I've got two lace curtains I picked up a few months ago to do just this with, and I still haven't done it!  Though mine don't have the ruffles, which certainly are a nice addition.  Maybe seeing your lovely skirt will be just the inspiration I need to finally make my own.

I found a blouse a while back in a stunning pinky-purple. (The pictures don't do true justice to the fabric...it's woven pink one way and blue the other, so it's got subtle differences depending on which way the light strikes it.) I tried and tried to make it fit and flatter, but eventually I realized it just wasn't going to work, so I chopped it up for fabric.  I made a clutch out of it (no pics yet) but that still left me with a lot of fabric, so I decided to make a belt too.







I have a semi-fancy sewing machine with a few embroidery stitches that I almost never use, so I decided to embroider the belt.  It was hard to get a good shot of the embroidery with the weak light here (I swear it's still winter, whatever the calendar says!) but I tried.



I'm planning on wearing it (and the clutch) out to dinner tomorrow, with a black and white dress I just thrifted last weekend, so I should have some modeled shots to share pretty soon here.

And here's the tutorial!

Another thing to add to my to-thrift list!  This is fantastic, and I simply have to make one for myself...someday, if I ever find one.

Thanks, everyone! 

I've been taking part in a Pinterest challenge on my blog, and one of my pins I picked was a gorgeous necklace from Parc Boutique that was no longer available, so I decided to make my own version.



I didn't have anything like the focal beads from the original necklace, so I spray-painted some cheap plastic gems!



The cabs are glued to paper bases and surrounded with bead embroidery, then I backed the paper pieces with some faux leather scraps, then glued them together in the final arrangement.  Aside from my particular leather pieces not bonding well with hot glue (which made me go out to get E6000, which I now wonder how I ever crafted without!) the whole thing went pretty much exactly as I envisioned it would when I saw the necklace in the first place and thought, "I could make that..."

There's a full tutorial on my blog, as usual.

I made the red one last year, and it got a lot of wear over the winter...silk sweaters are fantastic for being both lightweight and warm, and it's a good winter color.

When I wore it for an outfit post for my diy/fashion blog, that meant I had to make another one for a tutorial (that's my gimmick) so I converted this 50/50 wool/acrylic sweater too, and fixed the floppy neckline problem in the bargain.

Want to make one? I'll walk you through it.

I'm going to try to hunt down some more lightweight sweaters in spring colors so I can have some short-sleeve cardigans, too.

Thanks for the feedback!  I admit, I'm always a little worried when I'm writing a tutorial for something small and fiddly like seed beads that what seems clear to me isn't going to come across either in the pictures or my instructions.

I made another one yesterday so I could write up a tutorial for my blog, so now I have two of these bracelets, but I really want more...one in blues and greens, I think, and maybe a narrower one in white?

My kitchen smelled a little funny for five minutes or so after they were done baking, but I had the hood fan running and the windows open, and that pretty much took care of it. 

The top-left pair of earrings I bought years and years ago, and found myself wearing fairly often, so I thought I'd recreate them in other colors from my bead stash.  As you can see, I liked them so much I made eight copycat pairs (although some of the later ones are more "inspired by" and less "copied from") and I'd probably have made more if I hadn't run out of cylindrical beads for the bottoms.

I posted a tutorial on my blog, though they are pretty simple.  I just love how different they all came out while still being basically the same thing!