Another crafty pair!

Shoe bling again! I got around to crafting up my black flats last week and thought I'd share them before we get into any of the other hundred 'to-be-posted' projects sitting in my folder.

Every girl needs a pair of black flats in her wardrobe. But I was ready to make these guys a little more special!

After much pondering and confusion over what to use to 'jazz' them up, I settled on up-cycling a pretty old hair clip and adding faceted beads for sparkle. A little hot glue and patience and they were ready to walk out the door! *Thrifty Tip - If you don't have little stashes of crafty goodness for projects like these, head to Diva (el cheapo accessories for those outside of Oz) and see what you can pick up there on the cheap. They often have $5 sales and you can pick up some really pretty bargains that suit projects like these to a T!

              I never realised how hard it is to photograph black until this day....

 So please forgive the multiple yet totally unrelated shoot locations

Lucky for me, our Winter is warming up and I can get out of the house in something other than uggs or boots! In fact, I think I'll wear these pretties today!

Another thrifty, no cost project complete, I am a happy girl!

xo Cassie

Still Here! Getting my craft on...

I know. It's been a couple of days  a week. OKAY!  A little bit over a week... But I'm still here chipping away, doing what I do, even if I'm not telling you all about it! But seeing as though I've been just a little slack, how about I share something special with you?

Girls, you know those little ballet flat style shoes that are everywhere at the moment? The ones that are super comfortable and cute to boot! In every colour and texture imaginable, it's reeeeeeally hard to resist buying pair after pair after pair. You justify it, because you can confidently say you WILL wear these. Not like those super sexy boots you just had to have last Winter, and then threw off an hour in, due to a severe case of blisters and cramps.

These are flat. They are versatile. Most of the time, they are even pretty cheap.

But. You only have two feet, and there are only 365 days a year 7 days in a week that you can manage to wear them on, so let's be realistic: The average girl is not going to wear more than 3 pairs of shoes from her collection per week. Perhaps I should play it safe and speak for myself: I will only wear 4-5 MAXIMUM different pairs in a week, and I'm not even a shoe hoarder. If I had a daily uniform, the number of different shoes I could wear in a week would diminish I'm sure. It's true, I do have a few more pairs than some, but far less than others!

Anyway, I now own 5 pairs of ballet flats. We won't count the other styles right now. Two pairs of these flats have pretty embellishments, and one of those pairs got stripped the other day, so I was down to one pretty pair, and 4 plain. This was okay, until I started lusting over a pair of shoes at the shops yesterday. See, they weren't a particular colour I needed, but the pretty cluster of tulle and stones on the toe were enough to make me consider whether I could get through the rest of the week on $2.

Luckily logic stepped in at this moment to point out that I;

a) have three pairs of shoes in similar colour tones

b) am crafty and have all the materials neccessary to recreate almost the exact copy of those cute toe embellishments.

c) could not afford to live off $2 for the rest of a week that involves 2 birthdays.

So today I got my craft on to save me from a thriftless shoe purchase!!

I pulled out my box of leftover bridal tulle (always thinking thrifty, I kept the scraps after alterations to my beautiful wedding dress) and cut a few pieces to length and width that would suit what I wanted to create.

*This isn't a full tutorial, because to be honest, there are hundreds of fabric flower tutorials out there, and the only difference to mine is that I winged it! So there are no snaps of my progress here, but I can tell you that I gathered and stitched my way to some nice 'flowers' of tulle and got to picking which pair of shoes to start with...

There were 3 pairs that could do with some pretty additions, and I chose to fix up my wedding shoes first.

They looked like this on my wedding day, and were one of the many hand made details that made our day so special. They also marked the beginning of my fascination with embellishing shoes! I kept them this way for quite a while, but found I wasn't wearing them so much anymore and pulled everything off the other day so I could start fresh!

I scoured the house for anything I could possibly use to add some shine, but unfortunately all of my 'blingy' bits are at my Mum's, and typically I couldn't possibly wait 24 hrs to start the project, so I found the best I could and got on with it.

Using a necklace I adore but cannot wear due to my skin's aversion to cheap jewellery (I swear it's true Hubs!), I created a cluster of these tiny gold petals and stitched them to my tulle flowers.

Perfect!! A little trimming to get everything matched up, and some securing and I was done!!

I just love the mix of tulle and shiny baubles!

*Contented sigh*

I still have 2 pairs left to embellish, and I can't wait to get started on them over the weekend!

Have you been getting crafty lately? Do you suddenly want to stick stuff onto every pair of shoes that you own? I know I do! If you've got a thrifty project to share, send me some photos and we can share it with all the other thrifty people!

A special shout out to my mum, whose birthday we are celebrating today! Happy birthday Mummy Bear, how glad I am you were brought to this world, and that in turn you brought me here too! I love you whole heartedly xox

Cassie xo

Makeup Station Make Over!

Yesterday morning, I sat down at the computer, ready to bust out a multitude of posts to feed out over the next week. I was feeling pretty darn motivated, and knew that I had at least 5 uninterrupted hours to dedicate to She Thrifts before Hubs and B4 were back in the house, causing utter chaos me to be slightly distracted. So I got myself set up with a cuppa, and finally stopped Face Stalking Booking long enough to log into my Blogger account.

Blogger was down. Down and out for the WHOLE DAY. I know I'm not alone, everybody across the Blogspot world was in the exact same position. Maintenance had to be done, of course we want glitches fixed. But being unable to post anything new left me feeling particularly guilty, as I recently met some new Blog friends, and had suggested they drop by soon to see my latest projects. It's now been 4 days since my last post, and though it may not be the end of your world, I do like to post regularly. A stagnant blog does nothing for inspiration :o(

Anyway, I'm back! Blogspot is back to rights again, and although I may not be able to pump out more than one post today, I wanted to make sure it was one that you might have been waiting for...

I've been dropping little hints about a my makeup station needing a revamp, especially since my Wardrobe Overhaul, and I finally got it done! As always, I find my brain still ticking over today, pondering on ways to make it even better, but let's face it, if I made you all wait until I felt a project was completely done before sharing it, this blog would be empty.

So here's what I did to make over my makeup station!

You last saw it looking like this. Easy to see everything, and, well, easy to see everything. I am known to use the term 'aesthetically pleasing' at least once a day, and this set up was not pleasing my eyes at all. It was really easy to find everything and I really do like acrylic organisers, but it was just too much of a shamble visually.

After the relative success of my bathroom drawer liners, I wanted to experiment with a little 'wallpapering'. So again, I grabbed what I already had even if it wasn't perfect, and got to work.

These 'glue dots' (sticky dots, easy to remove) were left over from my wedding invitations, and I thought they would work well for this project. The little dispenser makes light work of any project, so I was glad I already had it on hand.

After measuring and cutting the paper, I ran the glue dots along the edges of my 'wall', and pressed the paper onto them, keeping the paper tight and smooth as I went along. It was easier than I had expected, and the glue dots held really well.

I Ummed and Ahhed over whether to do the back 'wall' for a while, and as you can see, I eventually decided it was definitely a must. I did wonder about the 'ceiling', but decided I might begin to experience some vertigo if there were any more dots in one small space. So it remains plain, but I'd like to add some push lights so that this shelf can be lit at night.

I told you I would try out some faux flowers, and I was pretty pleased with the effect.

I love these little glass jars for all of my bits and bobs. Funnily enough, the candle jars I bought for this project were quite hard to open and close on a regular basis. So I went hunting for some other jars in my collection, and found some that would loosely fit the lids from the candle jars. I got the same look, with a lot less frustration come time to grab a cotton bud!

Looking much less cluttered, but still missing that 'something'...

Seems like a big bowl for just a couple of hair elastics...

...but look now! I have been dying to get some stripes into my decor, and my wardrobe! So when I found these stripey bowls at Kmart, I was over the moon! You'll see the other one in a future post. How cute does the hairspray can look with the flowers and the bowl?!

The elastics are hidden from view, but easy to grab, and my flowers *Pop* even more with such a contrasting vessel.

Ta DA!!! Just looking at this pic right now, I want to put a strip of paper/fabric along the front of the acrylic organiser, to help the aesthetics even more. I'll let you know what I do ;o) But overall, I am super happy with the transformation!!!

I have three types of bobby pins I use daily, and they are perfectly corralled here with my other cosmetics and tools.

All of my daily make up fits in here, and you can see one of my THREE tubes of pawpaw ointment hiding up the back. Pawpaw ointment is like my Windex (My Big Fat Greek Wedding reference), so I have one in my bedside, my handbag and my makeup station, with an extra tub that gets moved around the place as needed. You know those, "If you were stuck on an island with only three items, what would would they be?" questions? Well, now you know my answer.

This glass vase has worked well for holding my brushes and headbands, so I kept it the same. If it were visible from the front, I might cover it with some paper too!

All of my Must Have bottles that look a little less pretty, got chucked into this basket. Easy to grab, easy on the eye!

 So a little Before vs. After action....

Blah.

Ta DA!!

My eyes are officially pleased!

How about yours? Can you see any more improvements I could make? I am addicted to improvements, and love to hear feedback on my projects!

I can't wait to share some more with you, so stay tuned for Painting Things, Thrifty Finds and heaps more to come!

xo Cassie

She Made It

I love to create. Using my hands and my mind to create beautiful things is a pastime that brings me great joy. Sometimes, in the case of the Etsy store I share with my talented Mum, Twisted Whimsey, it even brings others joy when they find a special piece they just can't live without.

When I'm not creating for our Etsy store, I love to make things for my nearest and dearest, and for my home. You will often find me whipping up a last minute gift (I am the world's biggest procrastinator!) or a new bit of decor to warm the heart and home. These are some of the things I've created in the past to give our place that handmade touch... Please excuse the photo quality, I have come a long way in the last year, I hope!

A paintbrush and paint + some cereal boxes + old photo frames + Google Images = Home thrifted, handpainted bird silhouette originals!

Sometimes I feel like a caged bird, and sometimes I feel like I'm free to take flight...

The possibilities are endless when creating you own art, and with some inspiration or reference from an image you love (but maybe can't afford) you will end up with something you can be really proud of.

An old frame + black paint + varied and coordinating papers + scissors and glue = Home thrifted, tactile art.
I plan to do this on a larger scale, one day!

And another little handpainted silhouette. This now lives amongst my ever growing wall of frames, and the bluebirds now live....

...on this wall! I love all of the little turquoise treasures in this spot, and apparently, the birds are my mum's favourite!

So if you haven't quite got the funds to stretch to a handmade piece created by somebody else, or you've seen something that made you think 'I could do that!' then why not get crafty, and see what you can come up with, all by your little talented self!?!

xo Cassie