Hey Boo! Thanks for stopping by! So, I recently moved and the mirror in my bathroom was plain and boring. You can see a picture of it below.

I was thinking of ways to spruce up my bathroom and good ole Pinterest came through! I definitely can’t take credit for the idea or assembly of this project. This tutorial was very detailed, and helpful. I pretty much followed her exact instructions. I also had needed the help of my mom and brother. This project was kind of out of my element, y’all know I’m more of a sewing, Martha Stewart crafts kinda gal, so trying to go shopping, with a list, in The Home Depot, was soo overwhelming. Especially because the most experience I have with tools is putting a nail in the wall with a hammer, oh and I’ve screwed things with a screwdriver before! LOL So I did have to go back a few times before I had everything, but all the trips were worth it in the end.

I got my wood cut to size at Home Depot, the stain I used was Varathane in color Special Walnut.

The only thing that was different about our frames was the color stain. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted a darker stain wood. I’ve never stained wood before and I thought this would be dark enough. I used the same color stain as her “Special Walnut” but I did use a different brand so I guess that made a difference. I kept thinking the stain would get darker as it dried, when I realized this was the final color I was so mad. I just started at the can of stain like how could you betray me like this???? LOL Although I didn’t like the color of the stain, I refused to go back to Home Depot. So I just went with it… You could paint or even spray paint this frame if the wood stain doesn’t suit you.

As far as price this project is pretty budget friendly.

• Wood- About $10
• Wood Stain- $6 or regular paint/spray paint
• Mending plates-$3
• Screws$2
• D-ring hangers- $3
• Acrylic paint- $1-2
• Wood Glue- $3
• Drop Cloth- $1 (My local dollar tree had some)
• You will also need a drill or screwdriver or some sort

In conclusion, I think if you have experience with wood working and shopping in Home Depot, this would be a simple project for you. For me, the hardest part was shopping for all the things. Y’all should have saw me staring at the power drills! LOL A couple times I just said “Forget this, I’m gonna go look at the plants..” I did all the shopping and planning of the project by myself, my mom and brother just helped with the assembly. So do seek help if you start to feel overwhelmed.

Even though the stain didn’t come out the shade I wanted, I still like the end result and I think the mirror looks way better with it!!

What do you think of this project?? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading this far and visiting my blog! Appreciate you boo! XOXO

Hey Loves! Thanks for visiting my blog! As the title states this post is about the outfit I made for my birthday! I’ll get the basics out of the way first… The fabric is Power Mesh from Fabricwholesaledirect.com. This website has great quality power mesh and you can’t beat the price, only $4 a yard! This year I had a lot of ideas for an outfit and couldn’t decide what I wanted to make. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to wear black. I love me some color and prints but I also looove an all black look.

Last year I was inspired by designer FeNoel and this year was no different. I truly love her designs. Like every single thing. The moment I can afford to splurge on (black owned) designer garments, Im going to buy something from her. The dress I decided to recreate is the Fe Noel Dancehall Jersey Knit Dress (pictured below) and it retails for a little over $1000. The Fenoel dress is not power mesh but some type of knit jersey fabric. I felt like the power mesh was pretty close in texture and drape so I went with that.

I stared at this dress for a long time trying to figure out how to recreate it. lol I started with a raglan sleeve t-shirt and went from there. I used the t-shirt as my pattern and turned it into a floor length dress. Once I had that pattern, I doubled the length so I would be able to gather the dress and still have it be long. I did the same thing with the sleeves, made them long sleeves first, then doubled the length of the sleeve.

Gathering

There are alot of ways you can create the ruching or gathering effect in this dress, I’ll explain below.

By Hand: On the description of this dress it says it is “hand ruched.” I definitely didn’t plan on hand ruching the whole dress but I did have to do some areas by hand.

Elastic and serger- This is a great method I saw in a youtube video. The girl used clear 1/4 inch elastic. She placed the elastic between 2 layers of fabric and stretched it as she sewed the elastic in between the fabric with her serger blades. Believe she took her serger blades off for this. I think its a great method but only ideal if you are ruching a seam. If I find the Youtube video I will link it on this post.

Zig-Zag Yarn method- This is a technique I often use when I have really long pieces to gather. In this case I think this method could work, however, I did not try it. I know the zig zag yarn method is not ideal when gathering around an armhole or a side seam, that’s why I did not do it.

Clear Elastic and Sewing Machine- In the end went with clear elastic. I set my machine to a small stitch, stretched my elastic, and sewed with a zig zag stitch. This method worked perfectly and I didn’t have to do a center seam in the front or back. When it came to the sides of the dress I gathered by hand, but you can also do the elastic and serger method on the side seams.

The most confusing part of making this dress was the armhole area for me. I feel like no matter what I did or how much I gathered it, it didn’t look like the picture. In the end I know in order to properly execute this dress I needed to make a muslin, which I did not make due to time constraints. lol I almost did not wear or post this dress because of my perfectionist ways eating at me. So many of you commented and DM’d me about it so I posted it and wrote this blog post. So thank you for that! If there is anything I missed in this post leave a comment here, or on IG @itsnichelleb!

Thank you for visiting!

Another jumpsuit!! This is the 3rd one I’ve made since “Quarantine”. I like this one because I feel like its right in between the other 2 jumpsuits I made as far as style and construction. The first jumpsuit was super easy and beginner friendly. The second one was super detailed, not really for a beginner. This jumpsuit is right in the middle.. Chill but still chic, and not too heavy on the details. lol

If you like my pink “quarantine jumpsuit” but want something that’s quicker and easier to make then this is for you! This pattern would work great in a cotton, linen, lightweight denim, or lightweight twill fabric. This fabric has been in my stash for a long time so Im not exactly sure what kind of fabric it is, but it’s lightweight and it has some stretch. If I had to take a guess I would say it is a cotton twill fabric. This was only going to be a test garment but I like how it turned out.

This jumpsuit has an invisible zipper in the back, side pockets, and an optional tie belt with a small waist bag attached.

I ran out of fabric and matching thread during this project so there are some small imperfections. For example I couldn’t do any topstitching, I wanted the belt to be longer, and I had to piece together some fabric in the back that isn’t very noticeable but still there is a seam in a random place.

So to make this I combined 2 patterns. I used #M7872 for the top and the pattern I used for the bottom is out of print but you can use any pant pattern that isn’t made for knits and does NOT have an elastic waist. Honestly I would recommend just buying the McCalls pattern instead of hacking because it took a lot more time to hack and you pretty much get the same result. If I had the pattern I would have just used that. LOL I love jumpsuits because they are so easy to dress up or down.

Heyyy Booo, I know its been a while since I wrote a blog post! The past couple of months have been a transition for me. I moved from Maryland to North Carolina to Atlanta. It has been so hard to create while moving to different places, not having all of my belongings, starting a new job, and having no one to take my pictures! lol Most of the pictures you see on my page lately have been taken by me using the self timer on my camera. I even had a birthday shoot setup here in Atlanta but the photographer and the weather failed me twice so I had to flick it up by myself. lol

Having a blog is hard work and I really want to keep y’all inspired and give you my best but sometimes I feel like my best is to give myself a break. Sometimes its best to just chill and not stress myself out with the running to the fabric store, figuring out what am I going to make, writing a post, setting up shoots etc. It’s definitely not that blogging is stressful, its when you combine blogging with all the other things like… Life.. LOL Family events, a job, custom orders, work events, cooking dinner, exercising etc. t can get pretty exhausting quickly… I notice a lot of makers take a step back from it all because they feel constant pressure to create and push out garments like a factory worker. However that is not the reason any of us create.

We create to feel fulfilled inside, we create because we love it, we love the process, we love working with our hands, WE LOVE INSPIRING OTHERS. So instead of creating something when I’m not in the mood or my heart isn’t in it, I recharge. I used to feel sooo guilty for recharging, I would tell myself “I should just push through and make something anyway.” When I did that I started to feel like I was taking the joy out of sewing by sewing and creating when I’m really not in the right headspace for it. Who wants to sit at their sewing machine with an attitude? Lmao It’s just not a good feeling. Then I realized us sewing bloggers have to give ourselves some grace! Giving yourself grace means we free ourselves from our guilt. Tell yourself IT’S OK and be kind with your words.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of making garments just to make them. That’s not what I’m about and I want to create from my heart not because I haven’t posted anything in 3 days. I sew to build my wardrobe and because I want to inspire others to create. I hope y’all can understand that and still rock with me when I haven’t posted in a few days. lol

Ok so onto my birthday outfit. I mentioned that this year it was hard for me to create my bday outfit. Moving and not having all of my sewing supplies here did make things a bit more difficult. My dressforms and pretty much all my sewing patterns are still in North Carolina. I was also running out of time, so not having patterns wasn’t really an issue, it was that I didn’t have time to draft patterns, make muslins, etc. So I had to think of something that was cute and simple. I ended up with a skirt and a vest. I wanted to use my fav simplicity pattern to make a bodysuit to wear underneath but again I didn’t have it and did not find it at my local Joanns here in GA. So I got a cheap bodysuit from Rainbow. Thank God because I was about to be topless. lol

This skirt was inspired by designer Fenoel. I saw this skirt on her page and it was really a see it, like it, make it moment.

My skirt is similar to hers with the 2 ruffles at the bottom, but I went with another color and a slightly different type of fabric. My fabric is bit heavier that hers but it is still see through. I feel like hers is probably some type of chiffon or organza fabric, my fabric is more of a lightweight polyester. So here is my look below.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog! I appreciate you reading this! Leave comment and let me know how you feel about this post! I want to know as a maker do you feel pressure to keep the garments coming?

What do you think? Did it come together? I will be doing a loc update/post next soo come back boo! XOXO

Hey Boo Thang,

Welcome back to my blog! I’m showing you some yoga and sewing today. I love when I can combine the two! Honestly this D.I.Y came from a top I saw on Pinterest.

To make this I used the Simplicity Pattern as a base, however the bodice pieces that come with that pattern are for a turtleneck, so the neckline on them is really high. I kept the bottom shape of the bodysuit but I used another basic bodice sloper for the neckline. Once I had that cut out it was just a regular shaped one piece.

The back has a center seam so I sewed that together, then the shoulder seams and the sides. On my last bodysuit I did snaps in the middle but I didn’t do that with this one. I just closed it up, so yes I would have to take it all the way down if I need to use the bathroom.. Bummer lol

Now of course since I was doing one side or one sleeve I could have just cut this out with one side from the beginning but I didn’t. I tried it on and then took it back off laid it out and just used. my judgement and cut a curve, trimming off the other shoulder seam giving this the one shoulder look. Then I attached the elastic all around the top and around the 2 leg openings. This bodysuit looks cute but I didn’t think this all the way through to be considered for activewear. LOL Since there is no support on the other side if you wear this without a bra (like me) while doing activities involving a lot of movement (like I did) you could risk having a lil nip slip. lol I don’t see that being a problem if you aren’t running, or exercising, or hanging upside down in this bodysuit, but that is something to make note of if you decide to make this! All in all I like the end result but think I’ll stick to pairing this bodysuit with jeans.

Also, why did I write this post and not press publish! I’m losing it! Pray for me! lmao