Thrifty Sense -002

Here is a giant, silky, shoulder-padded, office blouse from Value Village. I have a new model, her name is Jamé. This top is now ready for the 2010 office or a day of shopping on 82nd!

Thrifty Sense -001

Yesterday, I bought a fat Ray Liotta button up from Value Village for $4 and turned it into a priceless summer dress! I took off the collar and sleeves, brought it in at the waist, fixed the edges and made a belt. My photographer is in Alaska, so these pics will have to do. Now all I need to do is throw a backyard pachanga! Too bad Portland is still such a hazy shade of winter :P

Dorf Goes Modelling

Here are pics of my first dress to sew all by myself. This was also my first professional photo shoot. We had some techno pumping and lines of blow just to the side. My photographer wanted to remain anonymous. Why? I do not know.

Dressy#One turned out 5 sizes too big but I still like it. The pattern is Cynthia Rowley for Simplicity 2472. This fabric was only 3 dollars a yard in the bargain bin- hard to believe, ehhh?!

NOT GOTH

I won a bag filled with DIY goodies (crap) for posting this t-shirt design on another blog.

Proper Pauper

There are TONS of reasons why I don't often splurge on high priced clothing. Some are obvious like the fact I don't have a real job. Or that I live in Portland, Oregon where the term dress-down was born and every day is casual Friday. Listen up Stumptown, it's not acceptable to wear fleece and birkenstocks to the ballet. I know you're really high and don't care, but quit it. Other reasons stem from my upbringing. Wether it was clothing, jewelry or home decor I was always told, "Leslie, YOU could do THAT!" My Mom was DIY way before it was cool or a known acronym. Then, there was my GranGran who could care less if the sales woman was standing next to us when she'd shout, "you can get this in Mexico for a dollar!"

I could go on and on about my cheapness, but I won't. Today, I wanna talk about online discount shopping clubs. I know that I usually dress like a 14 year old boy, but sometimes I do polish the ol' turd and go out sexing. For that, I need some nice pieces. I can't get EVERYTHING at Forever31! There are tons of these sites, but I stick to these three: Ideeli.com, swirl.com and gilt.com. Ideeli has the best prices on the clothes, but sometimes they'll throw in a poo-poo line from Jessica Simpson or Ed Hardy. Swirl has the hippest clothes and the prices are moderate. Gilt is all couture and usually out of my price range even when it's 80% off. All three of these sites require invites... so holler! Or you can get on a "waiting list" where they always accept you within 10 minutes of sending your request.

I've only bought costume jewelry from Gilt, but I still love to go look around at the clothes I'd buy if I were a successful business woman or Mrs. Doctor. Today, they have Alexander McQueen. Why do the goooooood die young? If only I'd been one of his BFFs. I would have hung out with him and brought over some Dominos (classic recipe of course), some B&G's PhishFood and plenty of muscle relaxers. We could have watched 6 hours of Forensic Files to quench all of our morbid curiosities and 4 hours of Wife Swap or What Not to Wear to remind ourselves that we ARE better than everyone else. That's why they invented reality television! Oh well, RIP Alex. Here are some of his pieces on sale today:

Yesterday, a friend of a friend gave me all her old patterns because she's moving to NY. This caftan is one of my faves. I wish it were in small so I could make one for myself. Can I just say, I LOVE a man in black & white stripes! He must be stuck in façonner la prison.

buns of steel!

My hair is too thin for a nice bun. At least that's what I thought. I just bought these Goody Spin Pins and THEY WORK. I did have to get my wire cutters out and shorten them. This bun is tight. I could head-bang and this baby wouldn't fall out. Now I can be secretary sexy!