Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

DIY: Anthropologie Fluted Ponte Dress

~ SEWING

My Inspiration:  Fluted Ponte Dress from Anthropologie $158.

in my closet: a similar dress c/o romwe.
theirs vs. mine
what you’ll need:
a dress(buy similar here and here.)
liquid stitch
fraycheck
scissors
1 yard+ black velvet trim
black thread
sewing machine
needles for hand sewing
1. Put the trim around the waist and mark with a pin where it ends.
2. Cut off the extra trim to the desired length.
3. Fray-check the ends.
4. Put the trim through the dress, onto the waist.
(optional*)5. Using liquid stitch, glue on the trim to the waist part of the dress.

6. Sew the trim around the back until here(as pictured).
7. Add snaps in the middle and the side.  Requires hand sewing.
*the reason why I added a snap on one side and not the other side
is because since that one side is tucked in, it didn’t move 
whereas in the other side kept falling down.
NOTE: The reason why I didn’t sew the trim all the way around the waist 
is because if I had, the trim doesn’t stretch so I wouldn’t be able to 
put the dress over my head.  So the extra unsewed part of the waist acts 
kind of like a zipper where it’ll stretch wide enough to go over my head/hips.
If this dress had a zipper, you would sew the trim all the way around the waist
and stop right before the zipper area on both sides.
The after:
and the girls wanted to participate in the picture taking.
but it stopped when they wouldn’t take turns sharing who gets to stand by mommy.
Oh, the joy of motherhood of feeling so loved! 🙂
Estimated time: 30 minutes
Skill level: Beginner
Budget: Very low.  
(It cost me $1.70 just for the velvet trim.)
Yes!  I saved over $160!
P.S:  Happy Thanksgiving weekend!!! 
To celebrate Thanksgiving, I’m offering 30% off all headbands from my store!
enter code: GIVINGTHANKS at the check out.
I hope you’ll have a wonderful, relaxing, & a lazy weekend! 
(at least that’s my plan anyway. 😉

Altered Couture Magazine.

~ Etc.

i was told i didn’t look excited enough hence the second take. but this time I just look borderline creepy! 😉 
you can imagine my surprise when a top-selling, national, fashion magazine managing editor contacted me and asked if one of my DIY tutorial could be featured in the Altered Couture magazine, so just imagine how much more surprised i was when i received the magazine a couple weeks ago and saw my work on the front cover of their november issue!  that was the last thing i was expecting so it was a very pleasant surprise! 
the magazine is filled with many, many tutorials and helpful tips.
thank you Stampington & Company for the wonderful opportunity!

my husband’s got skills.

~ DIY DREAM HOUSE, HOME, Jay's DIY

 
 
 
i’ve mentioned this in the past, but my husband’s hobby is to buy and move into an old home and renovate it himself, then rent it out and then buy/move into another old home to renovate it and so on.  so after he renovated our previous house, (to see the house go here for before/after pictures.) he couldn’t wait to renovate the house we live in now and he’s already renovated our whole basement and was about to tackle the main floor, but when my parents retired and moved back into their house in the states, jay offered to renovate their whole house for them.  isn’t he such a sweet son-in-law?  my parents sure adore him and love him dearly.
 
so while our house is on a pause from the renovation mode, my husband’s been busy renovating my parents’ house.  he’s not completely finished yet, but here is his work so far.
 
 
pictures of the kitchen and the dining room before:
 
(just to note, my parents are meticulously clean,
these were just taken right before packing and moving for the demolition.)
you can say it, it was pretty bad.
but i’m going to miss this green room. 🙁
 
and now the comparisons of the before/after:
 
 
 
this is the wall of the dining room but he broke it down to make the kitchen bigger
and to open up the dining room to the kitchen.
 
so instead of a wall now, there’s a kitchen island and the whole place is open!
 
and he painted the walls, took the carpet out and replaced the floor with a wooden floor in the dining room.
and some more pictures of the after:
 
 
 
my mom picked out the colors and and my husband designed the layout and executed the whole thing.(oh, i do have to give a shout out to my brother michael who learned from the master and helped out or he’d give me a hard time. :D)
 

 

i call him the DIY king.
my husband that is, not my brother. hahaha
 
 
 
 
 
 

mindy gledhill.

~ Etc.

image via mindy’s blog

mindy gledhill contacted me a week ago and asked me if I could help alter her dress for her newest music video, winter moon.  she found out about my blog through her little sister Lindsey, who is my HS friend and thanks to lindsey, I met another awesome girl with an amazing talent.  I fell completely in love with her with the very first song I heard.  She has a beautiful, angelic voice and her music uplifts and makes me so happy!
She was so kind, down to earth, and genuine and she was kind enough to bring me her albums Anchor, and Winter Moon, her Christmas album which hasn’t even been released yet!  Those two albums are the only music I’ve been listening to for the past week and she is definitely my favorite right now.  my kids and I’ve been having dance parties to it too, i just can’t get enough!  So i’m so excited I got to help her in a small way to make the music video for winter moon. 

 this is the dress in it’s original.  she wanted me to modestify it.

after:
(this was mainly her idea and i just executed it.)

the back of the dress

She’ll be filming the music video tomorrow and I cannot wait to see it! 
 It’ll have puppets in it who also sing with her, how cool/cute is that?
p.s: to listen to some of her music, go here.  #1, #3, #9 are some of my favorites. 
p.p.s: see mindy’s blog post about our encounter here.
*UPDATE:
Mindy Gledhill’s newest music video winter moon is here!

Image via mindy’s blogpost: What a weekend
She also posted about meeting me and working with me on her blog post here,