Quick Fixes: T-shirt Envy

     Here's a scenario I find myself in frequently: you see a t-shirt somewhere online and think "Oooh, I want that!" then you either a) can't find it again later or b) track down where it comes from and find out it doesn't come in the size/color/material/exact font that you want. What do you do? Make your own! 

     This time around I kept seeing variations of the same idea: some shirt (long sleeve, short sleeve, white, pink, blue, what have you) with the phrase "ex-mermaid" on it in any number of fonts. This pleased me. I frequently joke that I used to be a mermaid, since that would explain the truly stupid amount of hair I have as well as my insane water consumption needs (I wake up like Spongebob in Sandy's treedome. waaaater. waaaater. Also one time in Target I picked up a bottle of water at the checkout, but the line was somewhat longish and by the time I got to the cashier I had to buy a second bottle because I'd already drank the first one. The struggle is real). And my uncanny ability to lure sailors to their deaths and collect their souls, I guess (I would not be a sweet mermaid). Anyway, I decided I'd just whip myself up a version of that theme.

     For the stencil, I downloaded a free font I liked, typed it up, then printed it and asked my mom to trace/cut it out of stencil material because I can't be trusted to not cut a finger off with an x-acto knife (I'm too shaky; like a chihuahua but more rattled). Then I just taped the corners down...

This neon paint and nail polish color actually make me look tan. What a fantastic illusion. 

     And stippled the paint straight up and down over the stencil. If you go at an angle at all you can end up getting paint under the stencil, so it's important to hold the stencil tight and your pouncer thingy straight. Then let the paint dry a bit, pull off the stencil and...

     Voila! The dark splotch up there is because I tried to ruin everything by getting a smidge of paint off the edge of the stencil. I caught it pretty quickly though, so it came out with a wet paper towel no problem. I think I'm going to roll the sleeves on the shirt (it's just a plain pale pink short sleeved oversized tee I picked up at a craft store out of a sale section. It doesn't look very pink here, but as we've seen, the neon plays tricks) and tack them so they stay up, then it'll be ready to wear!

Quick Fixes: Annie get your glue-gun.

     You know how sometimes you'll just be going about your day when you notice something...off? Just a tiny little thing that isn't quite right about your house or your life or whatever, and you think, "Oh well, it's not that big of a deal," but then you can't get it out of your head and suddenly it's been like a month and you've been slowly simmering up a nice rage stew that's about to boil over because OKAY SERIOUSLY LET'S JUST FIX THE DAMN THING. You know that feeling, right? Well, this bedskirt was one of those things for me.

     Do you see it? Do you see what was worming it's way through my brain, slowly driving me to madness? It's one of those bedskirts that just has elastic at the top, so you can wrap it around your boxspring instead of putting it between the boxspring and the mattress. Which is a cool idea and all, but my bed has a little tray thing with slats across, so I can't use it that way. So I thought it would work just fine if I wrapped it around the wooden frame on the long side of the bed, then tucked it inside at the foot of the bed, so it hangs inside the frame, unimpeded by slats. Genius! Except not! Because that meant it slipped all over the place and was never hanging right. So I added some velcro dots to the skirt and the frame, and they worked for about a minute before the adhesive on the velcro dots gave out. SOOOO I took the hot glue gun to it and attached them more...permanently (MUAHAHAHA. I dunno. Felt right). Now they hold the bedskirt in place and at the right height and all that good jazzy stuff. But then. BUT THEN.

     The corners. The corners didn't lay right because they're switching from outside the frame to inside on one continuous piece of fabric, if that makes sense (does it? It can be so hard to step outside my own brain sometimes). SOSOSO. The solution here was just a simple slit at the corners to allow the bedskirt to switch over from outside to inside the frame more... seamlessly. And if you're wondering why I set that up like it was a pun, it's because it's totally a pun. I didn't do any seams. (Ba dum tssss). Instead I took the glue gun to it again, just folding a tiny bit over on each cut edge and gluing in a little hem to keep them from fraying/avoid ugly raw edges.

     Are you ready to see the infinitesimally small difference that had a huge impact on my sanity? Ok, here we go. Ta-daaaa.

     I feel like this really shouldn't be so gratifying to me, because normal people probably wouldn't even notice it (I mean, I'm guessing. I don't actually know any normal people, I don't think), but like I said. It was one of those THINGS.

Quick and Easy Maxi-skirt!

     This little project was born of necessity. Basically I was wearing the two other maxi skirts I own every day (well, every day it was warm enough) and realized I could use a more neutral one so I would never have to wear pants ever ever again so long as I shall live (until fall). So I picked up that gold polka-dotted stretchy number you saw in that preview post, and a bit of elastic here and some stitching there, then I had a skirt! Ok, it was a little more than that. But not really. Basically here's what happened.

     Only one seam, since I wanted it to be gathered anyway (so you wouldn't see it) and "there's no point cutting it just to sew it back together" as a front and back panel, as my mom said. So wise. Elastic at the top, sewn on with the elastic streeeetched out, so it gathers when in its natural position, with one row of zig-zag stitches to hold it to the back of the fabric, folded over, and another row of stitches to hide it. Hem at the bottom -- honesty time, I haven't done it yet, which is why in the "finished" picture I'm about to show you I'm on my tippy toppy toes -- and that's about it. 

     So now I just need to hem this bad boy, then I shall commence wearing it every day until people start to make fun of me for it, at which point I will... continue to wear it but know in my heart of hearts that those people kind of suck a little bit. 

Sneaky peek-y!

     Over the weekend I was really very sick. For reference, I'm generally one of those stubborn idiots who won't go to the doctor until I'm knocking on Death's door at 3AM yelling "Come outside, Mr. Deathy, unless you're scaaaared," and at one point I was so dehydrated I was genuinely concerned I might need to go to the hospital. Couldn't keep any water down. Stomach bugs, man. They are my downfall (Well, I have many downfalls. I am a delicate flower). I'm feeling somewhat better since my dad ran out and got me every flavor of Gatorade so I could force in some electrolytes and junk, and my mom made me a grilled cheese when I was capable of eating again. That's the great thing about parents, man, they just refuse to let you die. Anyway, the point of that was to preface why today I've just got a little preview of some upcoming projects.  

     Any ideas what I'm making with these things? Don't worry, I'm not going to leave you in suspense. The sheer fabric with the cool little flower embroideries is going to be a kimono(?!)/sheer jacket/thing like the one from Target that I recently put in my favorites. Yep, just loved it so much I decided to pull a Thor (I like this. ANOTHER!). The black pom-pom trim is going on the sleeves, just like the Target one -- partly because I guess I ran out of creativity there, partly because I thought it would be a good way to keep it from looking too funereal/lingerie-like. As for that stretchy black fabric with gold polka dots, it's going to be a maxi-skirt. I have a blue one that I made from an old dress (I can't remember if I blogged about it or not, and I'm too mummy-brained to go look for it) that I wear constantly, so I thought it would be pretty easy to make another one. It's just an elasticized fabric tube, after all. Do those sound like last words, courting danger, asking for it to be really difficult for some reason? I kind of feel like yes, but I'm feeling reckless, let's leave it. 

Friday Footnote (Oh my God this pun): My feet are made of disco!

Just a quick note for you on this lovely Friday: LOOK HOW SHINY MY SHOES ARE. 

And also how blindingly white my feet are. I am the moon.

     I stayed home while my mom and Amanda went out shopping yesterday because I was feeling kind of "blerghhhh," like I wanted to stay home and run around my Animal Crossing town scaring away all the fish that the villagers I don't like are trying to catch (I'm real dangerous when I'm in a mood) and when they came home they had bought these spaaaarkly Keds for me. They found them at Kohls on super duper clearance and felt like I needed them in my life, because obviously. And it did cheer me up a good deal. It's hard to be cranky when your feet are this spangly. 

Quick Fixes: Looket this locket!

     So I was browsin' the craft store the other day, helping Amanda pick out ingredients to make a necklace for an '80s party, when these little thingies caught my eye.

They were also on sale for 50% off, so if you were thinking that $8.99 is surprisingly pricey for a cheap-ass like me, you were right! 

     Actually I first saw the little filler doodads on the left there and did a "gasp OOOOOOOOOH" because that is everything I love in my jewels contained in one tiny package: moons, stars, mixed metals, sparkles (they had a TON of different sets too: beach theme, sports, and so on). Then I spent a good three minutes trying to find the other component, the thing you actually put the baublies in. I finally found them at the veeery top of the display. They had this plainer version and one that had rhinestones around the outside, like in the picture on the packaging on the left, but I thought that was too flashy for me. 

     So I got them home and put them together (it just snaps open with a strong magnetic closure, like a locket), and IT'S REALLY PRETTY. Sorry for getting all capsy, but I really like how it's got a thrown-together vibe, like "Oh I was just finishing up some spells I was casting this morning and tossed some talismans and charms in here to take with me," because you know one of my favorite aesthetics is "weird cat-lady who the neighbor kids are pretty sure is a witch," aka the aunts from Practical Magic. 

     I'm going to put it on a long silver chain to wear, but I can't decide if I should leave it as is or age the silver locket part a bit. It might feel a little too shiny and new for me right now. I was thinking of scuffing it up a bit with some sandpaper and rubbing a little dark paint in the scratches to make it look old, like someone recently dug it up in the forest (I have weird fashion aspirations, don't I?). Or possibly putting some tiny bits of gold or copper leaf on it in a few places to bring in more of that mixed metal look I love so much? I'm not sure how that would hold up, anyway. I just don't know! I'll have to think on it. 

Experimental Rock

     Oh, the wide world of geology-related puns. It shall never cease to amuse me. 

     The reason I made that joke at the risk of infuriating pun-haters everywhere is because this whole shebang I'm about to tell you about was pretty much just an experiment. You see, I didn't have anything else to do, and I had recently found a rock that I'd been holding on to since last fall (I'd shoved it in the pocket of a jacket and forgotten about it). So I figured I'd just kind of play around with it and see where I ended up. Here's the rock in question, and what I did with it. 

     If I recall correctly I picked this up while walking the dogs at the park. It caught my eye because it had a nice glint in the sun and was already pretty flat on two sides. To start out, I took the Dremel to it to smooth and flatten all the edges, then shine it up a bit. Just for fun, here's a shot of one of the sides where I've done one half and not the other. It's satisfying in the same way as powerwashing something really dirty.

     When I got done smoothing everything out, I was left with this.

     I put that in gif form for you because I had a feeling in photos this was going to look like...well, a beige rock. I wanted you to get a sense of the pretty natural sheen and depth. I dunno, maybe I'm just really into rocks. If nothing else, it shows off what I did here, which was just to smooth everything out and bring out the natural shape of the rock, because that's my personal preference (remember how I like my things to look like they were crafted by an ancient artisan and only recently excavated?).

     Anyway, next I decided I wanted to add some glitz. First I tried taping off the two large flat surfaces and spray painting the sides with my favorite gold spray paint (the Krylon kind). 

     It was alright, and I didn't hate it. But then Amanda suggested I gold leaf the sides (she had some that she'd received in a monthly nail art box -- of course -- that she wasn't ever going to use). Go big or go home, right? That's what I loved about this experiment: if it succeeds, awesome, I get to look like the coolest witch in the coven with some weirdo homemade rock jewelry; if not, hey, it's a rock. Throw it back outside.

     Here's what's cooking once the gold leaf was applied.

      Much better! To actually turn this into a piece of jewelry, I just spun some little loopies into some gold wire and wrapped it around. I wanted to hold it in place permanently with a dab of epoxy, because I like to be sure of these things, but then I decided I liked how glossy the epoxy made everything, so I dunked the whole damn thing in there. Just went for it. Then proceeded to glue my hands to EEEEVERYTHING. It sucked. But this turned out to be a pretty pendant!

     So this guy will not be getting chucked back outside! I love a happy ending. 


     And the happy ending to this post is a nice before and after shot to remind you how far we've come (and for convenient Pinteresting purposes. Yeah, hi all you readers coming from Pinterest! Welcome, come in, sit down, have a lemonade, don't let the dog drool on you).

Quick Fixes: Glitter Sunglasses!

     So I was perusing a magazine the other day and came across this picture...

     Ooooh. So shiny, so pretty! The problem is that these are almost 400 dollars. Hahahahahahaohgodhelpme. I can't even imagine a world in which spending that much on something that you're almost certainly going to sit on or lose or drop in the toilet makes sense. So I decided that I would take inspiration from these and make something similar for myself -- but on a much more reasonable budget. Aka free, because my budget is just the phrase "DON'T SPEND MONEY, EVER" written in blood on a piece of paper where the spreadsheets and shit would normally be. Remember those free sunglasses I got a while ago? Another pair of those is getting the makeover treatment today! To make these sparkly specs I first gathered my supplies.

     If you want to make a pair of these yourself you'll need: a pair of sunglasses (obviously), some glitter in a color of your choosing (I chose black, because I wanted it to be subtle -- well, as subtle as glitter can get), Mod Podge or Elmer's glue, and a paintbrush. 

     To glitter the glasses, all you need to do is brush the frame with some Mod Podge, then sprinkle some glitter on top. If you're worried about gluing glitter on the actual lenses, you could tape them off or even pop the lenses out if it's an especially cheap pair. I wasn't particularly worried about it, so I just took the gluing slowly and carefully. Mod Podge takes a bit to set and dry, so you can afford to take it slow and do pretty big chunks before you need to get the glitter on there.

     A tip for those that perhaps do not do a lot of be-glittering in their day-to-day lives: always do your glittering over a piece of paper or a magazine. That way you can be really liberal in the application of your glitter, and when you're done you can fold the paper over and use it as a funnel to put the extra back into the original container, so you don't waste any of that precious sparkly goodness.

     That's really all there is to this project: glue, then glitter. Full disclosure so you can learn from my mistakes: after the glitter had dried, I thought it would be a good idea to do a coat of clear enamel to hold the glitter on more securely and lock in the shine. Don't do that. It doesn't work. It somehow managed to mattify big sections of the glitter, making it look like the glasses were just oddly textured, like maybe I sat them too close to a flat-iron or something. It was not a good look. If you're worried about glitter falling off onto your face (I am not, there's usually glitter somewhere on my face anyway. Crafter problems), a thin coat of clear nail polish is the way to go. It holds the glitter on firmly without mattifying the sparkle and negating the whole purpose of this shenanigan.

     Ta-da! These are such a fun way to spice up an otherwise plain pair of sunglasses. And the whole thing only took about half an hour! Granted, I'd probably advise leaving these to dry overnight before you wore them, lest you smudge them up or, I dunno, glue them to your face, rendering you permanently cool, though somewhat disadvantaged in dim settings. But the actual crafting part is super quick and easy, and with results this spangly, I'd say you should definitely give it a shot! 

Mathematical!

     I'm gonna keep the intro to this super short: I love Adventure Time (it's a cartoon, in case you're better at being an adult than me and don't watch cartoons anymore). I love it enough to advertise my love on a pair of shoes. Those shoes are not hypothetical. These are those shoes. 

     Now for the details. I painted these with acrylic paint. I chose BMO for the front of the right shoe, Lumpy Space Princess for the front of the left, Finn and Jake for the outside panels, and the simple grass from the closing credits for the inside panels. The only one I'm not 100% satisfied with is Jake, and I may yet go back and fix that panel, but I finished these super late and couldn't bring myself to take it on yet. I may also just leave it as is, because I'm no perfectionist, and let's be honest: they're a pair of cheapie Walmart shoes, I'm going to destroy them with wear anyway. In the morning (the actual morning, not the super-late-at-night-technically-morning-hour that I'm writing this at) I'll take a Magic Eraser to the parts of the white soles that got paint on them to clean them up a bit, and put the laces back in, of course. 

     But for now, I'm gonna go have myself some Adventure Time themed dreams. 

DIY 101: Simple Post Earrings

     This weekend I decided to do a quick and easy project that I think is a great gateway craft for beginning DIY-ers. It's basically a method for taking any cute little thing you find -- novelty buttons, beads, what have you -- and turning it into a pair of earrings. It's ridiculously easy and cheap, but so many people don't realize how simple it is to make your own earrings (I know, I have a pair of earrings made from pink elephant novelty buttons that people used to ALWAYS ask me about, and when I told them I made them myself they looked at me like sorcery was involved). 

     Here's all I did: took some cutting pliers and snipped the loop off the top of these two bow charms. If you're using buttons that have a loop on the back, you can easily do the same to snip the loop off. If you're feeling like a perfectionist, you can take a file to it to get the back really super even. I didn't bother trying to file the edges on these bows because A) they're tiny, so there's really no reason to worry over every tiny detail, B) I didn't feel like it. Hey, I'm just being honest with you.

     I also decided to paint them gold, because although I like this finish sometimes, it wasn't what I wanted here. 

     Then I just mixed up some epoxy on a piece of foil using a toothpick...

     Then popped a generous glob of it onto the back of my bows...
 

     And dropped the earring post into the epoxy. 

     Then scooted it around until it wouldn't be visible from the front, and let it dry for a good long while. Then...ta-da!

     So easy, and you can really take this basic method and throw some imagination at it to make practically anything into a pair of earrings. 


 

Quick Fixes: One-hour Skirt!

     Let me lay out the timeline for you on this skirt: I bought some plain black stretchy fabric yesterday, intending to make a skirt just like one I already own with it for this blog post. Faffed about town for a bit, went home, did some work on the manuscript I'm editing for a few hours, then realized at 9:00 that I hadn't started the skirt. Panicked. Started sewing...then finished the skirt at 10:00 pm. It was like magic! I love when projects go quickly without any huge life-altering "why did I think I could sew in the first place" mishaps. 

     So let me walk you through how I copied the skirt on the left to make the black one on the right! 

If you're noticing that the black skirt looks longer, that's because it is. It was on purpose, I promise.

     First I flattened the existing skirt out on top of my fabric and simply cut around it, leaving space for seam allowance. I know it's hard to tell, but the existing skirt does actually have a waistband, so I folded that over at the seam, added seam allowance, and cut it out as if it wasn't there so that I could add the waistband as a separate piece later. 

Go ahead and just cut around the cat. Also, I'm wearing shorts here, I promise. They just got hidden behind my giant "Depressed Mr. Rogers" sweater.

     Then I folded the fabric over so that when I cut out the waistband I'd be left with four pieces. To do this, again I just cut out around the free edges, leaving seam allowance, then folded the skirt up at the seam to see where I should cut the remaining edge. Which left me with a skirt front, skirt back, and two waistband pieces, each of which is two layers of fabric. It's helpful to fold the pieces exactly in half and cut a notch in each to mark the center for alignment purposes later.

More cat-butt. I guess that's what you get when you work in the floor.

     
     Then I pinned the edges together and sewed along the sides of the main skirt piece and sewed the waistband pieces together into one circular piece. Next I sewed along the top of the circular piece so that when I turned it right-side-out it would have a finished edge on top and an open edge on the bottom.I know that was confusing, so here's a picture to (hopefully) help:

In case that description was super confusing: two seams here, connecting a front waistband and a back waistband, each of which is two layers of fabric that I treated as one. Helpful? Making it worse? I dunno, I try.

     Then I just had to carefully align the seams and notches and sew the waistband to the skirt with the raw edges aligned. I suppose if you're an over-achiever or a perfectionist you could serge the inside edges, but this fabric isn't going to unravel or fray at all and I'm lazy, so I didn't. Don't be like me. Or do, it's fun sometimes. 

     All that was left at that point was a quick hem, which I won't bother including pictures of because duh, it's a hem. You fold it and iron it and sew it and then go "yay." And it was done! 

The weird line on my face is because there's a mirror on the wall reflecting funny, I didn't just get overaggressive with the contouring this morning. Also I can tell my brain is straight up DONE for the day because I just stared at this for three full minutes trying to figure out how that shadow works.

     So there you have it, the world's fastest skirt. If you don't have a skirt to copy but you still want to make one, you could easily just pin the fabric onto your body wrong-side out, pin it where you want it to fit, and sew it up that way. Or you could do the whole bit with measuring and thinking things through, but I don't enjoy that, so I wouldn't recommend it, personally. The end!





    

Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?

     ...My collection of mermaid-inspired accessories, that is. It's never complete. I must press forth ever vigilant in the quest to look like some sort of sea creature (I leave that purposefully vague because what most people identify this trend with is mermaids, but honestly I'm shooting more for Sea Witch. You can't tell me Ursula wasn't fab). So today I'm bringing you another quick and easy way to bring a little aquatic flare to your hair (I didn't mean for that to rhyme, please forgive me). 

     All you'll need is some bobby pins (again, I really recommend using the higher quality ones. They last so much longer and will bring you so much less disappointment), good strong glue or epoxy, and some bubble-esque beads -- mine came from the floral arrangement section of the store, where they keep all kinds of pretty glass gobs that speak to the magpie in me.

     Then all you need to do is grab a little bubbly bead, stick a good-sized gob of glue on it, and glue it onto the side of the bobby pin. The reason I glued them to the side instead of the top is because it allows it to sit there like it's in a little cup-holder, so you don't have to worry about it rolling off while it's drying, and there's more surface area shared between the pin, the bead, and the glue this way, so you're less likely to have one pop off later on. Let the glue dry overnight -- it's always best to allow for a nice long dry time when industrial strength glue and your hair are involved. 

     Once you've let them dry, they're ready to wear! I like to stick them into the messiest updo possible, in keeping with my personal theory that mermaids ain't got time to be worrying about things like "Does my hair look messy" or "Do I look like Bellatrix Lestrange going to the prom." 

     I really like this style for days when you want your hair up off your neck and out of your face, but also want to look like maybe you came here by accident when you stumbled out of a Jane Austen novel. I won't lie -- I also like this hairstyle a lot because the less you try, the better it looks, and trying is so much EFFORT. I used to wear my hair like this all the time and got compliments on it constantly, because it looks like it takes longer than it does. If you're one of those people who struggles with the whole "artfully disheveled" thing though, fear not! Click through to the full post and I'll show you how I like to do my messy updos.

The Unending Quest for Mermaid Hair

     As much as I love mermaids, I've come to realize that the only part of mermaid-hood that really appeals to me is the hair. All the other stuff? The underwater tomfoolery and running away from sharks, I could take or leave. The sitting on a rock, singing and brushing my hair business combines two of the things I suck at most in life. Plus, most of my makeup isn't waterproof. But the hair, I'll always covet. In my continuing quest to look as though I just washed ashore at the tide, I made a quick hair accessory that can really take you from 0 to Ariel in 15 minutes. And you can wear it a ton of different ways, so none of the other sea critters can accuse you of being a one trick fishy. Let's dive in (pun intended, but afterwards somewhat regretted) and I'll show you how to make it and how to style it!

     You only need five things for this project: some pretty beads, a clear elastic, needle and thread, and a bobby pin. I highly recommend using a higher quality bobby pin than the kind you can buy at the drugstore for this, since those tend to lose their grip after a while. The ones I use are from Sally's and are called "MetaGrip Premium Bob Pins," which amuses me for a number of stupid reasons, including that "metagrip" sounds like the power of an especially philosophical super-villain.

     To put together your accessory, first you'll need to double up some thread (or use a thicker variety) for strength, then tie the ends together onto the bobby pin. Just eyeball the length you'll need for your own hair, but err on the side of longer. I should note that if you have especially willful hair, you could use a snap clip instead, though it will be harder to hide the clip when you're wearing it. I find that if you simply cross the bobby pin with a second one when you put it in your hair, it won't go anywhere. 

     Next, thread your needle with the double thread, but don't tie it; just leave a tail. Then begin beading! I mixed together several sizes and colors of beads and picked them up randomly to get a varied pattern. Mermaids don't have time to plan these things out, they just want to put sparkly shit in their hair!

     When you get to the length you're looking for, wrap the thread around a clear elastic and run the needle back up underneath the last bead, then loop the thread around and back through the bead again. Tie a nice sturdy little knot, dabbing some glue on it for good measure. When the glue dries, you can tuck the knot right up underneath the next bead to hide it. 

     Using a bobby pin on one end and an elastic on the other makes this accessory super versatile. Here's five ideas to get you started:

1. Wear it as a headband. Section off the top half of your hair and clip it out of the way. Secure the bobby pin at the back of your head, wrap the beads around the front of your head, then slide a second bobby pin through the elastic and pin it in the back. Let the top half of your hair down on top of it to hide the pins. 

2. Decorate a bun. Pull your hair into a bun. I like to make my buns by pulling all my hair up above my head as though I'm going to put it into a very high ponytail, then twisting the hair until it starts to coil in on itself. Arrange into a bun and pin as needed until it feels secure. Pin the beads into the bun at any point, then wrap them around and over the bun, using bobby pins to create any angles that don't want to happen naturally. Finally, hook a bobby pin through the elastic and pin into or underneath the bun, hiding the pin and the elastic. 

3. Work into a large braid. Pin the beads at the top of your head or behind your ear, depending on how long you've made yours. Make sure you pin them underneath some hair so that the top end won't be visible. Cross a second pin over the first to help it stay in place while you braid, then go to town with the braid of your choice: regular braids, fishtail braids, rope braids -- whatever tickles your fancy -- and secure with the elastic. If you have extra length in the beads at the end, you can wrap them around the elastic to hide it.

4. Or try a smaller braid. I tried out a medium-sized, messy Dutch braid and really liked the way it turned out. You could also try braiding the beads into your hair starting from behind one ear, then wrapping it around your head for an embellished milkmaid braid. 

5. Dress up a standard ponytail. This one couldn't be easier: put your hair in a ponytail using the elastic, then wrap the beads around the base of the ponytail until you come to the end, and pin! 


     There are so many ways to play around with this simple little accessory. And it's so easy and quick to make, you could whip up a few in different colors to suit your mood or match your outfit -- or your tailfins.

How Not to Become A Lobster.

     I'm headed to the beach in a few weeks for some sunshine and relaxation. The problem? Sunshine and relaxation don't coexist so peacefully in my book. I burn so easily that I inevitably spend a lot of my relaxation time worrying about my next SPF reapplication. I'm pretty good about reapplying my sunscreen, but somehow I always manage to get a little too much sun on my face, ears, and neck, no matter what I do. The solution? A big-ass hat. Unfortunately, the hat I happen to already own was a little too cutesy and "Sunbonnet Sue" for my liking. I like to bring a little more edge to my beach look. 

     So I set to work making this thing more my style. First I took off the ribbon and that wooden ring. It was just a matter of popping out a few stitches here and there where it had been tacked into place. 

     But then it was too boring! I added a black ribbon, tacked it down with a couple stitches here and there, and decorated it with an old pin I had lying around. I think it came on a dress I bought long, long ago. 

Bonus kitty ears!

     Gettin there! I could have stopped at this point, since this is much less country bumpkin, I think, than what I started with. But I felt like it needed something more. Something to really kick it up a notch. After all, if you're going to be wearing a hat this big, it should make a statement! So I busted out the black paint and painted every other row of the hat's brim black. This part was really just an exercise in patience: I took it nice and slow to make sure the edges of my stripes stayed neat and the straw got completely covered where I wanted it to.

     Now we're talkin! I considered taking the stripes up onto the rest of the hat, but I didn't want to make myself a literal bulls-eye for passing seagulls. I love the way this turned out! It gives the hat some interest and makes it seem like more of an intentional fashion statement, rather than "Woops, my face is burning, I'll buy the first hat I see!"

Shady business.

     Not long ago, my dad came home one day and dumped a bunch of freebie plastic sunglasses in my lap. And my eyes shone like Abu when he sees that big ol' ruby in that weird treasure cave, for I love cheap sunglasses.

Basically.

     See, cheap sunglasses are my jam. I'm too hard on sunglasses to bother investing in a good pair: I squish them, lose them in stupid places, leave them in my car until they melt into a misshapen ghoul of their former selves. I like to not feel terrible when that inevitably happens. Some of the free sunglasses were plain black, which meant I could wear them as is and look like one of the Blues Brothers, which is obviously a look I approve of. But the others...the others were less wearable. Specifically, they were bright safety orange and said "Ditch Witch" on the sides, which isn't exactly the type of embellishment I usually go for on my sunglasses. Not my style. But show these glasses a little love, and they shine up real purdy. Let me show you!

     Curious how to give your own shades a new look? Read on, stylish friend.

     First up: gather supplies! You'll need your undesirable pair of sunnies, newspaper, tape, striping tape (which is basically just thin tape, so if you don't have that but you do have an excess of patience, you could cut strips of regular ol' scotch tape for this), two colors of spray paint, and an optional clear coat. 

     Before you start, you'll want to protect the lenses of your glasses to keep them from getting painted. That would kind of defeat the purpose. Depending on the style of your glasses, you might be able to pop the lenses out easily and simply put them back when you're done. Mine didn't want to come out without a fight, so I taped them instead, as you can see in the photo above. Be careful to get the entire lens covered without covering any of the frame, or that color will peek through at the end. And remember to do both sides of the lenses! We want these to be functional at the end, after all. 

     When you have everything all taped off, you can spray on your first coat of color. I chose a gold base coat because I was imagining a black and gold art deco pattern (Thanks a lot, Gatsby fever!), but you could use any colors that speak to you. You could even spray on spots of several different colors so the end result would look like those crayon etchings we used to do in school -- scratch off to reveal a rainbow! Please tell me someone else remembers that so I feel less weird about it. Anyway, spray your first coat and let it dry. You'll probably have to do this in two shifts so you can completely cover the top and bottom of the glasses, unless you've got some sort of sweet 360 degree spraypaint set-up going on, in which case do tell. 

     Once you've got your glasses evenly covered, fight your impatience and let it dry completely. Most decent spray paints are dry to the touch in half an hour or less these days, but you want it DRY dry, not just dry "to the touch." I left mine for about two hours, but a less reckless person would probably wait longer. When they're good and dry, you can start mapping out your design with the striping tape. For those who don't know, striping tape is a very thin tape primarily used in nail art. You can buy it super cheap online. I bought a few rolls thinking I would be a nail art MASTA, but it turns out I suck at nail art. This is a much better use, in my opinion. Position the tape anywhere you want your base color or colors to show through your second coat of color. I went for a simple geometric design, and also decided to use office tape to add some gold tips to the arms of the frame.

     When you're feelin' good about your design, give the frames a good once over, pressing down every piece of tape to make sure you get a clean edge. Then you're ready to add your second coat of paint! I used black enamel, purely because it was the first black I found in the paint cabinet. Let that coat dry for a good long while too, since you don't want to go smudging or scraping your nice even paint when you're handling it to pull off all the tape. You might find a pair of tweezers helpful when removing the tape -- use them to gently get underneath the end of a strip of tape, then "ooh" and "aah" as you pull it off and reveal your masterpiece. Or curse and frantically wave your arms because little bits of tape keep getting stuck to you and it's squicking you out, that has a good dramatic effect too. 

     The last step is to add a coat of clear lacquer to protect your design. If you're really not worried about your sunglasses or you're convinced you'll break them within a month anyway (the whole point of painting them up is that they're cheap so you have nothing to lose, right?) you don't have to do this step, but it can't hurt. I haven't done that step yet in my final result picture (you might have noticed the lenses still have paint-covered tape on them -- that's why) because my black paint was still a little sticky and I wanted to let it cure for a few days before adding lacquer over top. 

     And that's it! This is a really easy way to spice up a pair of ugly or boring sunglasses. You don't need any special skills other than a bit of patience, and you can do it in a day, so the patience required is still pretty minimal. Plus you can use this method to make so many different color combinations and designs -- you can really make your shades as subtle or dramatic as you want!