the bottom tier off the dress

Detached!

With the remaining part I decided to attach it to the top part so that it could be more flowy, and so that it could cover up part of the bust line I was not happy with. After a few minutes of hand sewing this top part, and adding a belt, I got a nice white dress to sport during the summer.

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Oh yeah, did I mention she's also be-a-utiful?? I love the lace and love what you did with the skirt, Bere! Thanks so much for sharing this with me, and I'll be following your every move on your blog! Safe travels love <3

All images provided by Bere

DIY Inspiration: Tibi Resort 2013

OMG. I want to recreate literally every piece in this collection. Now if only I could rock the wet hair look...

 Photos via Style.com

Summer Shorts

As I sadly transition into the stifling heat of a Southern summer, I've come to the shocking revelation that I only own one pair of shorts. And they're great, but not so great as to totally dominate my summer shorts category.

So while shopping around for shorts, I've found that it seems as if anything goes for shorts this summer. Anything that is, except boring. Distressed denim, yes. Studded and/or lace pockets, doubly yes. Printed, super yes. Leather, yes but only when the humidity is under 60%. Tribal, hell yeah all the time yes. High-waisted and teal, yes but only with faux hipster glasses. Plain denim shorts, NO WAY JOSE.

My goal for the summer is to acquire and/or DIY each and every one of these shorts. Ready, set?

via: A Pair and a Spare, Classy Girls Wear Pearls (x2), Because Im Addicted (x2), Christeric, Could I Have That, DesignLoveFest, Fashion Toast, HonestlyWTF (x2), lefashionimage, Sincerely Kinsey, and Vanilla Scented

Day 3: Stunna Cum Laude

Soooo apparently I deleted all the photos I took of yesterday's outfit (hence no post), which means I'll just have to re-take them at some point. Whoops. In the meantime, here's today's outfit in two parts.

This is the outfit I thought I was going to wear today.

hat and shoes, Target

pink underdress, Urban Outfitters

black lace dress, DIY

It was just too uncomfortable though (see how short that skirt is?). Plus, it ended up being 90 degrees outside today (I repeat, 90 degrees in mid-April. We had a foot of snow on the ground this time last year), so I changed into this outfit by like 10:30am.

Yes, I know I said I wouldn't do any "jeans and closest clean t-shirt" outfits, but I'm calling this one fair since I made this shirt! I'll put a tutorial up eventually. In any case, I also put on these sweet earrings and shoes, and kept the hat.

hat and earrings, Target

shoes and shorts, Urban Outfitters

shirt, DIY

belt, thrifted

DIY Inspiration: Lace Dress

YES, YES, YES, YES, and YES. I'M DOING THIS ASAP.

Lover Lacetail dress (images via A Pair & A Spare)

DIY: Catching Up

I began DIYing seriously last summer (2011) while I was in Boston for a summer internship. It was really a self-preservation thing as I didn't have a whole lot else to do... I started this blog towards the end of the summer, but didn't really "commit" to it until December. In the meantime, however, there were several DIY projects I finished. So just to catch you up, here's some that I think are worth showing (besides the usual "hem a thrifted skirt" thing):

A plain (thrifted) Anne Taylor dress. Formerly very conservative, now with deep U back. It's a super daring cut so I've actually only ever worn this dress out once and kept a shawl on the whole time. But I took in the dress so it fits me perfectly (rare for a non-stretch dress since I'm so curvy) and I LOVE it. So I really do need to find an excuse to wear it somewhere. And more often.

This was a dress I bought in high school at a boutique back home, for way more than I probably should have been spending at that point in my life. I adore the neck and cut of the dress, but it was originally a really weird beige color. So I dipped it in some black dye! Turns out I didn't leave it in long enough so came out a kind of dark/musty purple, but it was really pretty so I just left it.

A ridic easy dress (yes, dress - I know it looks like a long shirt... it's stretchy!) I whipped up one night before going out. I have a blue bodycon tank dress that fits me super well, so I traced it onto this stretchy black lace I had laying around, stitched it up, and viola! Easy peasy.

A necklace that I made one night while procrastinating work. Copied a design I saw online (can't remember where though). I've been in love with the black and gold combo recently. Maybe because of this song?

More gold, this time in the form of obnoxiously sparkly shoes. Super cheap (thrifted) flats, originally this hideous blue jeans color (you can still see it on the inside of the shoe), now an amazing gold. I love the rounded point toe, just the perfect shape. It's an awesome way to spice up the otherwise relatively simple/boring going out go-to outfit (say that five times fast) of skinny jeans and black tank top.