{Re*Made}: Lil' Blue Dress Makeover

So here it is July, and it seems I've failed to complete my little design resolution.  Well, yes and no.  I started May's project in May, but only just recently completed it.  And I'm calling it a bust.  I'm so displeased with its turnout that I am not going to post pictures.  I attempted the makeover of a little wooden magazine rack that was left in the house.  It had a broken handle and some other minor cosmetic issues.  I painted it, tried to repair the handle, even added our monogram to the sides, but in the end, it just wasn't pretty, and I didn't like it.  I probably wasn't much inspired in May anyways.

May was a wild and difficult month for my husband and I.  It started with my giving notice at my work after making a decision to go back to school and study graphic design. Woo hoo! I am super excited about it and can't wait to learn more about design.   But literally the day after I gave notice, we found out our office will be shutting down due to budget issues.   Crazy!

We also lost my beautiful mother-in-law in mid-May, which was a little unexpected.  It most definitely has been hard to say good-bye and discover life without her.  She is already greatly missed.

On the more positive side of things, my husband was offered a new job towards the end of the month, and gave notice at his current job. We also celebrated my mom passing the one-month mark after being given one month to live. (We are currently going on the three-month mark!) I was also in full party planning mode for the baby shower I gave my sister-in-law this past weekend. My brain was constantly coming up with new ideas so I still have all these little notes and doodles lying around the house with shower ideas.  I'll be posting those pics soon, Woo hoo!

Some of that carried over into June but I was able to complete a project, though not one on my list.  I have actually removed one of those projects because I don't really need it anymore.  You'll see why soon.

(Hopefully I'm leaving you enough in suspense you'll want to come back, he he!)

So, June's *new* {Re*Made}. 

Every now and then, especially when I'm watching Project Runway, I think I could be a clothing designer.  I mean, come on, how hard can it be to pin fabric to a mannequin, right??  I can work a sewing machine, too.  To my credit, I have made myself a few shirts rather successfully, but they were following a pattern, not from scratch.  This project is about one such episode when I thought I could transform a plain-jane dress to something a little more special, and vintagey.  It's certainly no Project Runway winner, but I really like the way it turned out.

I had bought this cute little summer dress thinking it would be easy to wear and would go with anything.  But, I'm pretty particular when it comes to clothes (just ask my hubby!) and everything needs to match or coordinate or sometimes have a little somethin' extra.  And this dress needed a little somethin' extra.  It was just so blah.  Definitely easy-breezy, but boring.

I love, love, love the color though!  Peacock blue!

I actually pulled from a couple of places when I decided the dress needed some embellishment.  First, while baby shower shopping in my local craft store, I found these great little muslin flowers and I thought how cute would they be on the dress.  Then I remembered a while back my mom had shown me a ziploc baggie full of vintage lace she had acquired at an estate sale.  I found some eyelet trimming that I thought would be so cute around the bottom of the dress, and a wider piece of lace that I wanted to somehow use at the top.

First I added the eyelet trim to the bottom of the dress.  I kept the jersey fabric stretched a bit as I sewed so the eyelet would give a slight ruffle.

Then I hand-stitched the muslin flowers on just at the waist under the shirring.

Finally, I played with the wide lace.  First I tried cap sleeves, but I couldn't get it to lay right.  After fiddling with it a while, I decided to do a halter with the lace, and have it come to the front almost where my arm meets my shoulder rather than where a normal bra strap would sit.  It gave it a fun vintage look, but a little elegant too.

All in all, I think it turned out pretty cute.  I actually wore it to the baby shower and it was so comfy and the little halter lace helped keep it up, ha ha.  And even though I used vintage lace, this could easily be done with new stuff.  They actually had some great looking laces in the fabric department of that crafty store.

So, whadya think?

Makes me wanna embellish more stuff! :D
Have a good one!

ttfn...

The Fork was a Spoon!

A little over two years ago I made a career decision that was in the opposite direction of what I "wanted to be when I grew up."  You may remember I spoke of that fork in the road when I made the decision to teach rather than design.  But within these past two years, I have learned so much about myself, things I probably never would have learned had things actually gone my way. 

See, when I graduated college, I knew exactly what I wanted to do:  residential interior design.  And my mind was set.  Suddenly, these golden doors opened and the perfect job presented itself to me.  And the first few months on the job, it was perfect.  But slowly, it fell off its pedestal, snail-like at first, until it finally just plopped onto the dirty floor.  And in that descent, I began to doubt myself:  Was I a good designer?  Should I have just been a nurse, or a teacher, or a maybe an accountant, or anything else?  Each day I dwelled on those thoughts until they consummed me and I was convinced.  I found myself at that afore mentioned fork in the road:  continue designing, which I'm not sure I like or I'm good at, or select a new career. 

As my faith has taught me, I prayed and prayed and prayed about it, until I felt like it was time to change careers, dragging my feet the whole way.  When I was much younger, I wanted to be a teacher, just like my first grade teacher.  She was wonderful and made me feel so at home in a new school.  Who wouldn't want to be like that?  So I figured I'd revert to my first love and seek a career in education.  What I realize now is that I was the one making the decisions, not the One I thought was, but perhaps that was the plan all along.  I wanted out of my job and was convinced I wasn't any good at it, so I needed to do something different.  I did all the necessary schooling to become a teacher but in the end, it wasn't right.  I couldn't deny my passion for design and after I got away from the unhappy work environment I realized I was good at design and had some really great ideas of my own. 

Now, I know what I want to do:  have my own little place to sell things that I love making, and hopefully at some point in the future I can have that.  I'm going back to school to get my graphic design degree.  I was given the amazing opportunity to renovate the little house I'm living in, which I hope you have enjoyed the posts about that.  I set a design resolution for myself, and with the exception of this past couple of months, that has been a great motivation to accomplish projects I've been wanting to do, and to get my creative juices flowing.  All of this has been proof to myself that I LOVE design, that it is in my blood and my soul, and when something is a part of you like that, you can't just turn away from it.

As I look back on the path that brought me to that realization, I see the fork and the direction I took, and see how it looped around and brought me back to the original destination.  Funny how life works out.  Or, as they say in one of my fav movies, Sweet Home Alabama:  "It's funny how things don't work out'.  'It's funny how they do."

I've got lots of catching up to do so look for a new {Spit*Shined}, a post on a baby shower I just threw, a sewing project and a couple others I think.  My camera is full of pictures!


ttfn....

{Re*Made}: Corkboard Chalkboard

I think this project was given to me by God to test my patience, because it did.  BUT, I did complete it and it turned out just like I pictured.

As with most ideas from God, I'm not sure where this one came from.  I had this really large cork bulletin board that didn't have a place or purpose, not to mention, somewhere in our move, its frame was damaged.

Somehow I thought, wouldn't it be neat to have a chalkboard but still be able to pin things to it:  a place to write notes and pin notes.  That eventually evolved into a calendar where I could write in deadlines for projects and other events, as well as a "pin board" of my own with my ideas and sketches.  So the idea of the corkboard chalkboard calendar was born.

First things first: I needed to remove the frame in order to get an accurate measurement of the board. 

Once I had those dimensions, I did my calculations to figure how I wanted my calendar to look.  I decided to only do 4 rows for the dates as 5 would have made the boxes almost too small to do any good.  I had boxes for days of the week, a box for the month, and a larger box up top for miscellaneous items I would want to pin up or random notes.

I wanted a separation between each box so I bought this crepe art tape to have a 1/4" of the corkboard show.  I wasn't sure how the tape would work out but it ended up being just like painter's tape.  Whew!

Once I had it taped up, it was time to paint.  I started rolling on the chalkboard paint with a roller and QUICKLY realized that would not be the best applicator.  It left teeny-tiny little bubbles and I did not want a bubbly surface.  Thankfully we had a cheapy paint brush on hand.

I wasn't sure how the paint would work on cork but it went on rather smoothly.  According to manufacturer's instruction, you need to wait 24 hours before use or applying another coat, which it definitely needed, so wait I must.

In the meantime, I started work on the new frame.  I bought this decorative cap molding that had the perfect little lip--same depth as the board.  After I measured once more the dimensions of my board, I made my marks and began cutting.

This is the part that convinced me this project was given to me as a test of my patience.  And maybe to knock my pride down a little.  See, I do pride myself on accuracy and mathematics and knowing I know how to do it.  So I made my measurements and my cuts and had my four pieces of the new frame.  But they were wrong--WAY wrong.  First, my saw didn't cut straight so my corners weren't meeting right (and I swear this was a machine error and not a user error, ha ha!).  Secondly, I measured wrong so my pieces weren't long enough.  I kinda felt like a fool.  Which may not be a bad thing every now and then.  But my dear hubby was patient and showed me the correct way to measure and insisted I use a mitre box to do my cutting. 

But, I had also used all my molding.  I could recycle the large pieces I had already cut for the top and bottom by cutting them to the short side measurement, but I still needed more molding.  So back to the hardware store to buy another few feet.  Only, after I got home, and cut the new pieces, the moldings were different thicknesses.  Same stuff but not the same!  Ugh!!  And the thickness difference was really noticeable, so BACK to the hardware store to get ANOTHER piece of molding to match the right thickness.  But after all that, I got all the frame parts cut correctly, and we were on our way again.  Woo hoo!

Time for coat number two on the board, and another 24 hour wait, so we will continue with the frame.

I bought a pack of "L" braces to fasten the corners together.  I marked each hole, then pre-drilled my holes to ensure the screw wouldn't crack my wood since it was a small area I was drilling into. 

See the painter's tape on the drill bit?  That's dear hubby's contribution.  He marked my drill depth so I wouldn't drill all the way through the molding.  Genius!

Holes drilled, screws in place, corner fastened!  Repeat times three.

And, voila, frame!

So, what would a project be without a little spray paint, huh?!  Ha ha!

Now that the frame was done, and it had been another 24 hours, I started work on the chalkboard again.  I read once that for chalk paint surfaces, after the paint has set for the noted time period, you should cover the entire board/surface with chalk to make it a better chalkboard.  So I did.  Whether it helped or not, I'm not sure.

Once I wiped all the chalk off, it was time to remove the tape.  Here is where I was a little nervous, not knowing how the tape would act after sitting for so long and being painted over.  But it was just like painter's tape.  Peeled off beautifully to reveal my cork separations.

All boxes revealed!

Now it was time to place the board in the frame.  We found these little glazier points and they worked perfectly.  Board was nice and secure.

Just need to add my calendar.

Isn't it awesome?!  Can't wait to put it to good use.  :)

So, whadya think?

Hope you found a little inspiration.
Ta ta for now...