DIY: VELVET BANDEAU - DRESS TO TOP

 About a month ago, I added another pretty dress to my overly-grown LBD collection. You name it I have it, lacey, bodycon, leather, floaty and in this case pleated & velvet. 


During a 'mad one' to try and find something to wear last night, I jumped to my last resort - the scissors - and cut up this gorgeous H&M number. You're probably thinking, "Gosh, she really is crazy!", but I think it turned out pretty well and I've ended up with a rather modern, versatile black bandeau and what's better - the skirt part is still intact! 


To take the dress apart, I simply turned it inside-out, found the stitching keeping the skirt and top together and unpicked it with a tiny pair of scissors. It takes a while, but the results are neat and, in my case, the velvet didn't need hemming. 


I'm pleased with the result and I know I'll definitely get a lot more wear out of this mini top rather than the slightly 'too young' looking dress.

FAYE XOXO
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FAKIN' IT: TATTOOS THE EASY WAY

A grubby, significantly overweight biker sat outside a Little Chef on the M6, or a gorgeous off-duty model sipping politely on her low-calorie Starbucks. Tattoo’s have changed a lot over the past 30 years, the people that have them even more so. With the amount of people opting for the clever designs increasing and the average age of tattoo-fanatics getting incredibly low the pressure to jump into the chair is growing. But, if you don’t quite fancy the needle and like me, your constantly in need of change and can’t stand being stuck in a rut then the emerging population of false tattoo’s is right up your street.

And no, I don’t mean those tattoos you got free with bubblegum with cringey slogans such as ‘LOL’, ‘COOL and ‘BFF’ to name a few, or maybe you preferred those tacky tribal inspired tattoos that after a few days left a mark that pretty much resembled plain dirt. I mean that, after a few small businesses bringing back the tattoo’s, complete with some of the most popular permanent tattoo designs, clothing shops have taken it upon them to spread the guilty-pleasure/convenience of fakin’ it. 

Taking inspiration from a fair few celebrities in the British spotlight, http://www.faketattoos.se/ has a large stock of popular designs. These designs are becoming prettier and prettier and the ideas for locations for tattoos offers subtlety and class - something that seems impossible when looking at those all-in-leather, mohican-wearing bikers. What's even better is that http://www.faketattoos.se/ are offering free worldwide delivery throughout February.

Check out some of my favourites.

"viva la vida"

dreamcatcher

skull

anchor

FAYE XOXO

READ: LAUREN CONRAD TELLS IT IN BLACK & WHITE

 Fashion stripped down to it's beautiful foundations. Pages after pages of impeccably put-together outfits, covering even the hardest-to-dress-for occasions, against a clean and crisp white background, start to make this life-long challenge of 'What-the-hell-am-I-going-to-wear-today?' a little bit easier.

Lauren begins with the cliche but truthful origins of her partnership with fashion, she describes scenes at her Grandma's house where she was found far to often covered in lipstick, drowned in way-too-big vintage dresses and costume jewelry piled onto every inch of her neck and arms she could find. Lauren's introduction to her intense filming life and the necessity of a constant stream of different outfits sets us up for the rest of her book; which talks about budgets, customization and building a wardrobe that works for you.

The 'key-pieces' section, which is found conveniently at the start of the book,  is the start of showing Lauren's simple but enviously effective method of dressing up. Following after the real basics-of-the-basics are covered, Lauren starts tackling tricky trends such as sheer fabrics, 70's flares and maxi dresses which are then all beautifully displayed against that winning, and not forgetting 'accidentally' very promotional white background. (I have my doubts. I want to buy EVERYTHING shown in this bloody book!)

Flipping through the motivational chapter names (‘mastering your wardrobe’ led me to envision a deleted ‘Defense Against the Dark Arts’ scene from Harry Potter), we begin to battle mixing patterns, wearing vintage, tailoring and almost pin-down some of our body issues, all with Lauren stuck by our side with her coveted blonde waves and impossibly perfect winged-liner still intact.

In all seriousness though, STYLE  takes off that thick, mysterious mask fashion styling seems to mischievously hide behind on the internet and glamourized magazines and dishes out the facts to make getting up in the morning and trying to find something respectable a much less daunting task. Lauren sets out the basic 'what-goes-with-what' and 'how-to-make-that-look-good' guidance without hammering the 'no-no's' and 'what's hot' into our brains leaving us with so little self-styling confidence that we'd much rather go out in our pink dressing gown than even try and look decent in that big bad fashion world.

Fancy it? Get it here for around £7.00.

FAYE XOXO

p.s. check out the backstage video, actually a pretty nice video.

DIY: make your own music video

Something a little bit out of place on my blog, but none the less fits in with my proud display of DIY projects. Although this isn't technically a tutorial, I wanted to share with you something me and a close friend put together for her first single 'Names'. 

We spent the day wandering about our pretty rural town (her dressed in a tiny 20's sequin number) putting together this montage-style music video for the up and coming release of her album 'Firsts'.

I'd love it if you could check the video out, the song is absolutely beautiful too. This means a lot to her so I'm trying to share it as much as possible.

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On another note, yes, I'm sorry posting is extremely sparse still, I've just finished performing as Nancy in Oliver Twist the musical and I'm going into hospital tomorrow for minor surgery and will be ending up on crutches for six weeks. Fingers crossed that I can still manage to look good with a giant plaster on my leg haha!

FAYE XOXO

OOTD: S/S 2012 PASTELS - THRIFTED

Shirt - thrifted

Shorts - vintage

Boots - Factory Shop/DIY

Braclets - Primark

Indulging myself in the pretty-pretty pastel pages of Vogue's 'The Collections' during my lunchtime and then stumbling across this oversized shirt in a local charity shop seemed like a fate and coincidence too good to be true. But yes, I did manage to get my hands on a £2.75 satin-like pastel-ised teal button up shirt and then pair it with my favourite vintage Levi's. 

My initial rush of excitement then led on to a manic creative spark, as ideas of collar and cuff embellishments and button swapping bounced about my head. Though a little thin, I'll still be wearing this with my leather or fur jacket throughout the next few months. 

Look out for some customisation on this thing in the next few weeks. 

MUCH LOVE

FAYE XOXO

DIY: SEQUIN CROP TOP

A big party's coming up and you've got nothing to wear, any normal person would just dart off to the shops and grab something from Toppers and dig out their favourite heels, but no - I spent my Thursday night clumsily putting together a sequin crop top, working on it til at least 12am (with 5 hours of lessons the next day - yay) 

Anyway, the method I used turned out pretty well with a few sizing and fastening tweaks so I thought I'd share with you what I did.

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You'll be needing:

+sequin fabric (in my case I used an old sequin top)

+a small zip (approximately the length of your chest to belly button)

+a sewing machine (or if you're fab at hand-sewing that'll do)

+and some newspaper or tracing paper

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To make my pattern, I used an Elizabethan corset pattern found here: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/custompat/index.html the link provides you with a generator which step-by-step shows you how to draw out your corset pattern with the correct measurements according to your body shape. 

One adjustment I made to the pattern was changing the diagonal joining between point D and B (step 9 of tutorial) to a straight line (therefore extending point D by a few inches). This was so I could use a zip fastening rather than a complicated corset style fastening. 

Placing my newspaper cut (green points) pattern onto my goooorgeous floral sequin fabric with my colour co-ordinating pins!

Pattern cut out, turned at the edges and then hemmed ready for zip-age.

Zip in place and paired up with its perfect mate - some vintage Levi's.

Thank you for reading & I would absolutely love to hear about any similar projects you've carried out yourself.

FAYE XOXO

OOTD: CROPPED & DENIM

Top - DIY/New LookShorts - VintageNecklace - TopshopBracelets - H&M & DIY
Why drown yourself in thick knits all of winter? Wearing a tiny cropped number is nothing a thrown-on-top fur jacket can't fix. Okay, I won't lie, I was freezing all day today but stripes ft. denim is one of my favourite combinations: casual nautical. 
This loose-fitting blazer smartens up the slightly summery outfit without looking to structured or try-hard and I'll always favour gold jewellery with monocrome.
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On another note, blogging is sparse at the moment, because I'm currently playing Snow White in my local pantomime, giving me chock-a-block weekends and barely any time (or energy!) to sit down and blog. 
I've got a ginormous 'blog bank' stored on my laptop so come February and the Fashion Harvest should be an abundance of cheap-as-cheaps sale purchases, shocking thrifting accounts and definitely plenty of DIY's!

FAYE XOXO