Life is Beautiful

Motherhood, Sewing, Family

j.crew flower garden cardigan

~ DIY DREAM HOUSE

i just posted this thinking tomorrow was monday but it’s only sunday!
weird! but oh well, i’m sure you guys don’t mind it if i post a day early right? 😉
*i made this awhile ago but never posted the inspiration picture or the after pictures of me wearing it. so here it is.

my inspiration came from this J.crew cardigan.


and remember the anthropologie one after another cardigan i posted last week? this is the same cardigan in pink, from express over 10 yrs. ago.

and this scarf my mom bought for me from korea that I’ve never wore.
So I added the scarf to the cardigan.
the after:



saved $100+!

DIY-J.Crew ruffle path dress

~ DIY DREAM HOUSE

inspiration: J.Crew ruffle tank

h & m dress I got for $5

an old skirt I’ve never worn, not even once!

after:


(note: since it’s taken through the mirror, the ruffles are showing the opposite side as it really is. so it’s actually the same exact way as the j.crew tank pictured above. get it? i sure was confused for a little bit haha. 😀 )

this last picture shows the color of the dress more correctly.I don’t know how much I saved but I think it’s safe to say I saved A WHOLE LOT! 😉

DIY-J.Crew crepe myrtle cardigan

~ SEWING

inspiration: crepe myrtle cardigan from J.Crew
before: a cardigan from express from 7+ yrs. ago.
it used to be a white and silk/cashmere
but I didn’t dry clean so it turned cream. oops!

a tie from a cardigan i don’t use.

cut a hole, make ties and put it through.
then i sewed the ties securely.
and after:

saved over $160!

J.Crew-flutter fold shell Top

~ Etc.

This week I used an inspiration from this Flutter Fold Shell from J.Crew.

But it turned out to be a little different than I had originally planned and it was a very spontaneous, g0-with-the flow project. So this is the result:
I actually had another top from Anthropologie in mind but I realized after I cut it into thick strips that I wouldn’t have enough fabric. So I went through my inspiration file and picked the tank above. I had to cut the strips into skinnier pieces and went from there. I bought two shirts and used the fabric from one shirt for the strips and the flowers and added it on to the other shirt.

the flowers were not planned, I actually made the flowers for a headband but I was playing around with it and it looked really cute on the shirt. Now I can’t imagine the shirt without the flowers!

The shirt was very design-as-I-go, but I’m very happy with how it turned out. WHEW, a huge sigh of relief~!!! 🙂


And I made the flowers unattachable so it could be used as a headband.

This project cost me $7 and the tank from J.Crew is $78. So I saved over $70! Ahh it feels SO good. ;D

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Molly Hanna DIY

~ SEWING

I made two necklaces this past weekend. The first one was a bracelet but I thought it would be cute as a necklace.

Before

After

All I did was take the beads out and out a gold chain around it. So easy! I love recycling.

The second one was an inspiration from a designer Molly Hanna. I saw her designs in the J.Crew catalogue and instantly fell in love.

This model is Molly Hanna herself. Isn’t her necklace just beautiful? (It’s not for sale.)


These two necklaces were being sold for $495 and is sold out. So I thought, hey, it doesn’t look that hard… So I wanted to just experiment with it first so I made a “trial” one using jewelry I already had at home.


And the best thing is, it didn’t cost me a penny! I just gathered all the jewelry, beads, hair clips, earrings, flower brooches I had that I don’t wear and just played around and put together what I thought matched well together. Then I just super glued it on a black felt and super glued the black ribbon. No sewing was necessary, yay!

I can’t wait to make another one but this time buying some beads and jewels and I’ll hand sew the beads on a fabric instead. And a photographer Amber Weimer took this picture of me wearing the necklace for one of her projects.

Kinda embarrassed posting this picture haha. But oh what the heck. ^ ^