DIY: Pastel Jeans

In my mind, bleach is a substance that turns objects that are not white, into objects that were formerly not white. Apparently this is totally a fallacy. See Exhibit A here.

I now present you with Exhibit B.

Take one pair of jeans that I never wear anymore, and dip it into bleach, a la this beautiful blogger. Remove approximately 6 hours later and discover that bleach can not only turn things yellow and eat away a gaping hole in the rear, but make them about three sizes too big! (Or maybe these jeans really were just this baggy to begin with??)

Whoops.

I liked the color though, so after taking them in about six inches (and adding an adorable robot patch), I'm in love! Perfect for all the pastels we're seeing this spring.

The waist/hips are still pretty baggy, but I don't know how to fix that without completely taking the side seams apart...

Isn't he just SOOO cute??

Sorry for the weird smirks. I'm a tired thesis student :(

P.S. You may notice a theme of "failed DIY's" in my last few DIY posts. This is intentional, because I really want to impress upon you that there isn't a perfect formula for crafting and creating. Maybe I'm just a really bad DIY'er, but I fail at projects all the time. The important thing is just to try. And when it's right, it's really really right. And yes, I am hinting at a future post :)

P.P.S. Apparently I love this shade of yellow. I just found two shirts and a dress that are all exactly the same color as these pants.

I mean, really?? Apparently my subconscious really likes this color.

DIY: Galaxy Dress (or, the art of persistence)

What do you do when you have a DIY method that you've tried twice and hasn't turned out how you wanted (i.e. bleach), and a dress that you've tried to alter three times and still hasn't turned out how you wanted (see below)? Throw them both together into one beautiful mess of a project, of course!

It seems every blogger ever has their own method of DIY'ing Christopher Kane's galaxy print from his resort 2011 collection. And remember this dress?

I mean, come on! How could you not want a print like this??

Here's mine, adapted from all the tutorials listed above.

What you need:
Black dress
Bleach in a spray bottle
Fabric/acrylic paint in various colors
Something to flick and sponge paint with

What you do:
1) Lay your dress out flat, and spritz it with bleach in a fairly random pattern, concentrating on some areas more than others, etc. Cheeze alert: the point here isn't to be orderly, but to embrace the entropy of the galaxy!

Kinda too short, kinda too doll-esque dress I picked up on a whim at Forever21 a few years back.

2) After a few minutes, scrunch the dress up and spritz once more.

3) Once the colors are to your satisfaction, wash your dress and dry it.

I only wanted one part of the skirt and some of the bodice to be galaxy, but don't be afraid to go crazy on the whole dress!

4) Flick, splatter, sponge, squish, and drag paint over the dress. Again, move towards chaos!

5) Fly yourself to the moon.

 Still a bit short to wear with just tights, but with leggings or black jeans underneath I love it!!