Peasant blouse and 'new' skirt on the cheap!

Since the beginning of the year, I've been watching what I eat and exercising (more) regularly. I know, I know, kudos to me *cough*. Anyhoo, I've lost weight. And am still, slowly but steadily, losing weight. This is great, of course, and I'm really excited about it. But it also kinda sucks. See, when you have a bunch of extra to lose, you end up losing more than just a size or two. And this makes for big money going out the window to outfit yourself. Which is what makes losing weight even more of a pain in the bootay... buying clothes that fit me now, since my old clothes no longer do, even though I know I will be too skinny for them in another two or three weeks.

Solution?

Make do with what you have. I found a skirt with an elastic waist that I hadn't worn in FOREVER. It was really cute, elastic fits me at my fattest and skinniest, so why haven't I been wearing this fabulous piece of white heaven? Oh yeah, it's white. See through, you betcha, but also stained because I'm hard on clothes like that (not to mention super DUPER klutzy). Instead of trashing it and getting a new skirt, I decided to break out that old stand by of peace loving pacifists everywhere and TIE DYE THAT BAD BOY. Yep, it's purple with white circles now.



It still looks kind of knotty, I cut the rubber bands off and haven't rewashed or ironed it since. I love that the white thread in the hem and waist (also the cargo pockets that you can't see in this pic) didn't take, it's a nice contrast. Very summery.

I had four or five old tshirts, picked up from craft stores over the years with intent to use (Dumbledore's Army and Chudley Cannons shirts ring a bell) that were buried under a mountain of old clothes. I needed to make them a little dressier so that I can wear them to work, so I cut off the neckline and threw in some elastic. Did the same for the end of the sleeves. Wonder craft powers, activate!


Don't think you can see the neckline too well in this picture, but oh well. Am planning on adding some beaded embellishments one of these days. For now, it's fine.

So, all in all, I ended up with two pair of tie dyed socks, one tie dyed tshirt, one tie dyed skirt, and five tshirt-turned-peasant-blouses.

Cost breakdown: $1.49 for dye
$4.77 for elastic
Which brings it to:$6.26 for a 'new' summer wardrobe, or $0.76 per item. Buying new stuff= waste of time and money.