Thursday, June 9, 2011

Ode to Ms. Parker


Parker Posey is one stylin' woman.  Every time I watch Broken English, I find myself just marveling at her wardrobe -- not only that, but her jewelry is to die for.  She always looks so put together!  Even when she's not.  In the movie, I mean.

Little Bunny Foo Foo

I haven't gone thrifting in such a long time, mainly because with life and school and work, it's hard to gather up the energy to spend a whole day thrifting (is this what adulthood is like?  Blech).  I like to dream about it, but on the days I'm free, I end up just staying home and watching chick flicks or cleaning my room.  Can't you tell that I live a very exciting life?  How has Lifetime not made a Made for TV movie about me yet?  I really don't know.

Anyway, today I managed to hit up a few thrift stores with my twin bro, who is down for 3 weeks on break from UC Berkeley.  I found a few very cool things:



Red leather flats (Easy Spirit, so you know they are waaaaaay comfy!) and a very chic navy and white polka dot sleeveless blouse.  As I was picking it out, my bro happened to be standing behind me, and he smartly commented, "You have so much of that already.  Remember in high school?  You wore that one navy and polka dot dress like every day."  But I mean, as much as he is a smartass, he's no liar.  Because he's right.  He speaks the truth.  But how could I possibly resist?  Anyhow, I have grand plans for this blouse (blouse is such a fancy word, I love it): I intend on replacing all of its "normal" buttons with pearl snaps to glam it up even more.

Now let's talk about sweatshirts.  I love them, but only because sweatshirt is the DIY lover's dream material.  Cut it however way you like and it does not fray.  Hence what I did to my Truly Madly Deeply bunny sweatshirt.  I picked it off the Urban Outfitter's sale rack, only to take it home and realize that someone had completely stretched out the shoulders.  I even washed it to see if it would pop back into its original form, but alas, there was no remedy.  So I did what any determined gal would do -- I took my scissors to it.  I had to salvage this thing, it had BUNNIES!

I love it more now than how I bought it, originally.  I even rounded out the bottoms so give it a little more quirk.  So here's to you, sweatshirts!  Thank you for making our lives easy and the DIY possibilities endless!

What's in My Jewelry Box

So, generally, I'm pretty picky when it comes to jewelry.  I'm not into diamonds or bling much, and for awhile whenever I hit up my local F21, all I kept seeing as a lot of EXCESS stuff.  Do you guys know what I mean?  Just like, a lot, piled on, that it sort of became this irrelevant, artless hoarding of all the random stuff you could possibly put on a necklace.  I imagine it's like fishing, and then pulling up your net to see all of this seaweed and trash and some fish.  That is how I imagine how they brainstormed those necklaces.

Anyway, so this is what I have, necklace-wise.  They're pretty minimalist, for the most part.  For the bone/horn necklace (H&M), I just added on an extra tassel I had lying around for some extra pizzazz, and the crystal necklace lying to the right of it is DIY (I am so proud of that thing, it's crazy), made from a gnarly little rock I found in a little beachfront boutique in Maine and some copper wire. 

I am really keen on the idea of having a few go-to necklace chains and then having a bunch of pendants you can switch out whenever you feel like it.  Thus, the extra pendants I have lying around.  Some are made -- like the blue button + feather pendant, which I made from -- you guessed it -- a button and a feather, just bound together with some hot glue and a wire, as well as the red fan, which is a bead I just twisted some wire into.  The scissor pendant is a button from the local fabric store, and the dream catcher is from an old key chain of my grandmother's.

Which brings me to my next point: pliers.  Pliers!  Such a great tool to have, seriously, to have in your personal DIY kit, along with a hot glue gun (and some bullets, of course), super glue, fabric glue, fabric chalk/pencils, and needle + thread.  With those items you can never go wrong.