All about watermelon.

Self-made dress; Forever 21 shoes; Dynamite belt

Let's take this post to talk about watermelon.

If you know me at all, you know I have a food obsession. Yes, it's probably unhealthy. No, it'll never change. I love my food. I eat what I love. I don't care. Moving on.

Watermelon is the fruit of the summer. I could eat half a watermelon in a sitting - I have done it before. And I'm talking a serious watermelon, not one of those mini baby things. My favourite way to eat it is cut up in chunks with a fork because I hate getting my hands sticky, but there are a few other ways I must try:

1. Watermelon/Strawberry Slush. This looks amazing and extremely refreshing, especially on super hot days.

2. In a salad. I've had something similar at a restaurant and it was the perfect mix of flavours. I need to re-create this at home!

3. Who doesn't love their tortilla chips? Well here's a recipe for some watermelon salsa. Sounds seriously awesome.

So if you don't like watermelon, sorry about this whole post. You won't have learned anything very exciting. If you love watermelon like me, I hope you enjoyed some of my links and maybe we can have a cook-off and introduce new ways of eating watermelon into each others lives?

Do you have a favourite summer fruit?

From boot to skinny.

Smart set top, necklace and jacket; Old Navy pants; Aldo shoes

When I bought these pants they were boot-cut. Then I washed and dried them. They shrunk. They became these weird flood-type length and I didn't know what to do. Then I remembered Merrick (from Merrick's Art) and her brilliant refashioning tutorials.  She did this one where she re-fashioned wide-leg trousers into skinny pants.

I followed all her steps and it actually was super simple! I was able to turn these into skinnies without a problem (except if you look closely at the bottom hem, the length doesn't match.. but who will be looking at the inside of my pants hem?!). I'm pretty impressed with myself. Not going to lie. It's given a brand-new life to these pants. If you've got anything you want to turn from wide to skinny, I would advise you to follow this tutorial. It rocks.

Side note: Can you tell the weather affects what I wear?

EBEW: DIY/Refashion

Leaves = my favourite part of fall. I love walking around in the forest with the leaves crunch under my feet. It's the best.

F21 shirt, belt and (altered) maxi, Aldo shoes

This is my EBEW DIY/Re-fashion challenge because when I purchased this skirt, it was actually a maxi dress! I decided it would be MUCH more versatile as a skirt and decided to chop it off at the arms and sew in an elastic waist. I get much more use out of it now :)

These photos were taken in the forest by my parents' house. Its always gorgeous back there at this time of year. Boyfriend and I took a walk and then took some photos of the adventure.

This lovely colour and a scarf DIY

Currently my favourite colour: cobalt blue.

Shirt and Pants from Dynamite; Sweater from Gap; Shoes from Aldo; Scarf - DIY below!!!

Sometimes the wind likes to attack my hair...

Like I said, I'm totally in love with this colour! It's perfect for fall - bright, but also dark/deep. Does that make sense? Anyway, after purchasing the blue pants and this blue top, I had to restrain myself from spending another $20 at Forever 21 to purchase a midi-skirt in this colour... I'm still thinking about it...

I DIY'ed this t-shirt scarf about a month ago, but I wanted to wait for the cooler weather to debut it with an outfit! I love it and would really like to make another one in a different colour. I pinned the DIY on my Pinterest. Here are some pictures of the steps (super simple steps, might I add!):

1. Get a big t-shirt. I think I used a size XL men's for this one. Cut the shirt length-wise in pieces that are about 1 inch (or so) wide. I just eyeballed it, honestly.  Cut up to the arms of the shirt.

2. Grab each strand and stretch it to make it longer... you'll notice they sort of fold inwards. Just don't stretch too hard, or you might rip the seams. Gather all of the loops together with the seams at opposite ends. 

3. Take one of the loops and cut it at each seam.  Take one of the pieces, and wrap it around the loop seams to cover them.  I stitched this down because I didn't want it to fall apart. Do the same to the other seam with the other cut piece. The end result should look like: 

4. And voila! Scarf is finished! :)

My take on the DIY Kimono Sundress... and Wednesday's Work Style

Today is going to be a double-feature!

First off, it's Wednesday, and I wore this outfit to work. So this is classified as a Wednesday's Work Style post. BUT! The even better part about this post is that I made this dress. Yes. Don't look too closely, you can see all the little imperfections, but for my first article of clothing, I think I did a pretty good job. You know how I know I did a good job? I even got a few compliments on the dress, before anyone knew it was my creation :)

Of course, I did follow another lovely blogger's DIY, which ended up being SUPER simple. So I can't take all the credit. But my dress does look a little different because: a) my material was a bit stretchier than hers, so my dress ended up falling a little differently; b) I decided not to add a belt made of the same material; and c) I cuffed the sleeves to give it a relaxed look (and fix the tiny imperfections...).

Dress: DIY; Blazer from Costco; Shoes from Aldo; Mom's old belt

Head on over to Freckles in April and check out her Kimono dress DIY. I'm sure you'll fall in love with it just like I did. If you do decide to tackle this dress, I would love to see your creation!

DIY: My First Attempt at Distressed Jeans

Hey everyone!

Distressed jeans can be so expensive in stores, but I love the look of them.  I had an old pair of basic jeans that I haven't worn for a long time because of how they've faded over the years.  So instead of throwing them out, I decided I'd try to give them a new life and distress them myself!

I definitely didn't come up with these techniques alone... Google and Youtube are pretty awesome. What I used was a steak knife (yep...) and an electric sander (you could use sandpaper, but the electric sander is faster).  I didn't want to completely "destroy" my jeans, so I didn't pick up the scissors once.

I wanted to use this picture as a bit of a guide as to "where" to distress the jeans:

Source: American Eagle website

My jeans I will be working with:

Just a plain pair of jeans from American Eagle.

I started working on the fly and the pockets first. I used the knife only for these parts.  These pants were pretty worn in the spots that I "distressed" so it was easy to 'break' the threads.  Basically you scratch the knife back and forth, opposite to a sawing motion. (If you use the sawing motion, you can cut right through the jeans... Unless this is the look you're going for.)

 

Then I moved down towards the thigh area and did this with the knife as well...

Then my fingers started hurting. Lots! Handling the knife over and over was hard and painful...  I was at my parent's so I asked my dad if he had any sandpaper. He got me an electric sander, which was even BETTER than I had hoped for!  The sander wasn't too strong, so I had to hold it/rotate it over the knee areas for a few minutes.  It wears out the denim and eventually gets down to the white threads.

This is what I did with the sander/knife. I focused on four main spots: high on the thighs, and the knees.  I did some small spots on the pockets at the back, but nothing too major.

I then put the pants in the washer and dryer.  I read somewhere this helps add a bit more distressing to the holes.  When they came out, they didn't look too different. I slipped them on, and got my foot caught in the knee hole on the right leg, which ripped it pretty good.  But I'm actually really happy with how it turned out!

I have a few things to note:

• Obviously there isn't a lot of distressing. Partly because it took me a bit over an hour to do what you see (and figure out the right technique).  But also, I didn't want to go too overboard.  If I decide I want more in the future, I can easily add some later.
• Also, this is a very time consuming process. It sounds simple, but if the denim is tough, the knife and sander can have a hard time going through it.  
• It's best to start off somewhere where if you make a mistake, it isn't very noticeable. This is why I started on the pockets.

Stay tuned for an outfit post with my "new" distressed jeans!