Lace Tee Revamp

So now the weather is meant to be changing here in the UK (perhaps someone forgot to tell the weather today as it was 27C!) I thought I'd best start on my autumn/winter clothes making list. I started with a quick, simple one using Katy from Sweet Verbena's tutorial... the only thing I really changed was the neckline of the t-shirt I used, I'm not a huge fan of round necks I prefer my necklaces hanging above the neckline so it was a V neck for me.

 And here's a pic of me modelling my new refashioned t-shirt... that lace flower necklace of mine seems to be a constant feature in all my clothes posts recently, anyone starting to get the idea how much I love and wear that necklace? It's about the only one I wear apart from my silver heart necklace!

Over the weekend I'll share the cards and presents made for the September birthdays in my life... my man and his mum.

Wearing The Sailor Collar Top

Couldn't be waiting for my bloke to be home to take the photos, it's days before he's off work and the weather isn't keeping the evenings light here so taking photos isn't exactly easy...

So bear with me and my attempts to take 'good' photos of me wearing latest creation in our gorgeous vintage bedroom mirror.

Wow how many attempts do you think it took to get a decent pic of the back? Well about 7... my hair got in the way or I just totally misaimed the camera and took lovely photos of the wall lol.

Sailor Collar Top

Seeing as the bad weather seems to already be settling in I'm making a start on a couple of autumn tops to make along side the last of my summer wardrobe for my holiday, my orders and now the stock I need to get made up for my first ever craft market stall (EXCITE! but more news to come on that at a later date)..

Here's what used to be a plain white t-shirt till I read the latest issue of Cloth magazine.. they had this beautiful tutorial on how to make a sailor collar to just wear over dresses or whatever you fancied... I didn't quite like that idea so I thought I'd make it a permanent fixture on an otherwise boring top..

I kept the long ribbon bow from the original design as otherwise the collar would have fallen short of the centre of the neckline and left a void... and i love ribbons and bows so why not add the extra omph to the top!

If anyone wants the template and tutorial for this project then it's here but do check out the other projects while you are there coz there's some stunners in amongst them!

I haven't got a picture of me wearing it yet as there's no one else home to a photo of the back, so give me a day or so and I'll make sure I put another post up with the photos

Great Pinterest Challenge August 2011

Morning ladies and gents... so here we go again Round 2 of the Great Pinterest Challenge voting has begun and once again I need help, please please plase come vote for me!

Here's my piece for the challenge...

To help me out here's what you gotta do...

1. Go to Honeybear Lanes facebook page and 'like' it
2. Go to my photo in the Great Pinterest Challenge album and 'like' it. Either click here, click the photo above or have a browse throught the album yourself till you find me.

There's some gorgeous projects in that album there really are, think the sewing category of the challenge will be a hard round to do well in.. so please everyone come help me.. much appreciated if you do :)

With A Little Bit Of Lace...

British summer may be coming to an end (it's pouring with rain here and has been all day) but I'm still making myself summery clothes in the hope we have a few more good days/weeks.. and then of course there's the good weather and sun I hope for on our holiday (less than a month to go!) so I still think it's a good idea to plough on with the clothes projects...

This time I fancied myself a denim skirt, but not just the boring kind you find in the shops... nor was I keen on the denim ones with denim waistbands and scarf fabric for the remainder of the skirt...
So I hit ebay and found myself this New Look denim skirt with the little worn patches and tears...
A little bit.. well 3/4 of a metre of lace, pins, my sewing machine, scissors, needle and thread later this is what my skirt looked like. My sewing machine could be used for the majority of the lace but the trim round the pockets and flowers on the rear had to be hand sewn on as I couldn't get them to feed through the machine without stitching it together. The flowers and trim pieces came from a scrap of the lace used for the thick trim around the bottom of the skirt. I left it overhanging the denim at the bottom as it just looked a bit more girly and made the most of the scalloped edging of the lace.

It's not so short really.. and it looks great on..

The I thought it deserved a full outfit photo as well to show how ace it looks on... notice the lace flower necklace and nautical bow shoes... yup both things I've made
To see th

Voting required please!

Hi there lovely readers of my blog... I'm hoping you can help me.. see I've once again entered myself into a competition that needs you lovelies to vote for my piece in order for me to win. Sorry can't help my competitive streak, seems to be about quite a bit recently lol.

So... Amie over at Kitty Cats and Airplanes ran a competition called 3...2...1... Craft! where the challenge was to finish off or even start and finish a summer sewing project. She then picked her top 5 entries to be entered into the final stage of the competition... Guess what my scarves to summer tops were included in this top 5! (To see them again click here)

To vote for me all you have to do is click on the picture to get to Amie's blog, scroll to the end of the post and vote for my 'scarf to tank upcycle'. Pretty pretty please?

Scarves to Summer Tops

Whilst trawling through H&M over the weekend with mum on our girly shopping trip in Reading I found some awesome print scarves for £1 each so I grabbed one of each colour. One in blue and one in hot pink.... oh and I forgot to mention they are leopard print too! Mum's face when I went over to her was priceless, 'So what do you plan on turning these into then?', guess she knows me too well and knows what I tend to do to scarves... especially when they are cheaper than the fabric would be from a fabric shop!

Having seen all the pins on Pinterest of this Anthropologie top and tutorials on how to make one similar, like over at Sweet Verbena, this is what I decided the scarves had to be refashioned into....


and so they did....

Here's the pink leopard print one, love the yellow and black bits really brings out the print and makes it a little in your face (it's my fave of the 2 prints).
Ok so you can't see the bow in the photos as the print kinda gets lost in itself but I assure you it's there, it's kinda large. Took a photo of me wearing it (not a fab pic was took from my Blackberry by the OH), but you can see it's quite fitted. I had a slight fit doing this one as I cut the material thought it was too small and threw it into a corner till I'd finished the 2nd print slightly larger cut top then realised it would be a good fit after all. another slight difference with this top is that I didn't cut the fabric into 2 rectangles, I made mine like a tube to save losing any precious fabric that I'd need to make the top fit me right.
Here's the 2nd print scarf, leopard print again but a slightly calmer, less in your face colourscheme of blue, lime and white. The bow is a lot easier to see on this one too!As you can tell from the photo it's a lot looser fit than the pink one, but I like it makes them different and means it'll be ideal for the hot days out on our holiday in September. This top was made following the tutorial method of cutting the fabric into 2 rectangles and sewing them together to form the body of the top. The only extra thing I had to do on both tops was sew an edge for the underarms to stop the fabric fraying away.

See crappy British summer weather I defy you, I will still make myself lovely summer tops even if they don't see the light of day till September and then again next summer!