Christmas Dress Alteration Project

So for about the last 6 months I have been teaching myself how to sew. It is a frustrating yet rewarding hobby and I have learned A LOT since starting. I've sewn skirts, cloaks, capes, a photo backdrop and even done a couple of dress alterations. 

My latest project was doing some alterations on a Lauren Conrad dress my mom picked up for me. She found it on clearance at Kohl's and thought it was too good of a deal to pass up. Thanks mom!

Here is the dress...

Cute right? A fine dress on it's own but as the holidays were approaching I learned that my job (i work at a children's museum) was going to be having a big holiday party. It was going to be held at one of the nicest (and most beautiful) hotels in town, The Hotel Blackhawk. 

I immediately knew that this was the dress I was going to wear but I envisioned something more personalized, more ME. With that being said, this became another perfect opportunity to develop my sewing skills. 

My hair is red and pink so that became the inspiration behind the alterations. As vain as it sounds I must say that I am going through a hairstyle/haircolor golden age right now. I have never been so happy with my hair. I think that it why it became the inspiration for the dress. 

Here's my red/pink hair to give you an idea...

I wanted my hair and my dress to tie together into one cohesive, totally customized, one of a kind look. I wanted something unique to me and me alone. Ha, I sound like such a brat. Forgive me :-P 

Anyway, with the dress already being red I just needed to find a way to tie some pink into it. 

This is what I came up with

I added a permanent belt with rhinestone buckle, off the shoulder sleeves and some beautiful trim along the bottom. 

The sleeves I added so I would feel comfortable not wearing a shawl or cover-up. I don't usually wear sleeveless pieces alone so I thought this would be a good solution. 

To make the sleeves I used some reddish pink velvet my grandma (a seamstress herself) gave me when I visited her in Minnesota this past fall. Thanks Mimi!

The trim along the bottom I found at the craft store. Some of it was put on with permanent, fusible fabric tape and some of it was sewn on. The only thing I did not expect when doing this part was how much I was going to need of each type of trim I used. 

The skirt of this dress is done like a circle skirt with lots of twirl and flounce. I needed at least 15ft of each type of trim to make it all the way around the bottom of the dress! I had to make a 2nd trip to the craft store and buy out their supply of pink glitter ribbon. lol

It was well worth the effort though and I had it ready in just the nick of time for my work party. 

My husband saw me working so hard on the dress all week and knew how excited I was for us to dress up and go to a fancy party together.  Before we left for The Hotel Blackhawk that night he told me he would be happy to escort me to the party and presented me the most beautiful corsage made of red and pink roses. 

It was just the sweetest thing and I could tell he was just as pleased with himself as I was for coming up with such a thoughtful, romantic thing to do. Good job Honey! You made me melt. lol

I'm sure a lot of you are like "OH, BROTHER. Give me a break from all this CHEEEEESE!" and for that I cannot blame you. Really! For us though it was a big deal getting to dress up and go to this party. My theory is that because we never had a formal wedding with a fancy tux and gown these smaller things (like a holiday party) become a big to-do for us and we get really into it. 

For those who don't know we eloped in Vegas in your stereotypical, spur of the moment, Vegas marriage type of way. That is a story for another day though ;D

Anyway, I thought it would be pretty much amazing to wear fresh flowers in my hair so my husband pinned the corsage in my hair for me, we left for the party and had an amazing night.

 Perfection.

Here we are at the party.

And here we are with the family on Christmas Eve. After putting so much work into one dress you know I gotta squeeze as many wears in as possible!

I got a cute family, just throwin' it out there...

And here we are again hanging out during PRESENT OPENING TIME. YAY! And what glorious, chaotic time it was. Kids make it so fun and so crazy. Ha ha. 

That's all for now folks so thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll blog again here sooner rather than later ;)

Peace. <3 nbsp="nbsp" p="p">

Against Me Thrash Unreal and treasures from a thrift store shopping quest

So, yesterday Jess, Nick and I drove around Davenport checking out thrift stores, antiques and resale shops. It was beautiful outside so we got to ride with the top down in my VW convertible Beetle. *sigh* I love spring :} We all found some good stuff. Jess and I found some pretty dresses while Nick discovered an old Ghostbusters toy at an antique shop for only 1 dollar! Nick is a Ghostbusters fan and has started collecting old toys and merchandise from the movie. Perhaps one day he will let me photograph some of it because when you see some of those items it is complete nostalgia. Some of my finds from yesterday are posted below.

I found this beautiful vintage gown for only 5 bucks! It has a couple of holes here and there but it is definitely still wearable.

Here is a close up of the gown...

I also found an old rosary and a baggie of beads for a buck a piece. You can't see in the picture but the rosary is broken in some spots. I thought the pendant with the church on it was interesting too. I'm going to deconstruct it and give the pieces some new life.

The other highlight of yesterday was I found out Collison isn't working later tonite so we would be able to go to the Against Me! concert down at Rock Island Brewing company. Jess and I were talking about it earlier so I ran out to Coop Records with her last nite to buy 2 more tix for Matt and I. The concert starts tonite at 7. One of their songs is pretty big right now and most of you will probably recognize it if you have not heard the band name before. I posted a video of it below along with the concert poster. Good stuff :)

That's all for now. I'll try to get another entry up with something I made pretty soon here but for now I was more excited about my vintage dress :P Thanks for reading as always :D