youtube sensation

two great things happened today.
1. the love interest took me to world vegan day celebrations at the abbotsford convent. it was lovely. we had yummy samosas and ice cream and cup cakes and i got to be amongst my people. the LI is a meat eater so it was very sweet of him to take me into the hippies lair.
2. jess finished editing my nothing new entry so i got it in on the last day. hurrah! the entry looks awesome. thank you so much to jess and ailen for helping me out. you're both wonderfully talented and i feel honoured to have so many super clever friends.

halloween. BOO

we had a halloween party last night.  obviously it was dress up so i was faced with a bit of a dilemma.  do i wear the black dress and go as a boring old witch or break the project and wear a costume i already have?  that was until my mate matt suggested i wear the haus frau number and go as a housewife.  a zombie housewife.  boom. great idea.  now it wouldn't be a costume party if i didn't make something, so i whipped up a cute little floral lacy apron to really get down with the housewife vibe.  i also made a 'scary' curtain by dying an old sheet with food dye and spraying black bats on it with a stencil i made.  voila!  cheap and cheerful student-y curtain.

what a hottie.  can i get you your pipe and slippers?

what a cute lil apron.  if people wore aprons i'd make more and sell them.

what a creepy bunch.  my bestie carla, my bfffffffff nick and carla's twin jemell.  or jemellatron as i like to call her.

on the subject of the party i have to say that i am blessed with the most wonderful housemates and bffff in the world.  the last couple of  parties that i've thrown have left me as one big ball of stress, rocking in the corner never wanting to touch a sponge again.  lovely lisa and awesome jess were wonderful though.  we all pitched in and got the house spick and span yet suitably spooky. particular fun was had with my dressmakers dummy.  she became jack the creepy watcher.  it's amazing how scary a dummy with a balloon jack o' lantern head and a robe can be.  the house was punctuated with screams all friday night as we placed him behind doors, in the bath and around corners whenever one of us wasn't watching.  tee hee. although not a member of the household, my bfffffff nick was muchos helpful too.  he made a lovely mural for the dancfloor with a moon and a ghost and bats.  also very cheap and student-y but lovely just the same.  everyone drank, danced and was merry.  a good time was had by all.  the abc news theme re-mix by pendulum went off it's nut.  guaranteed dance floor filler for future parties.

the 880 posse. jess was sporting a panda head for most of the night and  lisa was voldemort which was bloody creepy.  except when she hit the d floor.  voldemort busting a move was priceless and something i'm sure j.k. rowling would not approve of.

jack.  that crazy cat.

strike a pose

lovely ailen doing me up.  this picture looks like the real thing. i'm a model!

 so the main inspiration for this little journey was the nothing new promotion put on by the salvos.  my lovely and talented housemate jess is making a video for me as my entry and today we filmed the last part.  the 'reveal' if you will.  so we'd already filmed me shopping in the salvos, cutting and sewing the dress so all we had to do was the bit where i'm wearing the dress.  we'd kind of run out of time to do this part, it's due on sunday, so we had to do it at work.  i can tell you i've never felt like more of a goose.  i was dancing around at the back of the studio with a good portion of my workmates watching.  we did a bit where my beautiful friend ailen zipped up my dress and one of the tradies happened to walk past at that moment and he copped a good look.  it really wasn't meant to look seedy but i guess the proof will be in the pudding.  i finally got a good bunch of photos too so at the expense of looking self indulgent and a bit up myself i'm including a few here.  it was actually pretty fun.  i pretty sure most girls have secretly wanted to be a little model at some stage so this was my chance.  pretty sure vogue won't be calling anytime soon.  guess i'll just stick to my day job then...

jess doing his thing

so this is the party fun time side of the dress.  pretty proud of this one as i made it from a skirt which required a lot of creative fiddling to get all the pieces together from the limited material that i had.



this is my blog so if i think i look half way decent i'm going to post it dammit...

and if i look like a goose that's going up there too.  my other housemate, lovely lisa, is a dancer and i don't know how she does it.  i danced for a total of about 3 minutes and i was frickin puffed out!


 



the best thing i've ever made part deux

woah two posts in one day.  won't be a habit that's for sure.  just thought i should smash up a quick pic of the denim delights side of the recycled dress.  also i did my second french class.  it is tres difficile.  bof.

the best thing i've ever made

i took the house frau side of dress one out on the town for the first time.  i think she enjoyed it.

well i finally finished  dress 2, the recycle dress and it's the awesome.  putting it out there, definitely the best thing i've made.  one side is made from 3 different pairs of jeans and the other side from an awesome skirt i found in an op shop.  it makes me very happy when i put it on as i always get comments on it and i love a little brag about how i made it.  i know, i know, i need to put up a photo.  i just need to take one...
starting this whole thing has really been way more liberating than i thought it would be.  i have a subscription to grazia magazine that i used to previously hang out to receive but now i just look at it's pages and can't help but think how wasteful and frivolous the whole thing is.  the way they present things in those magazines is awful.  so nonchalantly suggesting that it's acceptable to spend 800 bucks on a shirt to throw over a 1200 dollar dress that will 'work' for next season too.  what the what?  it really is ridiculous that us girls place so much importance in what we wear and in particular what other girls wear.  it's so true that we dress for other women.  i've never really been affected by brand envy before as i've always been a bit of an op shop girl but i definitely get jealous of the fitzroy girls with their awesome thrift dresses and cut off shorts and long flippy hair.  they put just as much effort in as the scanlon and theodore girls, the difference being that they pretend it's just 'this old thing?'  well now i can genuinely say 'this old thing?' and it makes me feel good.  i'm not stressing about what i wear and whether people think i'm cool or not.

it was my little bros' birthday so i made him a cake.  as you can see i've never decorated one before...

two weeks and still one dress

ok so unfortunately my social life has decided to reappear and i haven't been able to finish another dress.  out of nowhere a love interest has turned and taken up precious sewing time to romance me. so although i've been running with the same dress for two weeks i have cooked two delicious vegan meals for a devout meat eater and baked a delicious batch of triple choc cookies for my wonderful workmates that lasted all of 7 minutes.
on the dress front i'm in the finishing stages of dress 2 but i'm already a little over it.  one side is black and white checks but the other is black with large eyelets in it.  it looked great on the bolt but in dress form it seems a little chunky and unflattering.  oh well i'll persevere and hope for the best.  the 3rd dress is going to be my masterpiece.  i'm making it out of recycled clothes as part of the 'nothing new' comp for the salvos.  i'm using a second hand skirt and three pairs of mens jeans and it looks sik.  i am having a few troubles with the denim bit though.  the material is really thick and it's definitely not going to be my friend in summer but it looks great with it's panels of different coloured denim.  i'm going to work on it flat out on tuesday so hopefully my next post will be a triumphant one.
on a side note this has been a wonderful week for my 'nothing new' efforts.  one of my lovely colleagues was in charge of a whole bunch of audience giveaways for the morning show i work on so i scored 2 lipsticks, a mascara, shampoo, hair masque and a tin of chickpeas.  awesome!  i love free stuff.  unfortunately the downside of 'nothing new' is that i have decided to only give handmade presents. which would be great except my brother, best friend and her twin all have the same birthday.  which is tomorrow.  and i have nada. oh dear.

my world famous cookies.  almost didn't get this photo as they
 got gobbled up so quickly.

one week down

ok first post. well i'm one week into the challenge and totally rocking it so far. unfortunately i've only made one dress at this stage so i've been running with the same two looks for 5 days now. hasn't really bothered me though. it's actually very liberating getting up in the morning and not having to worry about what to wear. plus the dress pattern that i have chosen is really flattering. you know slimming, makes my boobs look big. makes it a lot easier not having to worry too much about fat days. which is another reason that i'm doing this. so sick of worrying about whether i look fat or ugly in something. now that i have no options maybe i can start concentrating on other stuff. also totally renewed my love of the sewing. my sewing machine is really crap so i borrowed my ma's and i'm in love with him. there's no way she's getting it back. it's a little husky, a baby husqvarna which is kind of nice because the machine i learnt to sew on was a husqvarna. that was also my ma's. until i broke it. whoops. i won't break this one though. i'll treat it like the lovely piece of happiness inducing machinery that it is. in fact i will refer to him from now on as harold. i heart harold.