Wednesday 3 August 2011

D.I.Y. Studded bag

I've been getting crafty crafty recently, and have been really enjoying taking old things and turning them into something new! My Mum was doing a clear out of some of her old clothes, and gave me a pair of grey jeans which she didn't ware anymore. My Mother is particularly petite and hence, the jeans did not fit. But never fear! Those bad boys were put to good use, as I decided to make them into a tie dye bag...with studs! I took photo's of the different stages, and to be honest, it speaks for itself but I will do a brief summary of what I did anyway, just in case it's confusing! 


So, I began with a pair of grey jeans. Like an idiot, I forgot to photograph them before I cut them, but you get the gist! I'd just like to point out that these photos do not flow... but I thought I'd put them in anyway! 





 So you take the bottom of the jeans, and you fold or scrunch them in what ever way you want, and secure them tight with elastic bands. There should be a photo here. But as aforementioned, I'm a silly billy! 


Next, you want to make a solution of bleach and water in equal parts. I used 300ml of house hold bleach, and  300ml of water, in a bucket. Then dunk away bebe! The longer you leave the bleach on the material the lighter it will go, but the mixture I used was quite strong so it was literally just in and out! By the way, make sure you are either doing this outside, or put some plastic bags down so you don't get bleach every where! But you knew that right ?!



 Okay, cool. So then you want to basically wash out all of the bleach. Probably the most effective way of doing this is to use the washing machine....(yer no shit) but the washing machine was not available for my use at this time, so I was stuck with the old fashioned and much slower technique of hand washing! Obv take the elastic bands off before you wash....I know, i'm treating you like you were 5 (well actually no, 5 year old's should not be handling bleach!) but you would be surprised at some peoples lack of common sense! 


Then let it dry,....... TADAAAAAAAAAA this is mine :) 

 Forgot to mention, that before I tied them up in the bands, I cut down the inside seems of the legs, so when laid flat they were two squares like this! 


Next I pinned the bag front to front so it was effectively 'inside-out'.



Again, forgot to take photos here! I got too carried away with it all! But basically what I did was sew them together with the sewing machine, about 1.5 cm away from the edges, and turned it inside out! I also made some lining for the bag, although I can't really explain to you how I did that as it was my first time and pretty much a fluke! 

I then added some bad ass studs which I got off ebay for £1.30, and made and stitched on the handles with some leftover denim, and there you go. 







I like to think it is quite Allsaints-esque, just a bit grungy and well....slightly emo. Just putting it out there. But, i'm thinking with a really feminine floral dress, and some ballet pumps, this could work! It's a bit 'edgy' and costed me no more than £1.30 don'tchaknow. 


Do you like-a my bag-a? 


Hope you have enjoyed this post...sorry it was a bit higeldy-pigeldy and hard to follow. I will get better, promise! 


Have a lovely day! x

Oh heyy Paris!

I have been slightly absent over the last week. Forgive me darling, forgive me. My excuse is that I have been jet setting off to Paris.....well, Eurostar-ing and it was only once, but still, I traveled to Paris. So yer, I have been away innit. That answers what and how...to some extent, now let's talk about why shall we? Well, I am lucky enough to have a friend who has a flat in Paris so she invited me to come and stay with her for a few days. It was lovely and we saw all the sights and I ate lots of nice food, and took lots of nice photo's! Couldn't have asked for more! So here are a couple of photo's of my travels! :)




















































Paris is beautiful, and I love it okay? 

I have a lot more posts lined up so stay tuned! 

Have a lovely day! x