Good as New

I did a bit of a clothing clear out just before we went on holiday. I am awful for keeping clothes that I never wear so I have tried to be brutal with myself. If I never wear it its going into one of two piles; mend it or donate it. I have a few nice dresses with broken zips, that are ill-fitting or that I really love something about but need tweaking. I've got a few posts planned that are all about what I did to re-vamp these clothes. It's an awesome feeling fixing something up yourself. 

The first dress I tackled was this Topshop midi-dress thats in a speckled lilac colour; I bought it three years ago (I posted a photo of it on here when I first got it, otherwise I wouldn't have realised it was that long ago). I have only worn it two or three times at the most since then (one time where I got a grass stain on it too!!). At 5"2' I can hardly ever find mid-length dresses that don't just trail the floor, this one was the so perfect length wise which is the main reason for not getting rid of it, but the colour is not really me at all.

Then why not dye it!? I can't believe I haven't thought of it before;






And, just as luck has it, Dylon sent me three different dye packs to try out. Pretty perfect. I opted to dye it black, because you really can't have enough black clothes. When you're dying fabric, you need to  weigh it first to check the dye you have will give you a good colour coverage. These little Dylon packs will cover around 250g of fabric and my dress was just under that. I followed the instructions, which were incredibly easy and watched my dress change colour.

I was a little worried doing this that I was going to lose the speckled effect, but after a good rinse I could tell the texture was staying. I hung it out to dry, and I honestly couldn't be happier with how it looked!! Way way cooler, and way way more me! I wore it as my breach dress when we were in Barcelona, and out for a meal too. Crazy how much more comfortable you can feel in something with just a little colour change.

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Good as New #2

Brrr it sure is getting cold over here. I'm sat writing this wrapped in a huge blanket. I've been clinging onto the beautiful Autumnal days as long as I can but it is definitely time to get out those hats and scarfs. If you haven't done already!

I've only recently realised I can pull off wearing hats. I used to think my head was way too big (it is pretty big) but now I have a straight fringe they seem to look good! So, I went ahead and bought this reasonably plain looking wool hat. Than decided I was jealous of all the amazing pom-pom hats I was seeing people wearing. So, here is what I did;

You'll need:
      - 1 x Hat
      - Ball of Wool in a contrasting colour to your hat
      - Thickish Card
      - Scissors
      - A wool needle

You'll need to do:

1// Cut out two doughnut pieces of card, and cut your wool down into a more manageble lengeth (a couple of meters) and start wrap it around the doughnut just like the photos above! 2// Keep going until you have 2 or 3 layers of wool. If you use more than one length of wool, there is no need to tie them together. 3// Now you need to cut the wool between the two pieces of card. Make sure you hold on tight to the wool!! 4// Wrap one strand around the whole bunch, in-between the two doughnuts and tie it tightly. 5// Take out the card (or cut it if needed), fluff out and trim any pieces that are sticking out of your pom. 6// Now, add it to your hair! Thread the the central piece of wool that you used to tie the whole thing together onto a wool needle, and stitch it tightly to the centre of your hat. 7// Ta da!! Admire your fancy new accessories.

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I'm sure pom-poms are something most people would have learnt to make in school, I did when I was about 8-9 years old. Its amazing what I was taught from way back then. You could use pom-poms as tree decorations, add them onto scarves or use them to decorate presents!