Leggings are a blessing. They can stand in for pants or tights, hide unshaven legs and dance party bruises, and generally function as work-appropriate pajamas. For those of us who buy our leggings from cheap fast fashion chains and wear them daily, the unfortunate truth is that one pair of leggings won’t last a year.
I have a plethora of ripped, hole-y, basic black leggings strewn around my closet. (I like to keep them around so that I can wear them in a leggings emergency.) Recently I decided that they needed to move on. Like a sartorial organ donor, they needed to be stripped for parts and put to new use.
First up: I used the waistband from a pair of old leggings to help create an incredibly basic skirt. I grabbed a yard of rayon fabric from my stash and threw together a tutorial. The skirt turned out incredibly comfortable – as comfortable as leggings – and with any luck it won’t fall apart in the wash. (Let’s be honest, the vast majority of my homemade clothes are held together by luck.)
When I moved into the house that I currently share with my life partner and stepcat, I decided that the spare bedroom would make an excellent home office for all the creating and writing and “business” things that I would probably be doing, eventually, as if moving into this house would turn me into a real adult instead of the cobbled together with crayon and construction paper fake adult that I pretend to be. With an inflated sense of ability, I set out to create the home office of my dreams.
Any good vampire knows the importance of blocking out as much sunlight as possible from dawn until dusk. Unfortunately, after years of use and abuse my sturdy sleep mask finally turned into dust. What’s an undead creature of the night to do?
Spring is springing and Anthropologie is attempting to harvest your paycheck with some new offerings. While my personal style tends more to “hobo” than “boho,” there’s an occasional piece that catches my eye. Lots of these items would be pretty easy to DIY, saving you a trip to the mall-hole. Additionally, you can save a bunch of cash and get your style fix without buying more chiffon landfill fodder. Do it for the earth.
Perusing the offerings, I can’t help but wonder. Maybe I’m projecting, but something about the long, dark winter has unraveled the minimal ties to reality that our friendly Anthro designers usually have. Hold on to your butts, people. It’s gonna get weird.
Should we…brooch the subject? $158. (image via anthropologie.com)
Look at these jeans. They have Nana’s brooches! You can go to Value Village and find LOTS of Nana brooches for $.99. Then you can put them on any pants your heart desires. You could change them every day, or move the brooches from pant to pant, creating different looks for different occasions. Do not cross your legs or the pin from a brooch will go in your thigh and you will get tetanus. When that happens, you will have to go to the doctor and confess that you can’t remember your last shot because it was four insurance companies and seven primary care providers ago.
Rocky is gonna be pissed when he sees what Adrian did to his sweatshirt. $78. (image via anthropologie.com)
This one takes a little more effort. It’s still less than $78 worth of effort, though, so you’ll come out ahead. Find a sweatshirt and cut a u-shape in the neck. Hem it in a haphazard fashion. Cut the hood off, and sew the hood to the inside of the u-shape. Lace with an old shoestring. Choose your own sleeve adventure. Maybe you want to cut off the sleeves all the way, instead of half way. Sun’s out, guns out, amirite?
Let’s put the “ass” in “tassel.” $228. (image via anthropologie.com)
Does your overhead lighting produce shadows that look like the Wicker Man? If it doesn’t, you’re really missing out. This chandelier looks impossible to clean and impossible to resist DIY-ing. Spiders will love it! If you want to make this, knock yourself out. There are hella tassel tutorials out there. Google it. (I’m not gonna find you a link. This is a crappy blog, remember?)
Did you get that at Pier One? More like Pier NONE. $38 (image via anthropologie.com)
This is a “sailboat decorative object.” The price seems sort of reasonable compared to the other “decorative objects” in its cohort. This is a technique Anthropologie employs to trick you into buying something extra stupid, by lowering its price relative to its stupid peers. So! Let’s look a little closer. $38 fat benjis gets you a boat apparently assembled with barbecue skewers, a table napkin, and some garden twine. You could make this out of scraps collected after a barbeque, and then you could name your boat the H.M.S. GrillMarque.
Hair claw. $148. (image via anthropologie.com)
You’ve got one of these lurking in your bathroom cabinet, left over from 1998. Admittedly, they make you scalp hurt, but when you really want to turn your look up to 11, there’s just no substitute for a Hair Claw. Counting tiny butterflies, I probably had at least twenty of these at one point. The description of the item includes the phrases “sublime elegance” and “modern touches,” which is…generous. For 1/100th of the price, you can glue some rhinestones on a scalp mangler of your choice. Instead of such a measly sprinkling, you can bedazzle it on every visible surface.
The only question left: Which of these are you going to try first?
Handcrapted 