Anthro-Inspired Necklace: Into the Woods

Summer here in my country starts early... we usually expect sunny skies and hot-hot-hot temperature starting March (though we were told that our forecast this year will be a very short and wet summer due to La Niña). And since my mom is under the impression that I'm her personal accessories-designer, she has been bugging me lately for wood-themed necklaces for summer. I still had a couple from when I had my online store so I gave her those, and then I remembered seeing this from the Anthropologie website:

Anthropologie - Into the Woods Necklace

So I made her one. The only wood beads I had on had are painted black and I didn't have printed ribbon like the ones used in the original so I used black satin ribbon. Here's how mine turned out:

Ugly Top to Girly Tank

Another refashion project! Didn't I say last weekend last week was productive? Not this past weekend... the one before this one.*sigh* How often can I get a weekend like that I wonder? This past weekend was just... tiring.

Anyway... so here's what I had to work with:

Except for the fact that it's all wrinkled from being in my pile of clothes for disposal for a while... it doesn't look too bad in the photo... so let me give you this so you can appreciate it in all it's ugliness:

Shapeless blob that adds like 20lbs to my frame. And if you're really curious... yes, I actually wore this :-/ IN PUBLIC! Aarrgh!! See... every now and then, my morale dips to ground-level and when it does, I should really not be allowed to shop because I end up buying the ugliest clothes. This one for example. It was after I had a baby and I gained a lot of weight (still not back to pre-pregnancy weight by the way) and I wasn't feeling too good about myself and I guess it reflects on my fashion choices.

Moving on...

I told you I wore this right? What I haven't told you yet is... I wore it a lot ...eeeeep!

Sewn creases at the back almost tearing... I must have been that big back then :(

Another sign of wear.

Ok, that said... the top part is mostly not usable anymore because most of the decorative creases are there. So first... I cut the whole top off:

Since this is a really big top, I had enough fabric left from the bottom half. I  initially wanted to make a skirt. But after hemming, I will be left with a really short skirt and I don't do short skirts. So I decided to try for a simple tank instead.

I cut the sides for half of the armhole and hemmed the raw edges. And then from the sleeves, I cut 2 15 inch by 2.5 inches for the strap. I hemmed all sides of both 15"x2" strips and sewed them on the bottom half to where I think the straps should be (not a seamstress so I don't know if there was a science to that... you know... where to place the straps)... w

When I tried it on... several things were wrong... the straps were too far apart and the bodice was too wide. I was too lazy to remove the straps so I made pleats along the top of the blouse to bring the 2 straps closer together. Don't know what I'm talking about? Maybe this picture will help you visualize what I did:

There... see the folds along the neckline? Those aren't there for aesthetics... those are there because I needed a workaround :)

The tank is almost done. I just needed to take in both sides about 1 inch to make it fit me. Then I added a little trim along the neckline to hide my uneven sewing when I attached the sleeves.

And...

...worn with a gray jacket and my denim corsage. Or by itself, for summer:

Sorry, blurry photo... I can't get the lighting in this area of my house, or the setting in my camera just right.

Flower Applique Bib Necklace

I was passing through the mall on my way home the other night when a bib necklace on a store window caught my eye (sorry, wasn't able to take a picture because my phone died). I checked the price and uh-uh... no thanks. I decided to make several one instead.

My new necklace!

Here's what I did. I looked around my supplies to find what I can use and found this.

  

I posted about this scrap fabric last November here.

Anyway... I cut off 10 of the flower appliques from the fabric. They weren't all perfect but that's ok.

And then I stood in front of the mirror with a paper held in front of my neck. Using a pencil, I traced the shape I wanted my bib necklace to take. I cut a pattern from the paper and used that pattern to cut my necklace base from cream colored felt.

Using a glue gun, I started gluing the flowers to my base. First, one at the center, and then 2 flowers on each side. So that's five flowers for the first layer. Then I glued a second layer of flowers over my first layer. Then I glued cream-colored pearls at the center of each flower and attached ribbons on both sides. Done!

Some cream colored felt was showing around some of the flowers so I cut them off around the flowers making scallops around each flower:

When I tried it on, I also found out that the felt base I made was too wide for my neck so I made small cuts on each side of the center flower and glued them (like tucks when you're sewing) to bring both edges of the bib closer together. You can see the tucks I made in the photo.

And here's my new bib necklace which cost me close to nothing:

This post is linked up at the following link parties:

• Somewhat Simple 
• Tea Rose Home
• Tatertots and Jello
• CraftOManiac
• Sew Can Do