Sewing 101: DIY Shift Dress

First off, career update! Haven't updated this blog in a while but I was away performing at North Shore Music Theatre's production of Miss Saigon.

Anyway, moving on to the shift dress. I am in no way  professional seamstress, just researched a few diy shift dresses online and here's what I came up with.

First, I folded the fabric in half so that the dress would be symmetrical. I got this fabric on sale from fabric.com and its Amy Butler's Lotus Wall Flower Cherry. Most of the diy shift dresses I found online didn't have a dart but I added a little fold just so the dress would sit a little better on the chest.

Here is a close up of the dart. 

Then I laid a shift dress that I already owned on top of the fabric and traced out the pattern. I did the same for the back but left the dart out. I also cut a lower neckline for the front of the dress. After both pieces were cut, I just sewed them together with a basic straight stitch and finished the edges with a zig zag stitch.

I finished the neckline and armholes with bias tape that I made out of leftover fabric. This is what it looks like inside out.

If you decide that you want a sleeveless dress, all you have left to do is hem the bottom and you're done. I thought this dress would look cute with some cap sleeves so here's what I did.

Here's how I got the measurements for my sleeves. I measure all the way around my arm and then took off an inch. So for me, the length was 11"(length around my arm) minus 1"= 10". For the height i just measured from my shoulder to were I wanted the sleeve to end which in my case was 5". Make sure to include your seam allowances!

I made a little pleat in the middle of the sleeve and attached in onto the dress.

Here's what it looks like on.

Turned out a little shorter than I wanted but I may add lace to the bottom to give it some extra length. Till next time!

DIY Furniture: Pallet Bench

I have been meaning to make an outdoor seating area in our balcony since we moved in and I have finally gotten around to doing it! I didn't want to spend too much money on this project so I thought that a pallet bench would be the way to go. So I started my search for pallets. 

Finally I was driving back from Ikea one day and I spot a few pallets just laying out on a curb! I grabbed two and brought them home. Make sure that the pallets are heat treated and not chemically treated!

Here they are on my balcony. Perfect fit for my little corner!

I also bought this piece of plywood from home depot to use as my seat base. Its cut in two pieces because it wouldn't fit in the car! 

Next I sanded them down with this. Found it at a local hardware store for about $1. 

And then I painted it and nailed the plywood on the top. Spray painting would have probably been a lot easier but I had a can of left over paint so I decided to just use that. I also nailed the two pallets together.

For the foam, I was having a lot of trouble finding something affordable but my friend found this in his basement and it was perfect!

Its basically a twin size egg crate cut in half and glued together. The only problem is that it wasn't waterproof but I just used waterproof fabric and it all worked out.

Here's the finished bench. Doesn't it look cozy? 

I will write a new post on how I made the seat and pillow covers soon stay tuned!

Canvas Art: Proud of where we're from

Our living room was looking rather pathetic due to the lack of decor. I didn't want to spend too much money on art since we're only renting, so I decided to make my own canvas artwork. I live with three other people and since we're all originally from different countries, I thought it would be nice to have something that represented each of us. So I picked 3 images: Brooklyn Bridge(for the boys since they grew up in BK plus I LOVE this picture!), Tokyo tower for Minami and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur for me!

I went to Michaels to get the canvas. I paid $20 for a pack of 5(16"x20") and 59 cents for the bottle of acrylic paint. 

       

                        

This step is not necessary but I thought that it would look good with a pop of color around the border, so I got this citrus green color. 

 

Here are the images I selected(I ended up changing the tokyo tower image because this one didn't really go with the others). I went to Staples and got engineering prints. I paid less than $5 for all three! They can only print them in standard sizes so I got them done in 18"x24" and then cut them to size.

Then I modpodged the image on the canvas. I brushed the modpodge onto the canvas first and then stretched the image on it, making sure to try to get rid of all the puckering and bubbles. This was pretty much impossible! But I tried and then covered the image with another layer of modpodge.

Here's what they looked like when the modpodge dried. There was minor puckering but it turned out pretty well!

Now the living room is not as lame and we have something to represent each of us! Super simple and inexpensive. Canvas away! 

Personalized Chargers: Because our chargers keep going missing!

With four iPhone users living in one apartment, we kept taking each others chargers and someone would always end up losing a charger. If you leave it in the living room, someone WILL take it! I am definitely guilty of accidentally taking someone else's charger, so I decided to personalized mine. 

I've seen a bunch of these on Pinterest and thought I would make my own. I started by looking up some images on google and narrowed it down to the ones I liked.

Here are the images printed out. Then I cut them to size. 

 

Couldn't decide on which 'T' I wanted but ended up choosing the this one because it stood out more. I just modpodged it onto the charger(sorry no pictures, but I was home alone!) and Tah-Dah!

Since I already had the modpodge out, I went  a little overboard and did all the cords too! 

No more missing chargers!