Here's the sequins!

I know that a few folks out there want to know about my brand new sequinned craft project - well never fear! I will explain all!

Last week I stumbled about a Bling Your Bra competition that is currently happening in Wellington. The competition is pretty simple, get an old bra and bling it up!

It costs $20 to enter the contest and all the money goes towards the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation, which is a cause very close to my heart as I lost a good friend a few years back to breast cancer.

I ended up spending quite a few nights recently sewing on sequins as I only found out about the competition a few days before the closing date (which was today!).

So here is a BEFORE picture of the bra I used - I've had this bra for a long time, but I hardly ever wore it because it was kind of uncomfortable. Sorry the photo is a little fuzzy.

Here is the after photo - I was inspired by the whole idea of Mexican Day of the Dead and the bright colours of Mexican Art in general.

Here's a close up photo of the bra in all its sequinned glory.

The competition is officially judged at the Southern Cross Bar on the 28th of November which is pretty exciting - I can't wait to see what everyone else created!

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge - Skinny Belts

Sorry I have been blogging over the past few days, I have been a bit busy completing a crafting project for a competition and I will tell you all about it tomorrow and yes there will be pictures and it involves many, many, many sequins.

Today's wardrobe challenge was "skinny belts" and I only own two belts I'd consider skinny, being a wide belt kind of girl generally, so I decided to wear my white skinny belt today.

I think the fabric this dress is made from is pretty amazing, its inspired by Gustav Klimt and you can see small parts of his painting actually printed onto the dress. When I saw this at a op-shop my heart did a little skip and then I tried it on and it actually FIT me! I was astounded - some things are just meant to be.

A couple of fabric close ups for you all - its a pretty incredible frock.

Here's a close up of my necklace - its an hour glass - well actually more like a few seconds glass but it is actually functional.Here's a close up of a rosette made by my friend Grace which goes just perfectly with this dress.When I left for work this morning it was absolutely POURING with rain and windy and cold so I wore my boot, but then by lunchtime it was sunny again! But then that's typical spring weather - its not time to pack away the coats and scarves just yet. I wore my day of the dead ring today and I am kind of loving how its eyes are glowing in the picture.

OUTFIT DEETS:

Dress - Vintage bought at Reincarnation, Newtown, Wellington

Cardy & Tights - Glassons

Boots - Bought in Dongdaemun, South Korea

Necklace & Ring - Diva

Brooch - made by my friend Grace

Belt - From another dress which I bought off Trade Me

Fancy tights Friday - Purple Tiger

You would have worked out by now, I rather love tights, especially brightly coloured ones. So I thought I'd add a new feature to my blog where I share a pair of tights with you each Friday. Starting off with these beauties - Purple Tiger - Rawr!
Tights - Calico Jacks, Wellington

Shoes - Kilbirnie Hospice Shop

Blog Giveaway - Win!

I always enter giveaways on blogs, but I never seem to win. So when Chole at Wasted Fashion - An exercise in Trivial Pursuits was having a giveaway I had to enter.

However - this time I knew I would get something - why you ask? Well instead of doing the whole leave your name and comment thing that usually happens on giveaways, Chole listed a whole bunch of stuff she loved and the first person to say the wanted something got it!

Which is very generous of her and it also meant I could pick up these awesome Hello Kitty earbuds all the way from Singapore. I like them a whole bunch and strangely my current earbuds have just stopped working - coincidence? I think not!

Thanks so much Chole and I would recommend that if you love cute a quirky fashion you check out Chole's blog as she has amazing style.

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge - 1950's

Today's wardrobe challenge was the 1950's - the dress I was planning to wear is a little big and needs to be altered and the other dress I could have possibly worn was still damp from washing. So I didn't end up looking very 1950's at all but I thought I would still share my outfit for the day.The dress is another Kitty Bridges creation - the dress is called Tokyo Cherry and I like it a whole lot. I've worn it in all parts of the world as its flattering and really comfortable as well. I love the pattern and the red trim.

A close up of the fabric of the dress - cherries and little blossoms.

I decided to wear the bloodied heart that Vany made for me in our 13 days of Halloween swap.

This amazing beaded cuff is also made by the amazing Vany in another 13 days of Halloween swap we did - there are four pop art inspired skulls on the cuff. I do love this hair bow and I haven't been wearing hair bows much lately - I'm not sure why, maybe because its winter and I have been wearing hats to work? Now the weather is warmer I think its time to bring back the hair bow.

I must have been making up for the lack of bows in my life in recent times as I wore bow patterned fishnet stockings as well.

Outfit Deets:

Shoes - Cotton On

Tights - I forget :P

Dress - Kitty Bridges

Cardy - Glassons

Necklace & Cuff - Made by Vany

Hair Bow - Received in a craft swap

Fabric-a-brac - November

Last Saturday Ria and I attended fabric-a-brac which is a semi-regular (I think its held quarterly) event in Wellington.

The event consists of a whole lot of stall holders selling fabric, patterns, notions and all things sewing related. The stalls sell second hand stuff - some things are vintage and some are contemporary and you can find some really amazing things.Here's my haul for the day - that fabric in the background is blue snakeskin! I think I will make some kind of high waisted pencil skirt with it. I really LOVE this pattern, its a little small but as its pretty basic Ria is going to help me make it a little bigger. I bought the buttons especially to go with the dress I am going to make with the pattern, its going to be a kind of black and white theme. Finally the stuff that looks like skull and crossbones bias binding is actually elastic so you can use it on stretch or non-stretch fabrics.

I also just wanted to share this song, because I love it at the moment!

Wrights Hill - Walk & Old Gun Emplacement

A few weeks ago it was Labour weekend which meant a three day weekend which is always good (The last one until Christmas). On Monday morning Rich and I decided to pay a visit to Wrights Hill.

Wrights Hill is a pretty good walk on its own, however on public holidays its extra special as the old gun emplacement on the hill is opened up to the public and you can walk around and have a look.

When we arrived at the summit of Wrights Hill it was a little windy - it is Wellington after all!
From the summit of Wrights Hill you can see some of the cities wind turbines. There often seems to be resistance to putting up more wind turbines, but I really like them and I think they suit the Wellington landscape. The old Wrights Hill Gun Emplacement was built during the second world war to help defend Wellington city from invasion from the Japanese. I remember reading once that the Japanese were so confident that they would be able to invade New Zealand that they had already printed the money. The reason for the invasion being a simple one was the fact that most young, able-bodied men were fighting in Europe and apart from some US troops we didn't really have any defences. But back to that money - at Wrights Hill they have money that the Japanese had printed in anticipation of the invasion of New Zealand and Australia, both New Zealand and Australian Dollars issued by the Japanese Government.

A few photos of the gun emplacement, the gun is gone now, the NZ Government sold it for scrap after the war. In an ironic historical twist they sold it to the Japanese.

A few more photos from inside the gun emplacement, its a whole maze of tunnels, you could spend hours down there and the historical society that runs it hasn't even opened up all the tunnels yet. Maybe its just me, but I couldn't help but think you could make some excellent horror movie down there or perhaps run a ghost tour, although there would most likely be too many health and safety issues for a ghost tour.

That was how we Monday morning on Labour weekend, we are hoping to do lots more walks now the weather is warmer so hope to have more photos for you all soon.

Halloween 2011

I know my Halloween post is a little late, in fact nearly a whole week late! I don't seem to have enough time for blogging lately.

Halloween isn't a huge event in New Zealand , there were some parties and events on the Saturday before but Rich and I didn't end up going to any. I think we will have to make a bigger effort next year.

However, on Halloween night I was lucky enough to see John Waters spoken word show at the Wellington Opera House. He was pretty amazing and hilarious. I was so lucky to see this show as I got a ticket from Ria at the last moment when her boyfriend had to make an emergency trip home to Australia.

Some people still dressed up for Halloween even though they were going to John Waters - Ria went as a cat. I wish I had a costume I could have worn!

Image from here

I also had the most epic Halloween themed mail day last Monday! First of all this lovely package from my new pen pal - Alicia at So Pauve - look how pretty the wrapping paper is!

What was inside the package you ask? A whole bunch of American Halloween lollies. I am planning on using the pop rocks on cupcake or cakepops to confuse people that eat the baked good. But Alicia did tell me to put them on at the very last minute or the pop rocks will turn to sugary mush and have no pop. Alicia also send me a cute little ghost necklace I bought from her blog - he's too cute. I love creepy cute.I also received a package from my friend Dani in Florida - no prizes for guessing what my favourite part of this package was - Hello Kitty Halloween Socks!

I hope you all had a fabulous Halloween!

My Second Dress - 80's-o-rama

A couple of weeks back I completed sewing my second dress, the pattern I had was pretty 80's and I ended up with an 80's looking dress. I showed you all the pattern I was going to use WAY back in this post, clearly I shortened it a lot as it was far too long for me.
I am pretty happy with my sewing, the dress is made from jersey stretchy stuff which was at times a total bitch to sew. However I finished it, it looks like the pattern and everything but the problem is, I just don't like the style! If you follow my wardrobe posts you will know I like to wear vintage frocks which are generally fitted. This frock is just lacking in structure for me, I feel a bit like I am wearing the kind of tee shirt nightie I used to wear as a teenager. In fact if it wasn't for the belt, this frock would be a bit of a sack.

I am happy with my work, just not happy with the style, but I guess this happens to a lot of sewers or at least I hope it does? I have found from being a crafter that sometimes what you imagine something to be and what it actually ends up being are two distinctly different things.

Final photo of complete silliness - I made a headband of this fabric for an earlier Red Velvet project so I thought I'd wear them both at the same time. Oh the silliness.

Wednesday Wardrobe Challenge - Pink

This weeks wardrobe challenge was pink! I actually have a few pink frocks, but I decided seen as the challenge was pink I would go all ladylike and this is by far my most ladylike pink dress.

Close up of the fabric of the dress -isn't it pretty - kind of like some fancy garden.

Some detailed photos - I wore my favourite shoes again! How could I resist, they are both pink and ladylike.



OUTFIT DEETS:

Shoes - Retro Room, Willis Street, Wellington

Tights - Farmers

Dresss - Domino Dollhouse

Cardy - Glassons

Brooch - Gift from my boss

"Pearls" - Equipt

A few photos from my weekend

Hello All! I had rather a quiet weekend, but I did take a few pictures of what I got up to, so here is my weekend in pictures.

On Saturday morning my friend Jess came over from Masterton for a bit of a girly pampering morning and we went and had pedicures. I got blue sparkly toes!

Later on we heading to Invinsible Mojo at the bottom of my building, we bought the ticket for this high tea ages ago! Glad we finally had a chance to use it - the high tea was pretty good and not too over the top with the amount of food they served. I also went to Craft 2.0 which was actually in the city this time rather than out at Upper Hutt. It was still insanely busy - so many stalls, so many cool things, I could spend a whole weeks pay quite easily at Craft 2.0, but instead I settled on buying just this one necklace. Very restrained I think - particular as I was very tempted to buy a knitted fox stole with glowing eyes (not very practical for summer - but it had GLOWING eyes! amazing).I also bought this fabric over the weekend which I used to make my next project in my Red Velvet DIY Dress Up Course. I haven't really been doing much on the course over the past little while but I am determined to get back into it. I will post photos of what I made soon - the project was actually super easy, I hadn't done it as I was scared of using my machine to make button holes - lame I know.On Sunday Rich and I went to watch our local football team the Wellington Phoenix - but this time we lost 2-1 to Melbourne Victory - Boo!!Also on Friday Night Rich and I watched the remake of Fright Night - I am a horror geek from WAY back and generally I am NOT a fan of remakes. But this one was pretty awesome - Colin Farrell as a vampire, David Tennant as a Kris Angel type Los Vegas magician and equal parts blood and hilarity. I highly recommend it!

Image from here.

Hope you all had a super weekend!