Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars – Week Five: Pantone Blue: Riverside Challenge

I can’t believe we’ve made it to the fifth and final week of the Refashion Runway Challenge. This season has been so much fun and has also been incredibly challenging.

For this week’s refashion I was lucky enough to find a king-sized sheet set at a dollar-a-pound Goodwill in the very color I needed! Woot! While at the Goodwill I Googled an image of the Pantone Blue: Riverside shade, and was able to make sure the colors matched up.

Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars - Week Five: Pantone Blue: Riverside | Diary of a MadMama

By the way, check out this beauty I was lucky enough to find at my neighbor’s yard sale last weekend. Continue reading

Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars – Week Four: Tunic Challenge

Here we are – it’s week four of the Refashion Runway Competition! For this week’s theme I decided to make a boho-gypsy style tunic.

This refashion had actually been brewing in my brain for some time, but knowing how time-consuming it would be, I had put it off. Thanks to the competition I now had the perfect excuse to get it done!

I started with this men’s vintage, plaid shirt (snaps and all), and several other scraps and shirts from my refash stash.
1 before tunic Collage_Fotor
I cut off the bottom of the shirt at the waistline, removed the sleeves, and then took in the sides.

Continue reading

Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars – Week Three: Buttons Challenge

It’s button week!

Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars - Week Three: Buttons | Diary of a MadMama

As you can see I have a decent stash of buttons.

For this week’s Refashion Runway challenge, I wanted to make an entire outfit that fit the button theme.

To start out, I grabbed a plain black t-shirt, an image I found online, some iron-on adhesive, and a plethora of buttons. Continue reading

Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars – Week Two: Metallic Challenge

I’m so excited for you to see what I’ve been working on for this week’s Refashion Runway Challenge.

Ever since I found out all of the themes for this season, I’ve been looking most forward to this week because of the metallic theme.

First of all, I decided to use a couple of curtains that I was given a while ago, but never had the right sized windows to use them on.

Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars - Week Two: Metallic Challenge | Diary of a MadMama Continue reading

Refashion Runway Season Four: All Stars – Week One: Velvet Challenge

I was so excited when I found out Beth (The Renegade Seamstress) was hosting another season of Refashion Runway, and ecstatic when she asked me to participate as a competitor. I mean, how could I say no?

Velvet is this week’s theme and I found two velvet garments to work with.

As you can see neither one was really doing anything for me – they’re not very flattering to say the least!

I started out by cutting off the top of the gigantic velvet dress.

2_Fotor

At first I was thinking about having a maxi length dress, but then decided Continue reading

Dress To Skirt Refashion

Happy New Year!

It seems like forever since I’ve last posted.

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas.

Mine was good (other than breaking down on the side of the road Christmas evening. Our vehicle is still at the shop. 😦 Ugh!)

The best part of the holiday, was being able to spend time with friends and family, including my best friend Jessica (whom I don’t get to see often enough) and her significant other.

Jess always brings me a bunch of clothing that she no longer wants when we get together. It’s like Christmas every time she visits! (And this time it really was Christmas! Ha!)

One of the treasures she brought was a dress that she wore one of the times I went to visit her in the summer. We walked to the beach and had our pictures taken together. (That’s how I remember the dress.)

Short Summer Dress Refashion | Diary of a MadMama

Isn’t she cute?

Here’s a closeup:

Short Summer Dress Refashion | Diary of a MadMama

Pretty fabric ‘eh?

She was very fond of this dress, but it was a bit short for her current liking, so I decided to refashion it for her. Continue reading

49-Cent Friday: Refashion Runway Sew Along: Week One – Plaid!

For this week’s refashion, I wanted to sew along with the theme for this first week of Season Two’s Refashion Runway Competition, which is plaid!

Since Season One of the Refashion Runway Competition has ended, I’ve really missed it, so I was super excited to hear that there would be a second season!

With the first week’s theme being plaid, I knew I could use the leftovers from my plaid bathrobe to infinity scarf refashion.

Remember?

Bathrobe To Infinity Scarf Refashion | Diary of a MadMama
Since I only used the back panels for last week’s refashion, I was still left with all of this… Continue reading

Necktie Refashion: DIY Tie Necklace & Flower Pin

Do any of you refashionistas out there ever wonder what to do with the leftovers from your refashions?

Do they end up cluttering your craft room and driving you crazy?

Well I know that’s true for me, but today I decided to do something about it!

For my daughter’s last birthday I made her this adorable necktie skirt out of a bunch of my husband’s ties that he no longer wore, plus some that I thrifted…

Necktie Skirt | Diary of a MadMama

Necktie Skirt

I loved the way she looked in it so much, that I decided to make her a tie skirt for Christmas (using Christmas ties)… Continue reading

Throwback Thursday – Beachwear Refashion

Before and after refashion pic

Before and After
Throwback Thursday Refashion

4-H Fashion Show 1991

Who’s that girl?

Can you say Throwback Thursday?

Yep, that’s  me at 12 years old, at my first 4-H fashion show…yep, fashion show.

I came upon this picture the other day while going through an old box of keepsakes.

Here’s an old pattern that looks like the one I might’ve used… Continue reading

Easter Dress Refashion

I know I haven’t posted in a while.

I had a busy weekend celebrating my 10 year wedding anniversary with the hubs!  My parents took the kiddies for a few days and the fella and I celebrated with STEAK!  Yummy!  We also watched a couple of movies and went out to eat at my favorite burger joint.  Hey, we don’t get out much, so we figured we’d take advantage of the free child-care. Ha!

 

Anyway, back to the refashion.

So a while ago, while shopping at Mel Trotter (a local thrift store), I found this for a mere 49 cents…

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Hmm, looks like an outdated Easter dress to me. But hey, for only .49 I figured it would be the perfect candidate for my first refashion. I mean, if I completely mess it up I’m not out much!

First, I got out the seam-ripper and got busy picking off that flower…

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Since I had my seam-ripper handy, I then used it to take out the drapey thing off the top…

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With all that extra drapey material, I can probably make a scarf out of it (2 refashions for the price of one… woot woot!)

So the next thing I did was hack off some of that length…

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Length hacked!

Then it needed to be sewn along the bottom raw edge…

Stitchin' away!

Stitchin’ away!

I made sure to do a basting stitch so that I could gather the bottom a little bit.
Then I tucked it under and pinned it to the inside waist seam…

Pinned!

Pinned!

I was going for a peplum look.
So after getting it all pinned, I stitched in the ditch to hide the stitches. If you want a better explanation of this technique, here’s a great post via Diana’s Sewing Lessons.

You can see that the needle stays in the “ditch” (or seam), so the new stitches stay hidden.

Once it was all stitched in place, there was only one thing left to do…

Does this look familiar?

Does this look familiar?

It’s the flower I removed earlier. I thought I would sew a safety pin on it, so that it wasn’t permanently attached.

So that’s it! The peplum wasn’t as poufy as I had hoped, so I added a belt and clipped the flower pin on, and voila`!

All done!

All done!

If you need a reminder; here is a different view of the before…

Ready to frolic in my frock.

Ready to frolic in my frock.

Which look did you prefer? The before or the after?

I hope you all had fun reading about my refashion.
Stay tuned to see what I’ll be up to next!
~Jen