New Year's Resolution

I've been pondering some blog related New Year's resolutions. I'm not usually big on New Year's resolutions, but I think some blog goals are a good idea. So, here they are, in no particular order:

#1. Do more vintage hair styles.

My hair is finally getting longer and I want to do more vintage hair styles. I feel like a retro hairstyle is something you can do anytime, even if vintage clothes is not practical or allowed. I am studying to be a chemist and will be working in a lab. Not only is vintage clothes won't protect me appropriately at work, I can't protect vintage clothes appropriately at work! Hair, however, is up for grabs as long as it stays out of my face.

#2. Sew more! Vintage and otherwise!

I have so fallen in love with sewing in the last few months! It allows me to be so creative and fun plus I get cute clothes out of it! I really want to start making more of my own clothes and buying less premade stuff. My school schedule next semester allows me to have Mondays and Fridays off, so I plan on filling my time with sewing projects. So, this blog may become a bit more of a sewing blog, but no fear! Vintage will still be here in full force!

#3. Do more with my Youtube of the Week

Since many of my Youtube of the Weeks are tutorials, I've been wanting to do them and let you see my results. So, plan on seeing more hair and make-up looks from me.

#4. Break out onto Youtube

My husband suggested recently that I start making my own Youtube videos. Hmmmm.... what an idea. We do have web cams and a real video camera. I would like to try. I'm sure I'll feel like I sound stupid and weird on camera, but I feel that way when I leave voice mails and I haven't exactly stopped doing that. Besides, I think it's cute when Casey of Casey's Elegant Musings does her nervous laugh sometimes and when Aya of Strawberry Koi puts not only herself but her singing out there.

#5. Be better about responding to comments

I love each and every comment that I get. One can totally make my entire day! But I'm not super good about responding to them..... :/ Bad Stephanie! I love that relationship that comes from reading a blog by a blogger who is so personable. I want to have that with you guys!

#6. When in doubt, be BOLD!

I'm not exactly the most outgoing person. Actually, I can be painfully shy and self conscious. So my motto for 2011 is "When in doubt, be BOLD!"

Have a great new year!

Sewing Projects for the New Year: Fabrics

Thanks for the comments on my Sewing Projects for the New Year post! Yesterday, I went fabric shopping as I'm going to the mall with one of my girl friends today and I wanted to make sure a good hunk of my Christmas money was spent on sewing stuff! I opted to get fabric and notions for #1 Wearing History's Smooth Sailing pattern pants and shirt and #3 Vintage McCall dress that I've dubbed the Faux Button Dress.

Here are my goodies for the shirt. I just fell in love with this cute bumble bee and apple print. I love the colors! I picked out white daisy buttons, red rick rack and some white for contrast on the collar, sleeves and tops of the pockets.

Love it! Polka dots too! My husband is not so crazy about prints, but he hates prints. As a graphic designer, he's more into texture. And he lacks fabrical vision. But I know it will be too cute! I've never put in a button before but I'll figure it out.

I found some lovely navy linen to make the Wearing History pants! Woot! I had some difficulty with finding this. I found some nice navy suitings for $24.99 a yard. That was not going to happen for my first pair of pants. I wasn't too excited about any of the denim available either. But then I found this lovely linen for $8/yd plus 30% off! And linen was on the list of approved fabrics! If these turn out great, I might go for a cordoroy pair, but I did want to start with a blue pair and I'd like brown cordoroy.

Here's all of my stuff for the Faux Button Dress! I found a lovely forest green fleece. This was also a difficult pick. There were not fabric suggestions on the pattern. Gah! Anyways, this dress may be a complete fail, but onward I go! I also picked up an awl, coverable buttons and plastic rings to make Casey's covered buttons.

See all of my lovelies! (Although I just noticed that there is only 5 buttons in that pack.... guess I'm going to go get some more.)

I love the color! I was going to go for navy with this dress but I fell for this one at the store.

I also got a gift card to Barnes and Nobles! I bought this sewing book. It looks super cute. I love the author's whimsical, girly style and fabric selections. She designed three basic patterns- a skirt, a dress/tunic top, and a jacket- and makes quite a few different garments from each one. I'm hoping working with this book will help stimulate my creativity and ability to "see beyond the pattern".

I adore this fun, funky so-called "Mod Jacket".

This jacket so reminds me of a jacket of one of my friends I've been drooling over. Hers is made of a tapestry type fabric with a fur collar and cuff. Another pattern in the book has fur collar and cuffs so I may get creative.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving for New Year's with my family in Kentucky and then a week in Palm Coast, FL. Blogging maybe spotty for a while. I'm going to try and write some posts before I leave and post them during the week. There is supposed to be internet at the hotel, but one never knows. Well, Happy New Year all!

Sewing Projects for the New Year

Now that the Crepe dress is finished, I've been pondering what to sew next. Here are some of the patterns I've been wanting to do.

1. Wearing History Smooth Sailing Pattern


I've been dying to make this Wearing History pattern. I'm a bit nervous about the pants, but after seeing Casey's Elegant Musings make this pair a while back, I went ahead a bought the pattern. I'm definitly going to have to make a muslin for this one. My waist and hips are in way different sizes. :/



The cover picture makes the shirt look kind of boring but Lauren of Wearing History made these two shirts. They are super cute and I saved the pictures for inspiration. The second one is still available in her shop!

I particularly like the use of contrast, rick rack and fun buttons in the second one. I'd buy it if I didn't really want to make my own!

2. Vintage McCall Dress

I just got myself my first two vintage patterns, this one and the one below. I love the stripped one! There's no fabric suggestions, but I was thinking something medium weight. Suggestions on fabrics would be greatly appreciated!

3. Vintage McCall Faux button dress

Vintage pattern #2! I loved the buttons on here, but after looking at the pattern, I found they are just for show! It actually shuts with snaps! And since I've never made anything with buttons, that makes this pattern much more friendly for me. I think this would make a darling winter dress in navy with Casey's covered buttons, perhaps with contrasting fabric or white fabric with a navy print. Again, fabric suggestions would be appreciated as none are given.

4. McCalls Shirtwaist Dress

A simple shirtwaist dress that would look great with a novelty print!

Any thoughts on which I should tackle first?

After Christmas Special

I was able to complete my Gertie Sew-along Crepe dress before Christmas. yay! I wore it to my husband's family Christmas party on Sunday. It was quite a hit with everyone. So here it is:

There is me, and my little tree and my husband's Christmas present (the globe-it opens up to hold wine and wine glasses.).

Me again.

Here it is with out the sweater. I didn't make any changes to the pattern. I guess I lucked out with this pattern!

Here is the back!

Christmas Present #1: Serotonin molecule necklace (Can you tell I'm a huge nerd?)

Christmas Present #2: Tanzanite and diamond ring

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Semi Vintage

Today, I decided to be semi-vintage. I pin curled my hair last night and it turned out pretty cute. I noticed today that my pin curls were quite a bit more kinky than when I use sponge rollers. I think I'm not being careful enough when I curl my pin curls. They still look cute anyhow.

I'm wearing a lovely Belle Blossom, but I never did manage to get a good shot of it. The color is just lovely and it pops so well against my hair!

See, it's all curly! And I'm wearing one of my favorite pairs of earrings. They're from Egypt!

Here's my ensemble for the day. I made the (faux) fur collar from Casey's tutorial. I neglected to by snaps to attach it to the sweater and I don't think I made one quite big enough for this sweater. It's just sort of tied on right now. I wanted to wear it today. I love cardigans. They look so retro. I'm currently wearing the only pair of jeans that fit (sort of).

Sweater and green plaid cami: New York and Company
Jeans: Banana Republic
Dorothy shoes: Macy's
Collar: hand made by me
Hair flower: Belle Blossoms

Yesterday was a crazy house cleaning day. I didn't get much house work done over exam week so my poor apartment was in desperate need of attention. Today is going to be a sewing day. I have the Gertie Sew-along to do plus a Christmas present to finish.

Fashion and Film: White Christmas

One of my all time favorite movies, Christmas time or otherwise is White Christmas (1954). It's got great vintage fashions, music, dancing and a patriotic vein. The movie is about two war buddies Bob Wallace (Bing Crosby) and Phil Davis (Danny Kayne) who become a wildly successful song and dance team after the war. They run into a dynamic singing duo, sisters Betty (Rosemary Clooney) and Judy (Vera-Ellen) Haynes and end up going to Vermont, America's winter playground, where the girls have been hired to entertain all winter. Upon arrival, Bob and Phil run into two surprises-the warmest winter on record (ie no snow) and Major General Waverly-their old general turned ski resort owner. Can these four turn around the financial situation for Waverly (after all, who goes to a ski resort with no snow?)? Will love blossom or fail? And most importantly, will there be a white Christmas?


I love this movie! Such a classic! It's title comes from the song White Christmas, made wildly popular by the film Holiday Inn (1942) which also starred Bing Crosby. (That's another great movie too!) I cannot recommend this film highly enough! It does get a bit crazy with the singing and dancing and showiness but I love that part.

I haven't watched it yet this year, but it's definitely going to happen!

On the way to Vermont!

Sisters, Sisters, never where there such devoted sisters.

Vera-Ellen looking gorgeous and tiny. I cannot get over the size of her waist!

One of my favorite dresses from the film.

*Sigh* such glamor

I love old military uniforms!

There's lots of vaudeville type musical scenes. What else would you expect with four sizziling performers playing four sizziling performers?

I am back!

Yay! Exams are over! And I have a blissful four weeks off! So, I thought I'd share what I'd been up to.

I did my hair today! It came out rather well. I think my hair is still a bit short to really pull this off, but I managed. I did a style from Lauren Rennell's book.

It involves stacking four victory rolls on top of your head. Mine are quite frizzy. :/

Yay for snoods!

I've also been working on Gertie's Sew Along. I've been fumbling around with my muslin for a while. So, I skipped ahead to the skirt in hopes that I might get the dress done before Christmas, as I have selected appropriately Christmas-y fabric.

I have put in my first pockets! It was surprisingly easy too. :)

And here's this month's Belle Blossoms BOM!

It's two lovely poinsettias just in time for Christmas. Quite lovely!

Red hair snapshot

Today was the big day! I'm now a red head! Woot! Right now I'm a nice auburny color. :) I attempted to get a good picture of the color and was semi successful. What do you think?

Flash picture! It's not really this dark in person. (Please ignore the lack of makeup today!)

Without flash. Still not exactly what it looks like in real life.

Best picture of my color. Still a bit more orangey than in real life.

There will be more pictures later, I suspect. Happy Wednesday!