Belt, Tuck & Roll

I wore this dress for my birthday last year (see that post here) and its one of my favourites because its made of silk and so comfortable to wear. Now being the average heighted person I am, I find that a lot of Country Road dresses swamp me if I don’t add a pair of heels into the mix. After spending a week in work heels, I want the most comfortable, slipper like shoe possible!

To make a flat sole possible, I employed my favourite styling technique: the belt, tuck and roll. Basically, you take the thinnest belt you own to your midi dress and pull the fabric over to hide the belt so you’re left with a much shorter, weekend appropriate dress. To make sure people get the message that I’m doing Casual with a capital C, I like to add a cap, slip-ons and my trusty new bucket bag! Its not Mansur Gavriel but the structure is freaking amazing. You can’t get it online anymore, but definitely look into your closet Seed retailer for the last few 🙂

Recreate my look

Purse / Dress / Shoes / Cap / Watch

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DIY Marble Side Table

Thought I would up my bed side table game by hopping on the marble trend in the least expensive way possible. Considering marble will be out of trend within the next few years, I wanted to do something that would cost me next to nothing. I have been contemplating ordering marble contact paper for a few months now but some rolls cost up to $50 on Etsy which is ridiculous since my side table was probably less than half that price!

ONE To create this side table, print off several copies of this marble print (download here). Take out your drawer and unscrew the knob. TWO Then, trim off the whites of your marble paper and affix it to the surface of your drawer using a gluestick. THREE Neatly, cut away all excess paper and fold it behind. FOUR Measure a piece of contact paper large enough to cover the surface of the drawer and the edges too. FIVE Slowly peel back the contact backing and smooth it over your drawer. If you fail at contacting surfaces, maybe practice contacting some old magazines to ensure your final product is always bubble free. SIX Trim off excess contact and re-pierce the hole where the knob is meant to go. SEVEN Screw knob back into place and you are finished! EIGHT (option lol) Artfully style your DIY, take many photographs and boast to family and friends 😉 Make sure they always stand 5 metres away so they can’t tell if its actually marble or not.

OPTIONAL: Before attempting this side table, I actually made a jewellery holder first. I printed off the marble sheets, glued them to card stock, contacted the whole thing and affixed it to my cork board using white push pins.

DIY Lipstick Clutch

I came across this clutch a couple of weeks ago and for a cool 450, you can make it your cutest night out bag. But today, I have a cheap as chips and easy as pie DIY that cost me less than 10 bucks and 10 minutes of my Friday night in. You’ll need a plain box style clutch (mine was $5 from Colette!), a used lipstick and a red rubber. Make sure you visit my blog again next week to see how I styled it for a night out!

Start by scooping out all your old lipstick and filling it with some glue instead. Cut off a chunk of your rubber to create the bullet. I was lucky enough to have a red rubber at my disposal but I think red polymer clay or bluetack stained red could possibly work as well. To ‘shape’ your bullet, rub it against a flat surface so the hard edges disappear. Then push your bullet in the hole and glue the entire lipstick to your clutch! Make sure you glue it on the back side so you can still open your purse.

Emojified / DIY Magnets and Lens Cap

These are stupidly easy DIYs but I thought they were a cute little idea that warranted sharing nonetheless. To add some cheekiness to your lens cap, print off your emoji of choice on some stock card. It might take some trial and error until you get it to the right size for your camera. Then attach some clear contact paper for gloss or you could use mod podge for a similar effect but lets be real – aint no body got time for dat. I affixed my emoji to my lens cap using your basic gluestick since I wasn’t sure how permanent I wanted this to be and it’s been working fine so far!

For the magnets, print off a whole lot of your favourite emojis – I recommend doing the ones that are easiest to cut out. I tried the dancing girl but she’s a bit too fiddly to cut out. Then affix them to magnet paper or if you’re thrifty like moi, scour the house for some free magnetic calendars. Place contact paper on top, cut the magnets out and bam, you have a much more animated and colourful life.

No Shaking Required (DIY Polaroids)

We are all guilty of getting something new and then wanting something more. Except if you took the time to reflect, this greediness could be zapped (or at least leak out) from your system. I have a 365-day journal from Kikki-K that I write in every day. It’s a very healthy way of letting stuff out of your system or being thankful for what you’ve been able to do a particular day. Sometimes, I’ll just write a recipe down or attempt to write my name in different fonts. You don’t need to have an epic day for it to be worth recording because some of the best days are those lazy days where you don’t do anything but you appreciate everything. If you don’t think you have the enthusiasm to keep up a diary for that long, why not try do it just for the summer?

If words aren’t your forte, then maybe photos are? I saw a quote once that constantly resonates with me: “The photographer takes photos of things they are afraid to lose.” This quote troubles me because of the nature of my blog and social media. I take so many pictures of myself and inanimate objects that the ‘afraid to lose’ part becomes weirdly egocentric!

I have also had another great internal conflict for far too long. That is whether to buy a Polaroid camera or not succumb to the trend. I’m just not cut out for leaving things to luck and with a Polaroid, that’s exactly what you have to do and I’m sorry but I’m just not hipster enough.

Wait … but here’s the thing, today I have a DIY that’s different and less mainstream so I guess I can just say I out hipstered all you hipsters. HA! The other day I realised I had never printed out any of my photos from high school. That’s six years of photographs that have never made it off my screen. That’s a lot of cringe …which leads me to my third and final installment of my New Year series: Reflection – a DIY.

Start off by gathering all the pictures you want to use. Instagrams are the best because they’ve been squared already but by all means squarely crop all your other pictures and pop them into a folder.

Download Pixlr if you want to give your pictures that faded, timely, accidental look. I like my pictures brightly lit and sans filter but go ahead and filter that baby out till your heart desires. Pixlr in my opinion has the best filters but if you want to throw some better ones out into the ring, comment down below!

Open Photoshop or Gimp (free but very powerful) and open a new file that is 4 x 6 in size (standard photo printing size). Then centre your photo and don’t be afraid to give it a lot of white space.

Print your pictures out and trim to size. Then take a Sharpie and write the date, a song lyric, the location, whatever!

Your fake Polaroid is good for all kinds of stuff. If you have heaps make an entire feature wall filled with them or hang them up on twine. I think printing off a whole stack, writing cute messages on the back and boxing them makes for a cute, personalised gift.

 No vanity mirror? No problem! I would much rather stare at my beautiful friends and family instead.