I stopped by a thrift shop on my way one and came across this safety pin bracelet. I remember them from I was younger when I had an orange one. Even though I had no idea whether I would ever wear it, I snatched it. You know that nostalgic feeling, it´s hard to shake. When I got home I googled the “art” of safety pin jewelry making, and I came across a cute kid´s site with loads of instructions for different creations. I especially like the brooches, they seem like fun little projects for rainy days, much like in the spirit of the friendship bracelets I attempted making earlier.

Almost every Saturday over the last few years have involved thrift shopping in one way or another. It´s one of my absolute favorite things to do. I love searching through piles and piles of crap for those few gems, and I love to find things I never would have thought of wearing otherwise. Today I got a pair of pants. I have two pairs of jeans that I wear, no pants. I mean, I have them, I just don´t wear them. When I spotted these on a sale rack for $2 I figured it was about time to give them a go. They were too short and had an awkward cut to them. I lengthened them, made them skinnier and folded up the hems. I realize this may take some time getting used to and I might end up altering them even more before I am satisfied, but I am still pleased to have found something that is so completely different from everything else I own.

I also got a few more bow ties to wear in my hair or on my wrist.

An odd necklace. Update: Due to help from a kind reader I have discovered that the necklace is from the Finnish designer Pentti Sarpaneva and is actually quite valuable!

And a chain belt with tassels. I might turn this into something else as I rarely wear belts like that.

Today´s non TV activity has been making friendship bracelets. I used to do these all the time when I was younger but now I couldn´t even remember how to. I kept making silly mistakes and they didn´t turn out as nice as I had imagined they would. But I guess it´s all about the thought behind them, not the final result. In case you´ve forgotten how to make these too, I found this tutorial helpful.

I got an ugly prom dress secondhand today as I liked the color and the ruffles at the bottom. I thought I could use it to make a skirt. An elderly lady in the shop obviously didn´t think it was as ugly as I did as she shoutet at me “Oh, you got that dress? I´m so happy! I looked at it and thought that I would have gotten it if I was young!”.

Then I got home and cut it to pieces. I am extremely impatient when it comes to these things. I hate using pins and measuring stuff, so I just took a plunge and hoped for the best. The sewing machine was giving me a hard time and the fabric was hell sewing, so I got really annoyed. My husband came over and asked “How´s it going my little flower?”. Now I was the one shouting “Shut up! Please go away!”.

Silly me forgot to take before shots of the dress, but the skirt didn´t turn out at all too bad in the end. A little ruffle for the ruffle crazy.

The dress was originally so big it kept falling down despite the sleeves. It had a drop waist ruffle hem. I cut the skirt off, hoisted it up, ruched it together in the back and added a zipper.

I woke up this morning with a lot lighter mood and planned on wearing my new dress along with a vintage fur coat. I jumped in the shower and got ready. Then I looked out the window – it was pouring. The day didn´t at all end up as planned, just much better. We started with breakfast at Hotel Havana. They have the best sandwiches in the world, no doubt. Then we took the tram over to the west side of the city and went to Tonica. The women there for some reason love my husband. They keep finding him stuff and giving him crazy discounts. He bought an Yves Saint Laurent blazer that he got dirt cheap. I felt a little left out as I didn´t find anything at all. I had my eye on a feather collar, but it was Tonica´s personal belonging.

Then we continued shopping other places and I got some things intended for DIY projects, as well as another pair of shoes at Zara. Now I can forget about the ones I was waiting so patiently for, but it´s no biggie.

We took the tram over to the east side of the city where I got some more craft supplies. Yellow taffata that I am going to use for a D&G inspired dress and some other things. After that it was dinner at Punjab Tandoori. Lamb Karhai and a beer for a few dollars. Yummy. I was so stuffed afterwards it felt like I rolled my way home.

This evening, unless I hear of some fun party, I´m going to spend working on my DIY projects.

For a while I´ve been fascinated by what I really don´t have any good name for – zippers and/or ribbons made into a pretty much useless garment. I started with the Acne grid skirt that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I contacted Acne as I wanted to get a hold of one for my own, but I quickly learned that it was only a showpiece whereas only one was available for stylists. In other words, it would never end up in my hands.

Then today, while browsing eBay I came across a rather interesting Helmut Lang piece. It´s a top made out of ribbons and a giant zipper. It is just as useless as the grid skirt, but if you look at it more like an accessory than a garment, it makes a little more sense. It would be that little extra worn over a dress, a skirt or a pair of jeans, and can completely change the way a garment is perceived.

And, like in an old spring show of Ann Demeulemeester, it´s really more like an odd piece of jewelry than a garment.

After realizing that I would never ever own the Acne grid skirt, I started thinking of making one of my own. I never really got as far as buying the needed supplies, until today when I saw the Helmut Lang top. I could have placed a bid on it, but it just happens to be that I for some strange reason purchased a giant zipper like that on eBay not long ago. My original plan was to wear it more as a necklace, but after trying it in front of the mirror a couple of times, it ended up in a box waiting to be used for some future DIY project.

Anyway, this is my plan for today, creating something like both the skirt and the top. We´ll se how far I get as I bought all the ribbons that were left in the shop and I still don´t have enough. And who knows, it might end up as a major disaster, but it´s fun just having a project to work on.

I´ve been planning to do some tie dyeing for like forever after discovering just how hard it is to find something nice of the sort in shops, but I kept forgetting to buy something to dye. So today I decided it was about time to do something about it. I had a look through my closet to find something, just to test it out at least. I found an H&M tank that I recently got without trying. It looked so nice in the shop, but when I got home I discovered that it was see-through at the same time that you couldn´t wear a bra underneath it because of the cut. I meant to return it but never did. It would have to do.

While tying the knots on the tank I felt quite lost as for what I was doing. Suddenly I didn´t know which side was which anymore so I just tied my little knots wherever there was room. The other part was the actual dyeing, problem being that the instructions were in German, and my German is a little rusty. I didn´t even understand the name of the color, it just looked like something dark, almost black something. It turned out pretty well in the end though I think, and after stretching, it´s almost long enough to wear as a dress.

I have been trying to make my husband get used to the idea of tie dye since we met more than a year ago. He was still pretty iffy on it, but agreed to dye a stained white t-shirt he had lying around. Didn´t turn out to bad that one either. If he doesn´t wear it, I´ll snatch it for myself.

I also have a ton of slips and half slips around, so I decided to give a skirt ago as well. In this one you can really tell how lost I was when it came to tying the knots. On one side there are just random circles here and there, while on the other side, there´s one big circle. I´m not sure what my original idea was anyway, wear my half slip as a skirt? It might work, but would feel very 1990´s as that´s probably the last time I did that. Not to mention also the last time I wore anything tie dye.

The top I like and ended up wearing at the end of the day.

On my way home from work I stopped by a craft shop that had a closing down sale and I grabbed a bunch of tie dye color for future DIY projects. Several bloggers have already attempted making those dip dye tights (as seen in Christian Lacroix´s spring couture show), something that is also on my to do list. I also feel like making a dress of some sort.

In the meantime I will have to settle for this tie dye scarf that I picked up at a thrift shop, cause I really don´t have anything to dye.

When looking at Christopher Kane´s collection I can´t help but think that it must be possible to create something similar myself. I have tons of old slips lying around, perhaps I could use their sheer look, add a lot of giant sequins and pair it with something knitted? It´s at least worth a short. I think something like this would be pretty sweet paired with a pair of leather pants like those mentioned in the previous post too. Kane´s collections always strike me as so simple in a way, one simple genius idea that has me going “Why didn´t anybody else think of that?”. In one way it annoys me, but I can´t help loving it at the same time.

I fell in love with this fringe t-shirt the moment I saw it at Minimarket, but at 750 SEK it was just a little too expensive. At least for a white tee as you know you´ll either get yellow pit stains or spill tomato juice on it.

Instead of saving up for that one, I went and bought two men´s t-shirts at H&M. One of which I cut fringes of, the other one which I took apart only to sew it back together with the fringes in place. My fringes are a bit more dramatic than the ones on the Minimarket t-shirt, but I guess you can buy more delicate fringes at fabric shops.

Now that I know it works, I will probably work on different solutions, possibly a dress. And since the H&M t-shirts aren´t top notch to begin with, I might try with a nicer t-shirt. Possibly different colors on the fringes. A lot of ideas are going through my mind right now…

I finally got around to buy pyramid studs yesterday when stopping buy a shop selling military effects. I bought the clutch at a secondhand shop months ago for a few dollars. Since it took me so long to get around to finish the planned project, I had been looking at similar bags in stores, but what annoys me is that they always use gold studs, it kind of ruins the look for me. I had hoped that the final result of my own creation would be a little more dramatic. Adding another row of studs might help, but even though it didn´t end up looking quite like I had hoped for, I am still content with it.

One of the things I got this weekend was a broken chain belt with gold coins. Since it was broken I only gave a dollar for it, and since I know I´d never wear a chain belt I thought I´d use it for something completely different. The chain was turned into a spectacle chain for my new glasses and the coins were sewn onto an old scarf.

These aren´t the best images as I shot them with my web cam, but I guess you get the picture…

Inspired by Sportsmax´s exessive use of feathers in their fall collection, I went and got a big bunch of feathers of my own intended for DIY projects.

Feathers are not at all absent from the spring collections either, like in yesterday´s Maurizio Pecoraro show. Actually, feathers seem to be a big thing at the moment, and while I´ve ignored it up until now, I´m am suddenly starting to turn.

I am not entirely sure exactly what I am going to make yet, but at least some sort of collar/necklace. The joy about these DIY projects isn´t really what the result ends up like, but the pleasure of creating something of my own.

I came across a deer antler at the flea market today that I got for a dollar which was the perfect basis for a DIY project.

At first I had no idea what to make out of it, but then I came to think of the Alex + Chloe necklaces that I had been looking at several times without actually buying anything. I liked the antler necklaces the best.

So I had my husband saw the antler in smaller pieces. The biggest still quite huge, the smallest more in the line of what Alex + Chloe make. Then I drilled holes in two of the pieces. Easy peasy. All you need is a man with a saw and a drill. I haven´t finished the biggest of the necklaces yet, but the smallest is actually the nicest one.

I got a Zara dress on a yard sale for almost nothing a couple of months ago. I loved the cut of it, but the problem was that the white was too crisp for me and it had an ink stain that wouldn´t come off. I planned to dye it but it took me all until today until I finally got it done. I chose a navy blue so that it would be suitable for both fall and spring. The colors are a little off on both images, especially the blue as it ended up more black in the pictures and I tried to bring the blue back in.

I also threw in a sweater that was just too pink for me and it came out nice too only in a slightly lighter shade. Now knowing how easy this was (I thought it was rather tricky) I will use this option more often instead of throwing out old stuff.