Monday 30 December 2013

NYE: hair

Hi all!

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, so there is still time to figure out what to do with your hair! Let me share some ideas that I really like:

 


You can also have a look at my festive hair post from last year.

Have fun prepping and I hope you will have a great evening!

Love,
Birgit

 

Saturday 28 December 2013

PNP: Make-up Brush Holder

Hi!

First of all, I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! I had a lovely time celebrating with my family (and got some great presents haha), it was also a nice break from studying (I have exams in January...).

In between studying, I found the time to get a little crafty, and this is the result: a make-up brush holder! I was in need of one, since I used to just put them in a little cardboard box, but that proved to be not sturdy enough...

Enter an empty tea can!



Further supplies needed:
* gold paint
* a cotton swab (or something with a round end)
* black sheet of paper
* glue
* scissors 

Steps to follow:

1. Cut the black sheet so it has the right size to glue onto your can.
2. Use the cotton swab and the gold paint to put the polka dot pattern onto the paper. Let dry.
3. Apply glue all over your can and cover it with the sheet of paper.
4. Let dry, and tadaa!

I think the whole thing cost me about 10 minutes to make, drying time included. Ofcourse you can also use any patterned paper that you have lying around, which will even shorten the process, but I didn't have anything that was close to what I had in mind.
 


Happy holidays!

Love,
Birgit

 

Saturday 14 December 2013

PNP: Leather Pencil Pouch


My boyfriend's birthday was last month, and one of the things I bought him was a sketchbook and some sketching pencils and an eraser. I didn't want to just wrap the pencils and eraser though, so I made him a leather pencil pouch to put them in.
I was inspired by this pouch over at Jenni Bick:
 

This is what I made:
(sorry about the first pic being a bit blurry, unfortunately, I don't have another one...)
I cut a rectangle out of a piece of dark brown leather, folded it and stitched up the sides, as you can see in the second picture. I softened the corners of the part that folds over and punched a hole on each side. I then cut two strips of a lighter brown leather, put them through the holes, wrapped them around the pouch and knotted them for closure.
 

He liked it, so I am happy :) Hope you like it too!

Love,
Birgit

 

Saturday 7 December 2013

PNP: 'Shine bright like a diamond' cards

I made two diamond-themed cards lately. The first was for my neighbours' diamond wedding anniversary (60 years, can you believe it?!), the second one for a friend's birthday. Hope you like them :)




Love,

Birgit 


Sunday 3 November 2013

Time for a new gala dress!

Today I decided on the gown I want to make for my student body's annual gala. The gala isn't until somewhere in March, but well, at least this time I won't be sewing until the very day. I hope.

As I tend to keep my dresses a secret until the gala itself, I'm not going to show you THE dress just yet (I will tell you that it is a designer copycat), but here are some dresses that inspire me:






1. Bottega Veneta Fall 2012 - via Fash For Fashion 
2. Luisa Beccaria Fall/Winter 2011 - via Luisa Beccaria 
3 and 4. Rani Zakhem Fall/Winter 2013 - via Flip-zone
5. Zac Posen Pre-Fall 2013 - via Andrea Janke

For more inspiration, have a look at my Pinterest board and follow me if you like what you see!

Love,
Birgit

Thursday 19 September 2013

Inspiration: tartan and plaid dresses


Inspired by all the tartan and plaid looks for this Fall season, I purchased a tartan skirt at a thrift shop yesterday, that I (hopefully) can remake as a dress. I rounded up four of my favourite looks:




Mango: left & right



 Zara: left & right

Do you like the trend?

Love, Birgit

 

Sunday 1 September 2013

Jessica Rabbit drawing


A recent drawing, made during one of my breaks from studying :) (Exams are the reason I am posting so little!)
Hope you like it!

x Birgit

Saturday 20 July 2013

PNP: altered floral blazer


Hi!
As promised, the result of my altered blazer! And it didn't even take me that much time to get it up here, haha! With many thanks to my lovely sister for taking the 'after' shots ;)

So, here is the before:


 As you can see, just a tiiiiiiny bit too large (pardon my face, it's just to stress the fact that the fit isn't quite right ;) ). So I took in the sides, removed the shoulder pads and refitted the shoulders and arm holes. I used this tutorial by Cotton + Curls (She is amazing!! Check out her other projects as well! ).

And this is the result:




I am super pleased with how it turned out! Can't wait to wear it! I think I'm going to take this one with me on my upcoming trip to Italy, the print is just so summery, and it seems perfect as a cover-up in the evening.

Have a great weekend!
Love, Birgit

 

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Thrifted finds

Hi!
It has been such a long time since I've posted anything... Shame on me! I have just been so busy with exams and everything.
Anyway, I squeezed in a little thrift shopping, and I wanted to share my finds with you.



I bought the purple skirt, the floral blazer en the dotted skirt at Think Twice (they have different shops in Belgium), for 1 euro each, what a steal!
The left bag is also from Think Twice, for 3 euros, and the clutch on the right is from a small second hand bag shop in Antwerp, for 9 euros.
The blazer was a bit too big, so I'm altering it (you will see the result in a next post), and I plan on making shorts out of the dotted skirt. Hopefully I will get it all done before I leave on vacation!


Do you ever go thrift shopping?

Love, Birgit


Friday 31 May 2013

On the sewing table


Image and dress pattern via Burdastyle.

Next project: a new dress! I love this one from Burda, it reminds me of Italy and sunny summer days. I also think it has a bit of a Dolce & Gabbana feel to it, especially when made out of the floral fabric I want to use for it. What do you think?


Can't wait until summer is finally here! 
Love, Birgit



Sunday 26 May 2013

PNP: Birthday card and CD cover


This week, we celebrated a friend's birthday. I made this card and CD cover (I burned her a CD with beading patterns) to accompany the other gifts we got her. I included the steps for the CD cover below.

You can find the original card here (I know the link refers to a Pinterest URL, but the link to the website appears to be dead...).

 

 
1. Take a CD cover apart and trace it onto the piece of paper you want to use. (You can also trace it on a white sheet first, that you can later on use as a template)
2. Cut out the shape, fold and glue the two side-flaps.
3. Insert your CD and use tape, a sticker or whatever you like to 'seal' it.
You can also embellish the cover, like I did. I drew some flowers, but you can sticker it, paint it, anything you like. You can do this either before of after you cut out the template and glue everything together.
 
 


Done! Hope you like it :)
Love, Birgit
 
 

Saturday 11 May 2013

PNP: two cards


Today I just wanted to show you two cards that I made.

For my mother's day card (for those wondering: the writing is in Dutch), I started by drawing the pattern underneath in dark and light green hues. Then I added the ombre birds and punched little white hearts to glue onto them. I just needed one more element for the writing, so I chose two of the blue hues to make the banners. Hope my mom will like it, we'll find out tomorrow :).
The next one is a birthday card I made for a friend some time ago. I've drawn the patterns on the banners since I couldn't find a pattern I liked in my paper stash. It's a simple card, but I like the look of the different patterns together.





Happy Saturday!
Love, Birgit 

Wednesday 17 April 2013

PNP: fabric baskets



As promised, one of the things I have made lately: fabric baskets.
I made these to organise my stash of tights, especially the navy and black ones, because it is so hard to see the difference between both. Now that problem is solved!
The baskets are just made from a circle and a rectangle, sewn together.
You can find a good tutorial here, on Pippijoe. I used exactly the same method. For the label, I used pieces of fake leather I have laying around. Just cut a rectangle, and then cut out a smaller rectangle. Sew it onto the basket, leaving one side open, so you can slide in your label.



Hope you like it! :)
Love, Birgit

Thursday 11 April 2013

I won!


It has been an awful long time since I've written anything here, shame on me!
I have been working on a few things, and some of them are finished, so hopefully I will get them on here soon.
But today, I am so happy that I just had to share this with you.
Last month Elle Belgium had this contest where you could win these cute little bags that Marc Jacobs designed for his collaboration with Coca-Cola Light, and... I won one of them!! I can't believe it, I am so happy! I really love this little bag! Yay! So, thank you Elle Belgium!!



Saturday 2 February 2013

Happy birthday to me!


Yay! I'm turning 21 today! I feel so grown-up now haha.
I'm also finally finished with exams, so I'm going to make time to post new things! I already failed my 365 challenge, due to the exams, if I may say... I'll just do my best to draw more than I did last year then (think I already succeeded there haha).

I hope everyone has such a blast as I do today!
I'll be posting soon!

x Birgit

Saturday 12 January 2013

365 challenge - week 1

I know we already the second week of the year, so I'm a bit late with posting these... It doesn't mean I have already given up, not at all! But I have exams now, so unfortunately blogging is not really a priority at the moment.
Here are the first of my drawings (01/01 - 06/01), I don't think they are all equally good, but well, it's the progress and the effort that counts! And it is quite hard to be inspired every day... As you might notice, there is one missing, but that was a birthday card that I made, so that one will come up in another post probably :)
What I have learned so far: my lines are too soft, I had to darken the pictures to make the drawings more visible... And my paper is too big for the scanner, which is why there are dark sides to the picture. Need to work on that. And maybe next time add a frame to the pictures, to make them more visible on my white background on the blog, or adjust the blog lay-out, that is also a possibility haha. Well, I hope you like them.

Love, Birgit