Last year my 'learn one new skill every year' goal was to learn how to sew. I quickly discovered that not only am I crap at following sewing instructions, but I like to cut corners (haha, bad pun alert!)- not a good habit for sewing. My second discovery was that my Goodwill store sold its dresses for $5 each, and I could pull a New Dress A Day on an ugly dress in far less time and with far more flattering results.

So why Goodwill, and not thrift stores? Because there are a lot of little hipster thrift stores and resell shops around my area that jack the prices up real high because of the university's college hipster crowd. Goodwill, though less trendy, is much cheaper and frankly, fits my incredibly small budget much better.

Today's conquest is one of today's finds. I've made the full circle in my opinion of floral prints (I hated being forced to wear them, as a 90s child, but now I've reconciled a little), and this dress had exactly the kind I like.

So many floral print dresses in my childhood...

So this is the dress I found at Goodwill. It is not very appealing as it is- notice the lovely skintight sleeves- but I love the collar and the accordion pleat skirt!

Also please notice the 30 lbs of weight loss. :)

 I want a cute dress I can wear all summer- the forecasts at this point say to expect about 10 degrees higher than normal, which will put us over 100 F for several months. The last time I tried to make a halter dress it did not go well, so I did a little research first on what would work best for this dress and made my game plan.

Sophisticated advanced research methods. To Google!

I cut up the sleeves, sewed some edges down, and BAM- halter dress!

I would have modeled this in a less myspace-profile-pic way, but my mom borrowed what turned out to be my only SD card for her vacation. Yeah camera phone!

Hoop Collage

Once again I've sweded an idea from Pinterest for my own! Above is the original photo I repinned. I originally found several examples of this on Google but I couldn't find them again. Below is my knockoff version:

In buying all the hoops, I spent maybe $15. They're incredibly cheap, as it turns out. The fabric was all from a single pre-matched squares pack at Joann's, which are $10 full price (I had a coupon). No glue, no sewing, just cutting the fabric, putting it in the hoop, tightening the hoop and then trimming off the excess! I spent more time trying to balance the patterns on the wall than making them- a fun and easy craft for sure.

Rose Barrettes

Hey guys! Long time no see!

My semester is finally done, and other than changing jobs, moving, and an awesome out-of-state vacation, my summer is free for whatever I want. I started today with an awesome craft I found on Matilda Jane via StumbleUpon. I had no idea this blog existed, but I'm in love with it and get these strong "I MUST DO THIS" inpulses whenever I see their tutorials. These roses are one of them. Click the link to see the original tutorial, and scroll down on this page to see my photos.

I wanted to make a wild fun one too!

Edit, later:
These are so addicting. I made more. I'm out of ribbon now. Try this. They only take about 10 minutes each.