Archive for March, 2010

Thrifty & Chic: Them Boots

March 15th, 2010
9 Comments

I’ve been slowly collecting thrifted boots for some time. I love boots. I realized how much I loved boots around my senior year of college when I discovered that walking through snow in boots wasn’t nearly as miserable as with flip-flops. It was also then, that flat boots were starting to get not-ugly.

I’ve got 4 1/2 pairs of thrifted boots. The half is because I lost (I don’t know how) one of my black cowgirl boots. Just one. One! Grrr. The other boot just sits there in the closet taunting me, You know you want to wear me. but, wait. . . my mate just randomly disappeared in the abyss of the basement. OH! Too bad. Looks like you’re going to have to wear the SAME boots you wore yesterday. HA. HA! Sometimes I have little temper tantrums about that while I’m getting dressed. Sometimes Chris thinks I’m a 12 year old trapped in a 25 year old’s body. Sometimes he’s right.

Usually it’s during the summer when I find the best boots, but this last week was an exception. Do you want to see the break-down of each boot? Here we go. . . (from left to right)

  • The taunting single boot – $6: These were the first thrifted pair of boots I ever bought. I love the detailing on the boot and the uber-pointy toe.
  • SF throwbacks – $8: I always complained how bad the thrifting was in San Francisco, but I found these gorgeous babies there. They weren’t that expensive, either.
  • 80s Yugoslavian Boots – $6: These suede babies have such cool detailing on the side. I just wish they weren’t black so the details would be more pronounced.
  • Old School Riding Boots – $4: Whoever owned these fab boots before me was a real cowgirl, because they were worn in as if they were always in horse stirrups. Seriously.
  • Black Beauties – $6: Like I said. I love my newest addition. They’re beautiful and delicious to the touch.

I love my four pairs of boots. I added the fourth to my growing collection just last week in the same shopping trip where I scored the hideous dress. I think these boots are gorgeous. They’re in excellent condition, made from top notch leather. I really like the leather details on the back and that the boot rises higher in the front. They’re also surprisingly comfortable to wear, even with a broken toe!

Are you riding the boot trend? I personally love my thrifted boots, but so many of my friends are freaked out by the thought of wearing previously owned shoes. Are you the same way?

Hideous to Awesome Dress Refashion

March 12th, 2010
34 Comments

Earlier this week I went thrift store shopping at a D.I. location near where I grew up. Funny thing, this was the first time I’ve ever been to that particular location. The goodies I found there were awesome. I even found a few things like a yellow velvet Anthro-style chair and an olive green pants jump suit that I didn’t buy. Among the awesome finds was the most hideous $6 drop-waist dress. I say hideous because it was all sorts of bulky in the middle with equally bulky bishop sleeves. I can’t do the billowy bishop sleeve, no matter how many times I try it. You know the feeling when clothes wear you, rather than the reverse? That was the tale of this dress. I mean, seriously. Look at the before photo:

Like how I’m covering up my face? I hadn’t put on my face or done my hair, so I looked pretty scary.

This dress has loads of potential, though. From the moment I saw it, i fell in LOVE with the fabric. I’m a sucker for greys and stripes. The best part about the pattern is that it goes well with blacks OR browns! I love the versatility. I’m also digging the doily decolletage decoration. It’s freaking sweet. I’m pretty sure that this dress was handmade. There were no tags and most of the seams weren’t finished with a Surger. Sweet!

Do I look like I’m in pain? I’m not putting any pressure on my left foot, because it was KILLING! Yowzas.

This project took me the bulk of yesterday to complete because Penelope didn’t nap much, laundry had to be done, I broke my toe and the dress needed loads of unpicking. I’m sure if the planets were all aligned yesterday it would’ve taken me under an hour to do the shirt, because it wasn’t very hard to do at all. Cutting and gathering the sleeves was pretty easy, adding the band on the bottom of the shirt was easier than hemming (in my opinion), it really boiled down to the deconstruction. That just took a lot of time.

I only planned on doing the shirt refashion, but there was so much fabric left over just screaming to be made into a dress for Penelope. I used one of Penelope’s old dresses as a guide. All I did was a little gathering at the waist, sew it onto some white jersey (for stretch) and add straps. I think she looks SO adorable in her new dress, but she wasn’t so happy about wearing it this morning. We had our first fight over clothes! Yup. She’s getting opinionated all of a sudden!

Today we wore our matching clothes to our play date with Alma & Oliver to the Tracy Aviary and Hatch’s Family Chocolates. We got a lot of attention at Hatch’s for our matching outfits, that was fun. Our little matchy-matchy day has gotten me so excited to plan our Easter outfits! I just need to find the right fabric for it.

Spring is Springing at DHD

March 11th, 2010
6 Comments

I was up until 2am Wednesday night finishing my newest collection of digital kits for Design House Digital. I put in a lot of work on this collection and I’m really excited for the end result! This week I made some patterns for boys AND girls. Chris’s favorite pattern is the hex with the dots. I totally agree with him, I think it’s a handsome pattern. I’d love to see it on fabric someday. A girl can dream, right?

Click on the image to view product page:

I know the digital scrapbooking thing is really new/intimidating to a lot of you. I really try to have more than just digital scrappers in mind when making my kits. You can always print out the papers and use them for cards, wrapping paper, bookbinding, etc.

If you hate your blog layout and want something a little more fresh than some of the really crappy blog graphics that are out there (No names will be names, but you know who you are!), why not buy one of my blog graphic kits? I hope you like them and buy them.

Thanks so much to all of you that have been encouraging and to you that have purchased my kits! I really, really appreciate your support in my work!!

Thrifty & Chic: The Living Room Edition

March 9th, 2010
34 Comments

I’ve been looking forward to sharing my living room with you for some time. Like 7 months. While moving sucks, the silver lining in the crappy moving cloud is redecorating. I LOVE the chance to decorate a new space. There’s nothing that makes furniture and wall hangings look new again like a completely different space.

Our new place is completely different from our old apartment in Menlo Park. Our old apartment had SIX south facing windows with flat-white painted walls. Everything about our last apartment was bright white. Our new house has dark brown hardwood floors, tan travertine tile, tan walls with a little bit of white trim. It doesn’t scream bright white; so my black, white and rainbow wall decorations I used at the Menlo place wouldn’t have really worked.

Coloring aside, we sold most of our furniture before we left California so I pretty much had to start from scratch anyway. While it’s taken a good six months to collect all of the furnishings for this room, I’ve managed to do it all under $390! The only reason why it’s that high, was because 70% of that was spent on the couch.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • couch – $300
  • coffee table – $35
  • tufted bench – $15
  • 2 red chairs – $10
  • lamp – $15
  • side table – $8
  • rug – FREE thanks to my parents
  • 2 large frames $6

Not bad, right? I have to tell you about the couch. I was planning on splurging big time and buying a {new!} couch from Urban Outfitters, but I kept wimping out at checkout. I really didn’t feel comfortable spending $600 on a couch that I’ve never seen in person {I’m really that cheap}. Would you? Well, I waited too long. Before I knew it, OU sold out of the MCM Couch I had been eying. I admitted defeat and decided that I really didn’t want to spend that kind of money on a couch, anyway. I spent a few days scouring KSL {SLC equivalent to Craigslist} where I found THE OU couch I had been eyeing, for half off ! WHA?!? I quickly called the girl and bought it that night. I swear it was nothing short of destiny.

The coffee table and tufted bench were also a thrill to find. I went thrifting at a pretty child-unfriendly thrift store (multiple levels are just so annoying when you’re hauling a baby and a cart full of goodies) and I went to the as-is section and found my gorgeous coffee table. I quickly pounced and awkwardly stuffed the coffee table in the cart, because some equally savvy shopper was eying it, too. Phew! About 5 minutes later, the same thing happened with the tufted bench. I love my bench.

The red chairs are so dear to me. I love furniture that remind me of my friends and family. We were up in Idaho visiting our dear friends Chad & Alexis and Alexis showed me 6 of the raddest chairs she bought for $5 a piece at an estate sale up there. She totally saw how jealous I was and sold two of them to me. Alexis is a really nice friend, one day I hope to have the same shopping and style savvy as her and her mom. One day I think I’ll recover these chairs, but the upholstery is good enough to hold off for now. Maybe I can be cool like my other friend Susan and take an upholstery class.

I’m really happy to have one room in our house decorated and complete. When the rest of the house is a mess, I just sit on my new favorite couch and revel in the complete-ness of the entire room. Ahhh. The next big projects are finishing Penelope’s room and working on our master bedroom (aka the hopeless cause). So, have you found any sweet furniture finds recently? Please share, I’m listening!! Cool stories behind cool furniture are such a favorite of mine.

Broken Compy

March 5th, 2010
8 Comments

Our 24″ iMac is broken. It’s been broken for a while when it was freezing up every five minutes, but it actually stopped working last night. LAME. Hallelujah for time machine, Applecare, iPhones and our dinosaur Powerbook. Without them, I might just keel over and die.

I’ve been working on some fun projects that I can’t wait to share with you, but since the computer is caput, they’ll have to wait for later. To give you a preview, here’s what you can expect to see next week:

iPhone Case 2.0

I had a brilliant brainwave the other day where I figured out a totally new and totally awesome iphone case design. I’m excited. I hope you are, too.

Nearly Completed Living Room

I’m not sure I’ll ever be done decorating this room, but it’s so close. Close enough that I really want to share it with you. I finally have artwork on the walls and furniture on the floors. It’s almost a complete style 180 from our last apartment, which is always fun.

I hope you have a fabulous, and exciting weekend void of any computer failures or errors.

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