DIY: Bewitch Yourself

Remember the TBA dress I mentioned in the last post? Well, here it is: The Bewitched Dress. Which doesn't really have any connection to the old television show except that when I donned the little pointy hat, the batwing'ed shades and the witchy shoes, I suddenly felt very Samantha Stevens. And who doesn't wanna feel as though they could cast a coupla spells with the twitch of a nose?

I actually have a little Samantha Stevens story (btw, if you know me for like 5 minutes, you'll find I have a "story" for just about any occasion). This story begins way back when I was in 8th grade and an absolute Trifecta of Fugly: glasses the size of dinner plates, braces complete with headgear and a gangly 98 pounds. Smokin' Hot. 

Needless to say, the boys were not exactly fallin' at my feet, let alone talkin' to me. And when they did, I was just plain clueless. Case in point: my response to a transaction with a Junior With a Mustache: 

Junior with a Mustache: Hey, what's your name? 

8th Grade Me: Cassie Stephens.

JWM: Oh, like Samantha Stevens! 

8GM: [dopey confused look]

JWM: You know, from that old show Bewitched! Are you related?

8GM: [lacking any sense of humor] What? No. That's a TV show.

JWM: I bet you are related. I bet you can twitch your nose and make stuff happen.

8GM: What would I make happen? 

JWM: [shrugs and turns to talk to his other mustache'd friends]

Present Me: [face palm]

So I might not wear the headgear (still have it though, thanks Hoarder Mom!), the big ole glasses or have that stick-thin frame but I'm still a complete and total geek. Which is what drew me to this total geek-tastic owl fabric. The design was originally created by one of my favorite fabric designers Tammis Keefe. I've actually used her fabric designs in two other versions of this dress. Her designs have most recently been reproduced by fabric designer Michael Miller. I paired the owls with black linen for the midriff and vintage fabric from my stash.

Oh, Elizabeth Montgomery. How beautiful are you? I need that big tousled hair and those cat eyelashes pronto. Do some nose twitchin' and make that happen for me, won't ya?

Now this dress doesn't have the sleeve issue that my el Dia de los Muertos dress had...but I still managed to procrastinate long enough to add some bewitching decorations to the house. Like this giant web I thrifted with some phoney-baloney leaves and a die cut spider.

Okay, that whole nose twitching thing? Check out the difference between Elizabeth Montgomery's (aka Samatha Stevens) nose twitch and mine. Let's see if you can tell the difference...

Do you see the diff? She's actually not wiggling her nose but moving her mouth from side to side. Which is much cuter than my face. I look like I'm trying to silently squeak out a noisy fart. Again, Smokin' Hot.

You try it. Just wiggle your mouth from side to side. It gives the illusion you are wiggling your nose. Without that Squeaky Fart Face look.

Well, once I had my nose wiggly down pat, I was magically able to decorate my mantle. I sewed the garland using some images I had die cut at school. And I added hubs' deer antlers and turtle shells that he'd found on his walks in the woods.

Have you ever sewn paper on your sewing machine before? So super easy. For these, I just ran one of the die cuts through my sewing machine, let the machine continue to run while I gently pulled on the die cut piece and then inserted another piece. I did this for my mantle way back in February too.

So, to bring this whole post full circle, I'm gonna give Junior with a Mustache an answer to his thought about "making stuff happen." 

What would I make happen? 

Well, this October, I think I would just Bewitch Myself. And my house. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got headgear to go put in. 

P.S. Outfit details:   witchy shoe covers and mini doll hat: JoAnn's; Best Sunglasses Ever!: one of my super thoughtful students. You know who you are, thanks Little Buddy!

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Vintage 911: Shrink My Dress

Vintage 911 before...and after.

Just recently a totally awesome coworker gave me this amazing vintage dress. I immediately fell in love with the print. I mean, it's got it all: umbrellas, toucans, starfish, a startled lady in a swim cap  -- it's just the most adorable thing ever. The prob? There was just a little too much fabric. Everywhere. A nip/tuck was in order.

Upon close examination, I found that this dress was entirely hand sewn. Can you imagine? In high school, when I was sewing-machine-less, I hand stitched the hem of a skirt. The process and the end result were equally painful.

 When thinking of how I would alter this dress, my first thought was to simply take in the sides and be done with it. However, that proved to be impossible for a couple of reasons. One, the dress only had a top button at the back of the neck. If the dress was altered to be form fitting, there would be no getting in and out of it. Two, the dress was pretty poorly crafted. I mean, it was hand sewn, the seamstress did what she could. But I wanted to do this dress up right. So, no short cuts. No slight modifications. This was gonna need to be a complete redo.

 I began by dissecting the dress. This was so hard to do as I wasn't sure exactly how this was going to end. I couldn't bear the thought of facing my work buddy knowing that I'd needlessly slaughtered her dress. Despite my sweaty palms and worry, I hacked away.

After cutting the back of the dress from top to bottom, I then took out the seam connecting the bodice to the skirt.

The original dress had a bodice that was gathered at the waist. I prefer a darted bodice, so I got out the dress pattern that I've used here, here, here and here. This cleaned up the bodice and created a more fitted look.

The sides were still wide, so I pinned and altered on my mannequin, as seen in the photo on the right.

 To be certain I took in an equal amount on both sides, I created a tissue pattern. I sewed along the line of the tissue paper, trimmed and ironed open.

 Once the bodice was complete, I was ready to add the skirt. Before I did, I took up 3 1/2" from the bottom. I then baste stitched two rows at the top of the skirt so that I could gather it.

I gathered the skirt to fit the bodice, pinned it like mad and stitched it to the bodice as seen on the right.

Gotta love a wind-created crinoline.

And, viola! Couple hours later and the dress was complete.

After adding even bigger darts on the second fitting, the dress fit much better.

Putting in the zipper was the last step. I used the zipper/tape trick again and it worked great. This dress has a beautiful pearl button at the top that I was able to keep in the dress.

Now, with the dress complete, I need your help: do I keep the parts of the dress that come off the shoulders (on left) or get rid of them (on right)? Hubs is leaning toward the look on the right...while I'm not sure if I want to take away from that wide collar.

So, what's your vote? You can cast your vote at the top of this page on the right. The last time we played this game, I was seriously out-voted (gee, thanks guys). After you vote, feel free to leave me a comment and lemme know what you think. Thanks for playing!

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What the Art Teacher Wore #33

Purple Tuesday: Can you find what's wrong in this picture? How about my dress...notice anything unusual? When I was getting dressed Tuesday morning, I foolishly tugged on a little loose string at the bottom of my dress. Once at school, someone pointed out that my hem was coming undone (after I'd snapped this photo). Geez, I wonder why.  A work buddy helped me tape that hem back into place. You get to know someone really well when you lift up the tail end of your skirt in front of 'em. dress: Anthropologie, new with tags, my favorite Goodwill score to date; shoes: John Fluevog

Well, Happy End of the Week to you, kids! I totally enjoyed having last Monday off in celebration of Labor Day. Did you notice there wasn't an outfit photo for Monday? Yeah, I bounced between four different looks that day: pajamas, exercise clothes, yard working clothes and back to pajamas. Thought I'd spare you.

So included in this short What I Wore this Week is one of my favorite fabric designers: Florence Broadhurst. Because I'm toying with the idea of creating my own fabric, I've been pouring over the designs of some of my faves. My bedside table currently has a stack of fabric design books and Florence is at the top of the pile. If you've not heard of her, I highly recommend Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives.

Florence Broadhurst in her Paddington (an eastern suburb of Sydney, Australia) wallpaper design studio, early 1970's. Her vibrant and outlandish designs were a complete reflection of her character. All images pulled from pinterest.

Florence lived more lives than a cat. Born in 1899, she grew into adulthood during the roaring '20's. In full flapper garb, she toured Southeast Asian and China in various singing and comedy troupes. In her later designs, the influence of Asian art is strong.

Brown Wednesday: That's right, we are still wearing colors this week with kindergarten. This totally helped me get dressed in the mornings...although I've missed wearing my Frenchy-themed garb. dress: vintage, picked up at an antique store in high school; shoes: Frye

Always the entrepreneur, Florence established The Broadhurst Academy where she taught voice and instrument lessons in Shanghai. From there she moved on to England where she married, divorced, remarried and had a son. When World War II hit, she volunteered to help.

One of my favorite Broadhurst designs. At her wallpaper design facility in the late 1960's and 70's, this print could have been purchased on metallic paper. This was completely revolutionary at the time.

Black and White (with a pop of color) Thursday: top: vintage, thrifted. I love it's Matisse-esque design; skirt: Target; shoes: Softee

When reading about Florence, I found that many of the 800 wallpaper designs were not actually created by her. Her eyesight was failing and the task of creating all of those designs would have been impossible.  So she hired graduates from local art schools to come work for her. Some of  their designs she would claim to be her own. For photo ops like the one above, the palette and the brushes where simply props.

That's not to say she didn't have a heavy hand in the direction of the designs. This is another one of my faves.

Wear Your Favorite Color Day: Turquoise! dress: vintage, thrifted; belt: gift from a friend (thank you, Anna!); shoes: Anthropologie

Florence with all of the designs created in her studio. I love her vibrant fashion sense (dyed bright red hair, oh yeah!), even well into her 70's. She was known among her friends for her flamboyant style. Sadly she was murdered outside of her studio in 1977. Her murderer was never found and the reason is still a mystery.

Regardless, her designs are such an inspiration. I find them to be so beautiful and modern looking. Have you heard of Florence Broadhurst? Do you have a fave fabric designer?

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy your upcoming week. Mine is going to be spook-tacular! More details soon.

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DIY: The Embroidered Eiffel Dress

Bonjour, ya'll! 

As you might have guessed from my art room windows and my French poodle dress, I'm on a bit of a Parisian kick. I finished the embroidery for this dress during our last couple of road trips and, despite a wee bit of a disagreement between the hubs and myself (which I'm going to need your help settling), I'm excited with how it turned out. Especially since it began it's life looking like this...

This little hook in my sewing room usually holds half a dozen of work-in-progress, in-need-of-TLC, please-iron-yesterday dresses. I moved the mound so you could focus on this little bitty dress.

I spotted this dress at Goodwill. I recall this style from a couple years ago, you know, that elastic-waist-band-thing. Most of the tops of these dresses where usually tanks, which I never cared for. The sweet yellow blouse is what drew me to this dress. It's tragic flaw was the fact that the skirt was, like, 14" in length which is just a wee bit of a problem for this never-shave-above-the-knee-caps gal.

I began by letting out the hem and removing the pockets. I found this formerly-a-curtain vintage floral fabric in my stash and decided it would look lovely at the bottom of my dress. I had this idea that I wanted it to look like I was walking through a flower garden. Or being eaten alive by vintage fabric. Which, with my hoarder ways, the latter is more likely the case.

Before adding the vintage fabric to the skirt, I hemmed it and created a circle of fabric that was the same circumference as the bottom of the dress. Then I pinned it to the dress and appliqued stitched around  the edge of the flowers. Once that was complete, I had the super duper fun pleasure of trimming all of the excess fabric off the top. I managed to cut into the skirt accidentally only once...which I promptly patched after saying a few naughty words and throwing a couple of things.

Hubs and I have been enjoying some road trippin' during his time off. My favorite car-traveling craft is embroidery. I've worked on my Naughty Nautical Girls dress, my Pin-up Cowgirls dress and my Presley Poodle all while on the road.

Can you guess my inspiration for the dress? You know I love to go all Miss Frizzle what with my clothes matching my teaching unit. I drew out a sketch of the Eiffel Tower on paper, traced it with a Sharpie, pinned that drawing under my dress and (gasp!) drew the tower onto my dress in pencil before embroidering the Eiffel.

Aw, look at young Brigette Bardot in front of the Eiffel Tower wearing what looks to be a vintage Snuggie. This is actually the hair do I was aspiring to. With flowers, of course.

Okay, remember that disagreement between the hubs and myself? Well, I think I needed to add something to the top, to balance out the dress. My idea is to applique some of the flowers onto the left side of the blouse, as seen in the photo on the left (if you click on the photo, I think you'll get a better look). 

Hubs seems to think I need to leave it alone as seen in the photo on the right. I say it's too "business on the top, Parisian party on the bottom". He says I have a habit to taking things to another (read tacky-er) level.

So, dear reader, what do you think? I'd love to hear your input in the poll at the top of this post on the right (which took me far too long to figure out how to install!)...and a comment if you have the time. Thanks for playing!

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DIY: Anthropologie Style

Dress: thrifted Issac Mizrahi for Target, anthropologie-ized by me; belt and hair clip: by me

Tell me if you do this: you go to Anthropologie determined that you are going to avoid the full retail at all cost and head straight to the sale room. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, you are on one cheap-o mission.

And then, you see It. That dress. The One and Only. The Dress that would complete You.

The Anthro version. On sale this time last year.

And you think to yourself, "you know what, forget the sale room, I've earned this! I've worked hard, I've earned my keep, I watched someone pick his nose AND eat it today. I don't care what the price tag says, that dress will be mine. It belongs in my closet!"

And then you do it.

You look at the price tag.

And the back pedaling begins.

"You know what, I don't really even like that dress.

"I mean, look at it...it's just too perfect. And awesome. Not to mention amazing. Why on earth would I want that? Geez, what was I thinking..." And then you drive off to the nearest Target and try to forget the dress with bottles of nail polish, a tube or two of lipstick, a pair of tights and three Kit Kats...or maybe that's just me.

But this little tale has a happy DIY ending. After seeing that little navy number and being scared off by the price tag, I recalled an Isaac Mizrahi dress that I'd thrifted some time ago. Sadly, it's permanent place had become my closet as I didn't really care for the spaghetti straps. With the out-o-my-price-range dress on my mind, I anthropologie-ized my dress with some sear sucker fabric fashioned into shoulder bows...and viola! $148 still snug in my pocket book.

Anthro sandals, also from last spring.

And then I got all crazy-like and decided to try my hand at recreating these bad boys.

Ya'll would you please get yourself some of these Sseko sandals already? It's for such a great cause...and I know you are tired of hearing me yap about them!

With my favorite sandal bases by Sseko. I love that I can create custom shoes in less than a half an hour with these sandals as my base.

Please pardon the toes...they's a little gnarly.

Oh and what do you know? The sandals match the dress. I've become so stinkin' matchy-match in my old age.

There you go, an Anthro-DIY. Just for kicks, let's do a rundown on cost:

dress from Goodwill: $7.99
hair clip and belt: made by me
sandal base: $39

Total: $46.99

Yippie!

Now I know I'm not the only one that's created an Anthro-inspired DIY...what have you created? Dying to know, leave a comment below!

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