Cocktail Hour

It's cocktail hour at Green Violet Vintage- or rather, cocktail DRESS hour. I can't believe how many lovely cocktail dresses I found this week, from the 60s to the 80s! Some are up in the shop now and the rest will be up this week.

Up-cycling v2.0

More details about the process to come later, but for now...

Before:



After:

Yay! I'm so excited about how it turned out! It will be up for sale soon in Green Violet Vintage!

Thanks!!

Thanks for all the love on the dress, ya'll! To answer a few questions: no, I didn't use a pattern or a dress form. I just tried the dress on A LOT while I was working on it and refashioned the top part probably two times. I sew like I cook- I make it up as I go and I use only what I have on hand (too lazy to go to the store mid project!). This results in some strange meals and strange clothing, but I kind of like it! It keeps things interesting.

Anyways, with all the love I've already started in on a few new upcycling projects. I'm almost done with the first one but my room mate was working overnight at the hospital (he's a doctor) and now he is sleeping and I don't want to run the sewing maching and wake him up! But, it should be done soon and I'll be sure to post about it here, hopefully later tonight. And, as much as I would like to keep all these projects for myself, my closet and my wallet can't afford it, so they will be up in the shop for sale!

The best thing I've ever made!

Hands down, this is certainly the best thing I have ever made... here it is from start to finish!


The raw materials- four t-shirts I bought from the goodwill clearance center. I decided to go with an orange theme. I got one t-shirt that fit well on the top so that I wouldn't have to do too much fashioning of the bodice since I really don't know what I'm doing. That's the light orange on on the left.

Fashioning the bodice. This took a while since I'm kind of clueless about sewing and what not. I took it apart and put it back together several times.

Petey loves it when I sew because he gets to chew on the extra fabric. Petey is a machine of destruction!

I'm almost finished here, it was pretty easy to make the skirt. I just got as much material as possible out of the two remaining t-shirts, sewed them together in one big piece, and gathered the top! I then connected the skirt to the top with the waistband.

Finished product! yay! I'm really please with how this turned out!


You can see the contrast stitching that I did in teal- mostly because I didn't have any orange thread. But I like how it turned out.

This was a super fun project! I'm really glad that I could finally jump on the up-cycling bandwagon. Don't be intimidated by sewing- clearly I had no clue what I was doing and it turned out great. All it took was a little envisioning on the front end and a few attempts to get it right. Go on, try to make something!

8.22.09

Dress: Thrifted
Cardigan: Ann Taylor Loft
Shoes: Birkenstock
Scarf: Vintage, thrifted

You know what they say- don't go out not looking your best because you never know who you will run into! I didn't really believe them, but it turned out that they were right. Whoever 'they' are. All I'm saying is that I'm glad I put a little effort into my appearance last evening! I went to Downtown After Five, a free concert/mini festival type thing that the City of Asheville puts on once a month. Afterwards, we went to this crazy secret bar that I had heard of but never previously patronized. Its on the top floor of one of the highest buildings in town (that's the eighth floor in our virtual metropolis) and there were great views of the mountains all around. Fun was had by one and all!

Green Violet Vintage does Halloween!

I'm getting geared up for Halloween at Green Violet Vintage! I wasn't really intending to have anything for Halloween, but I found three really awesome costume pieces this week and now I'm on the search for more! Check it out:

70s Pocahontas Dres (S, M)

70s Canvas Hunting Vest (Men's M, L)

70s German Beermaid Dress (M, L, XL)

Well, things have been pretty dull for me around here lately, I'm mostly just looking for a job and working some on Etsy! I'm starting to get a bit stressed out, but I guess I just have to hope for the best and assume it will all work out in the end. I'm sure my dream job is out there somewhere, I just wish I knew when and where.

An Ode to the Goodwill Clearance Center

Oh, Goodwill Clearance Center, how I love thee! You always have the wackiest and most amazing things! Check these crazy ladies out at Green Violet Vintage, they are up in the shop now!

New Boyfriends

On Friday night, I was lucky enough to make a surprise visit to the Big Surprise Tour. It was the best show ever! Apparently you aren't allowed to bring "cameras with detachable lenses" into any Knoxville city event, so I stole these videos of my new boyfriends off of YouTube so ya'll could check out their hotness. Or am I the only one who finds bluegrass musicians strangely attractive? Seriously. This show was insane. I was going to tell ya'll all to go see it, but Friday was the last night of the short tour!



Justin Townes Earle with some members of Old Crowe Medicine Show



The Felice Brother with Dave Rawlings ( Wren's new boyfriend), Gillian Welch, et. al

8.11.09

Quick outfit post...


I actually wore this on Tuesday, never got around to taking a photo of it, and put it back on today just to photograph it because I really loved the outfit so much! I thought the pink and blue and white together might be a bit too... pastel? Childish? I don't know, but I like the way it turned out! And here are my new favorite shoes, my mother bought them for me at the J.Crew Clearance Center (which I clearly won't shut up about and people are finding my blog because they are googling it and it doesn't have a website so now I am the respected web authority on its mysterious location and awesomeness). Anyways, they were only 20 bucks! True story.

Hiking!

Ok, so unemployment is embarrassingly fun. I should probably be sitting around depressed all day, right? Well, I am spending a lot of time looking for jobs and applying for jobs, but in the mean time I'm also taking advantage of doing some things that you just don't get to do when you are sitting at a desk from 9-5. Like yesterday, I went on this amazing hike with a friend of mine who had the day off and my little dog, Petey. We hiked a long way though the mountains near Hot Springs, NC, next to the beautiful Laurel River. Then, we found this amazing spot to swim! What was so great was that almost no one else was on the trail because it was a Thursday! Here are some of my better pictures from yesterday:





And here is one for fun!

New Dresses!

I wanted to share the fun new dresses I've put up in the shop over the past few days. I've listed more than I'm showing you here, so if you like what you see pop on over and check it out!

80s Pink Roses Sheer Shirt Dress (M, L)

80s Bandana Day Dress (L, XL)

60s Madras Plaid Indian Play Dress (S, M)

70s Yellow Sunburst Dress (L, XL, XXL)

A little DIY project

Yesterday while I was thrifting, I came upon this unfortunate piece of furniture. It wasn't much of a looker, but it did seem to be well constructed, it was made of actual wood, I did need a bedside table, and it was only $8, so I bought it.


I decided I would try to make it look a little nicer but I didn't have much of a plan. So I started sanding.



After doing a half-assed job of sanding, I assessed the paint and stain options I had lying around the house. It was looking like white or red were my only options. Because I used the red on a dresser thats in my room, I decided it would be a bit too much if I used it on this table also, so I settled on the white. Except I decided I wanted to 'whitewash' it. Except that I have no earthly clue how to whitewash and my only knowledge of whitewashing is from Tom Sawyer (or is it Huck Finn?). I figured I would just mix some white paint with some water and see what happened.

As you can see, attempt number 1 of whitewashing didn't go so well, so I adapted my technique. I got as much of the paint off the brush as possible and used a paper towel to wipe off any excess paint.

This is what it looked like after round 1 of painting. Better- but basically like I just did a crappy job of painting. So I decided to start sanding again, in hopes of giving it a more antique feel and making it look less like I just did a half-ass job of painting.


And you know what? I think it turned out alright and now it fits in with the rest of the really old furniture in my room.

I guess I accomplished antiquing, something that interior designers go to school for years and years to perfect (or maybe at least an afternoon class?). And you know what, mine was only 8 buck and it does a great job of holding all my books and my lamp next to my bed! Unemployment is fun!

Three Posts in One Day?

Can it be true? Well, I just updated my feed to just publish a shortened version to your RSS Reader, so I wanted to test it out and see if it worked! Also, while I was at it I thought I would give ya'll a little peek at what I put up in the shop today. It is GVV's first foray into accessories, and there are more to come, even for the menfolk!

Click here to check them out! Tomorrow I'm going to add a few more accessories and maybe even go thrifting! Yay!

Canoing!

I love canoing and I love living in Western North Carolina because there are so many awesome places to go so close by. Yesterday we went to the Tuckaseegee and I didn't take too many photos, but I did capture this series of shots that pretty much sums up how awesome the day was!

Sunday...

... just editing some GVV photos and listening to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. What could be better? Well, maybe yesterday could. I share some of those photos here soon!

8.6.09

For the first part of this week, I have kind of been hanging around the house, and only really getting dressed to go to the gym! I didn't think ya'll necessarily wanted to see that... hence the lack of personal style posts! Last night I met some friends downtown and tried to attempt a remix of my new fav thrift store dress...



Dress: Vintage, thrifted
Belt: Vintage, thrifted
Shoes: 9 west clearance center (only 5 bucks- but they are different sizes! ha!)
Bag: Vintage, gift from my mom

Well, I'm not sure I'm totally sold on this remix. I wanted to wear this dress in a less super sweet kind of way, but I'm not really sure if I pulled it off! There is something that I don't really like, maybe how all the browns are a different color? Speaking of clothes... these are up in the shop today!

Magenta Dress in a Plus Size- XXL!

Super Cute Plaid Skirt- M or L

Great Off-White dress, perfect for fall (or spring- can't forget my friends south of the Equator)- M, L