Its amazing how much better a bit of lippy can make you feel.... oh, and the jade dress hack

Don't you sometimes find that even on the days when you are feeling particularly not that attractive a bit of slap can put you in such a better mood? Thank god for going out for dinner as an excuse rather than just wearing it round the house (though of course there is nothing wrong with that if its making you feel good!).

So anyway... you remember the jade prom dress I made which is for a wedding we are attending next weekend? Well, those halter straps, lets face it, a girl like me needs a bra and I wasn't feeling all that comfortable (or happy) with the dress showing of my straps. What to do about it? Hack off the straps and replace them with some new ones of course. Thankfully the straps from the georgia pattern were perfect for this so I just needed to cut them out and replace them.

The dress pattern allowed for this pretty easily so I attached the straps on the back first then tried the dress on so I could get the length and the placement of the straps just where I needed them to be in the front. This turned out to be a great way to do it, and I will definitely do this with my next version of georgia as it turned out to be a bit like goldilocks... the first ones being too long and the second too short.

So now I can wear my dress with straps and even if its the hottest of hot days when we go off to the wedding next weekend I can wear the dress without the need for a bolero! yippee!

And just because they deserve a picture of their very own... check out the shoes, I so made the dress to match these babies! I LOVE them, they are such a pretty colour. BTW, my legs are not this pale, its just bad photo editing on my part, though I think they were quiet pasty tights.

Post Wedding Round Up: The Bridesmaids Dresses

Its that time of week again, and this week I am showing off.... The Bridesmaids.

How gorgeous do they look! These girls they are the absolute perfect mix of absolutely wonderful, and a little but nutty! We have my sister on the left, my friend Stevie in the middle who gets far too excited about everything, and Yvonne on the right who is just the right amount of good and bad influence on me (probably tipped on the bad side, but that's ok right!). They really did make my day, and I couldn't have got married without them, so thank you ladies xx.

The dresses were handmade by the talented ladies of at Frock in Nottingham. Rather than explain how they work myself, here is how they put it:

'Frock was born from a love of beautiful vintage dresses. We have a passion for vintage sewing patterns and enjoy experimenting with original patterns, adapting them and making them  relevant to the women of today. Women who want something unique and an alternative to todays mass produced throw away fashion.

At Frock we make our dresses by hand in small runs, this means that we are free to customise our dresses to suit and to play with the design, mixing up fabrics and design elements at will.

Although our dresses are inspired by vintage, we are not restricted to one era and like to embrace the fun and flirty best of all decades and give it our own twist.'

I really wanted the dresses to be something which they might choose to wear again at another occasion. I also wanted to be able to make them similar enough in style, but also allow my bridesmaids some room for freedom. This is why Frock were perfect, because not only do they do a made to measure service (at a reasonable price) it is also fully customizable. So we went through the fabric swatches book, picked a fabric, and then my Bridesmaids picked the style of dress from their patterns that they liked the most. I think this worked out well and I hope they were more comfortable in their dresses as they picked the fit. Frock then made up all three dresses to our specifications and I couldn't be happier with the result.

 

So I hope you like the dresses as much as I did, enough that I had to go and buy my own Frock frock! I was really pleased, as you can see above, at how well everything came together, from the shoes to the dresses to the bouquets. Not bad to say I am pretty sure I winged all this design stuff!

I am planning an exciting Monster Magic style festive tutorial for you at the weekend (when I actually have some daylight to photograph it) so check back on Sunday to take a look.