An update & a few random show-&-tell items.

Life this time of year has been flying past me.  I have had a ton of orders for bracelets this holiday season, kids that have been sick, Christmas shopping of course and a husband that is heading out of town & leaving me with 3 little girls & then comes home and the next day goes into surgery on his shoulder.  It may be a struggle of a month for me here on out as I frantically finish orders & taking care of 3 toddlers on my own, but I have a lot of refashion projects that have been waiting to get done!  I have boots to paint, an awesome necklace refashion, a painted (yes painted) skirt that I have been dying to attempt & as always, some shoe projects & sewing projects.  After the new year when everything returns to semi-normal, I will be back with these projects.  For now, I thought I would share a few random things, like my jewelry station.

I made this jewelry station a while ago & I absolutely LOVE having everything out & collected together.  The earring holders are just thrift picture frames painted black with burlap glued & stapled to the back.  The bracelet holder is dowel rods on screwed in hooks.  The snap ones go in the center for easy on & off.  Necklaces on screw hooks & this mirror was a thrift find for $5. 

This whole station is set up in my closet behind the door.  It is all right there as I get my clothes on & makes for easy, quick throw on.  I do need to expand on it & will get to that in the new year.

Another thing I just did was I cut my hair & had red peek-a-boo chunks put in.

I love it so much!  I needed a change, but my husband likes my hair longer (still cut off about 4-5"), so a funky color was in order.  Here is a close up.

I worried about my husband hating it, but I think he agrees that it works for me & my style.... But not his thing at all.

The necklace in the picture above was a glorious find at the hair salon for a steal at $12.

Here I paired it with a second necklace to give the chain around the neck more of  a substantial look.  If I haven't said it before, I am OBSESSED with triangles!  Even my wedding ring is a triangle diamond.

And the last total random thing, I added some Peacock & Leopard ornaments to my Christmas tree this year.

 

I hope your holidays are Merry & Bright!  Now to finish all of these gorgeous bracelet orders before my husband leaves this week (and of course get some made for my own little girls for Christmas to match the outfits they are getting) and enjoy this season with my girls!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

You're wearing a what!? Shirt to skirt & back again.

Who out there has their 1 absolute favorite clothing item that you just adore & it screams your name?  I have a top that is just that for me, you may actually recognize it.

This amazing top is my favorite article of clothing.  When I saw it, I had to have it!  I didn't care that the smallest size available was a 1x.  I was going to buy it & I was going to figure out how to make it work for me.... And that I did!  If you aren't sure what I am talking about with recognizing it, maybe this will spark it for you.

This shirt is also my logo!  BUT, not only is it a shirt & the whole inspiration for the name of my blog & business, but it is also a skirt for me.  And that is what I am going to share with you today.

I take these 3 items, & turn them into a skirt.....

WHY do I do this?  When you love something so much, you want to wear it often, but how fun is it to wear the same combination over & over again?  I personally do not like wearing the exact same combo really ever.  I always have to mix it up.

Here is a pretty basic way to wear this top.

Now excuse the boots.  I normally wear my more casual knee high boots with this, but I wanted to change it up, but I am seeing clearly here that these do not work nearly as well as my other boots, so I will stick to the other ones.  The common more casual way to wear this is with leggings or skinny jeans.

The dressier way is with a pencil skirt & chunky belt!

But back earlier this year, I had a Photoshoot with a professional photographer through Dressing Your Truth & I needed to bring my favorite outfit.  Now, I had already worn my favorite tank in a video recording with the Dressing Your Truth creator Carol Tuttle,(you can see that video in the link) http://thecarolblog.com/new-dressing-your-truth-journey-before-and-after-video/ so I didn't want to wear the same thing, but that outfit represents me so well, so I came up with the idea to wear the tank as a skirt & give the outfit a whole new look.

Here is the shirt as a skirt for the Photoshoot.

And here I mixed it up again for a Dressing Your Truth Event (picture with one of my DYT friends that I finally got to meet in person, Jenny Collins.  Check out her fab outfit!)

So here is how I do it, it is real rocket science ;-)

I start out with a little short slip.  (I normally don't wear leggings, but for modesty purposes, I am wearing them here.). The reason for the slip is because the back of the tank is lace & sheer.  The slip acts as a liner & another thing to tick under.

Now here I decided to add another tank underneath it to add depth & length.  All you do is tuck it into the slip, your underwear or even a Spanx type underclothing to help hold the straps in.

Do the exact same thing with the second tank & tuck it in nice & tight.

You can see on the sides here how you can see the arm holes.  All you do is pull your shirt down over it or

Add a belt over it.  The belt is great because it holds it all in place, but I do like to have my belt a bit higher

which is what I am showing here in this last picture.

So there you have it, my deepest, darkest secrets of how I look at my clothes in different ways to create numerous different outfits.  My favorite thing is when people tell me how much they love my skirt & I get to see their jaw drop when I tell them it is 2 tank tops tucked in to create a skirt.

Now I dare you to not step into your closet & start trying on your tops as skirts to see if they work ;-)

I heart this tank top & all of the amazing outfits I have been able to create with it by mixing it up.  Go try it out, I dare you ;-)

Muddy Dirty Dye

It has been a while since I posted.  Last week I was a bit under the weather with a cold & sinus problems, so I wasn't up to doing a lot, not to mention that red, raw noses don't make for great pictures. But I was able to get this FABULOUS jacket refashioned up a bit.

It is a great military jacket & fits me like a glove.

This was a great purchase off of my friend who it didn't work for after she went through Dressing Your Truth.  She knew it would be loved & appreciated by me ;-). 

This jacket just needed some dirtying, so I finally got the details down of my dirtying process to share with you all.

These are the 3 dyes that I use.  I call this my "Muddy Dirty Dye".  Most dirty recipes are yellow, this one is a great brown base that looks gorgeous on a dark denim.  I shared another denim refashion a while ago & I used this recipe on it.

Muddy Dirty Dye Recipe

28 cups boiling water

1/3 cup tan dye

2 T dark brown dye

2-3 T orange dye (less on lighter denim, more on darker denim)

1/2 cup salt.

Stir everything together.  Get your article of clothing completely wet before placing in the dye.

I always use a big plastic storage bin and I wear big rubber gloves while working on it. I place item in and move around for about 15 minutes.  I move it constantly & massage the fabric to make sure it takes the dye really good.  I wring it out & rinse it in cold water until the water runs pretty much clear (I do this process in my stainless steel kitchen sink).  Throw in the washing machine on a Handwash cycle on cold & lay dry or tumble dry on extra low heat so it doesn't get that hard, stiff feel that some jackets get when they have been laid out to dry.

You can see how great it looks with being more brown.

The side by side looks amazing.

I paired it here over my fab mustard sweater shirt, my new Walmart skinny jeans I got for $13, my everyday brown boots (you have seen a lot & will continue to see).  It is hard to see, but all of the jewelry are Lindsi originals ;-).  Happy Muddy Dirty dyeing!

Casual dress to Pencil skirt

My sister gave me this casual cotton dress back a while ago.  

I wore it a few times, mainly as lounge clothes up at our cabin.  I felt frumpy in it, so I decided it was time to figure something out with it so I would enjoy wearing it.  I cut the top part completely off, turned it inside out & slipped it on as a skirt.  I then pinned down the sides to get it to form to my body to create a pencil skirt.  I may eventually do an elastic waist, but for now I left the top edges raw.  It is always under shirts or under a belt, so it's not a big deal right now.

I did want to show a new concept today with my item-outfit put together.  I wanted to show how you can take an inspiration picture, like this one I found on Pinterest.

The idea was really cute & different, but the black doesn't work for me.  So I took the inspiration & made it work for me

I used the skirt I made that is brown & cream small stripe, brown leggings & my cream sweater.  The original picture had a plain scarf, but I needed color & texture, so I made that the pop of my outfit.  Something I do often & love to do is put bracelects over my long sleeves.  I was excited to see this picture do that.

So, when you are searching Pinterest for your perfect style, maybe consider that pictures that you wouldn't pick for color purposes, have some great style ideas.  I look at pictures to see if there is anything at all that can inspire me & spark new ideas.  I love having a "challenge" to create my outfits.

In the future, look for more inspiration challenge posts.  It is a great way to step out of the box of what you would normally select to wear, and I am all about trying new things!

Red/Copper belt redo

Back last year, I bought this pink belt for about $5 from Charming Charlie.  

I loved the shape & texture, but the color was a bit soft & light for me.  I decided to get my paint on with it.

I painted the elastic band with fabric paint & a sponge while pounding the paint in as deep as I could, doing my best to get it as even as I could.  After painting the band with Brick fabric paint, I then took My Angelus Brick leather paint to the vinyl (after rubbing it with Acetone).  After that dried, I took my cotton rag with so e water & rubbed the whole vinyl down with Copper leather paint in order to give it a metallic iridescent sheen to it & to enhance the texture.  Painted the buckle rid with Gold nail polish & let it all dry.

The color & look are gorgeous!  Now that I have worn it a few times, I think I will paint the whole thing with Pod Modge to help seal it as the buckle has been digging in on the sides & ruining the belt. I think the Mod Podge would help protect it like it did in my Tissue Paper shoe post.

Here is the outfit I put together with the belt.  This is one of those outfits that I put together for the first time and felt AMAZING in!  My favorite shoes & skirt combined with a ruffled front button up shirt with a gold metallic cardigan & my painted belt.  I loved the whole outfit & how I felt in it and the belt was a great color for the combo.  Expand your vision & possibilities & see what you can come up with!

Braided Scarf Ring

Remember back in this post I showed how I wrapped a plastic scarf ring with a braided belt?  I showed it on my wrist in the last post, but I actually intended it to be a functional scarf ring.  This is one of those great pieces to add a little extra detail to your fall wardrobes and all of the scarves that you will be wearing.  Here are 3 pictures of different ways to tie a scarf using the a scarf ring, or you can use a bangle bracelet

 

 I only showed 3 different ways to tie it, but there are NUMEROUS ways and they don't all go around your neck.  I may show more in another post, but I only had time to do 3 quick ones today.

There is a reason that leopards is part of the name of the blog.... I love my leopard!  But I am loving the weather we are having so that I can get out all of my layers.  These boots I am wearing may be going through a bit of a refashion coming up here in a few weeks, they are a bit of a greyed-brown and I would like them to be a bit more rich.

How can you spruce up your scarves this fall and winter?  I am sure I will be showing LOTS of different ways to wear scarves as they are the most versatile piece you can have in your wardrobe and can add so much.  Are you getting the cooler weather your way yet?  This is my favorite time of year!  :-)

Plain Tan Skirt Criss-cross sewing

 I bought this plain tan skirt back quite a few years ago.

It was alright, but I didn't choose to wear it much.  I mainly wore it when I was pregnant because it was stretchy and comfortable to fit on the belly.  but during my last pregnancy, I got it stuck in a metal folding chair and got grease on it that stained.

 The mark wasn't that big, but it was enough for me to not feel comfortable to wear it, but I had an idea on how to save it.

The first step was to get rid of the bow.  I don't like bows, so I just tied some knots  down the ties and sewed them straight across to create a knotted looking belt..... some texture.

The next step was to create some texture in the body of the skirt and to hide the grease mark.  This particular skirt is sewn in sections, so I just worked within each section.  I just folded over and sewed right along the edge, creating a tiny seam.

 I created a criss-cross pattern but did not do any measuring of at all.

I made sure to create a seam over the grease mark so to hide it and not make it noticeable.  I continued all the way around the whole skirt sewing random criss-cross patterns and working in each individual section of the skirt.

This shows it more close up,

and here it is in an outfit.  The texture is so great now and I can actually see myself choosing to wear this now.  I paired it with a new jacket top I bought at the thrift store a few days ago, the cuff from my last post and my great leopard belt I bought from a friend.  Where I live, it has been feeling more and more like fall which means that the layers will be piling on (but I love).  Best time of year for me ;-)

Leather Cuff Refashion

I bought this great leather cuff off of the Yard Sale page back last year for a $1.  

It had super shiny rhinestones & silver studs that I didn't care for, so I painted them with gold & brown acrylic paint.  The rhinestones still weren't working for me, so I took a skinny brown leather belt from a pair of my maternity pants & cut it up to cover up the rhinestones.

I figured the sizes I needed & just literally hot glued them all into place.

Just to let you know, I did use brown metal paint for the hardware & it has been chipping off through time, so fingernail polish would probably be a better option.

I had left over braided belt, so I wrapped it around a plastic ring that a scarf I purchased was hanging on, 

And created a bangle bracelet OR, I actually made it with a different intention in mind that I will cover in a different post ;-).  So from this free belt taken from some pants, I was able to create 2 different accessories that are unique & of course one-of-a-kind which is what I always aim for ;-). 

Look for another post in the near future that will show multiple pictures of what the braided ring was actually made for.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!