Day 277. 88 days and $89 left to go.

I’m going for an Indigo Girls kind of look today…well less on the band vibe and more specifically on the color to be honest.

Day 277 - Before

This dress had these awesome buttons at the neck and pockets (!!!), however the sleeves were some of those fitted at the wrists/baggy by the arm pits kind.  The dress was gathered with elastic at the waist, giving a baggier look here, so I wanted to contrast that with something that was going to be a bit more fitted on my chest.

First thing’s first though…later pads!!

Pads!

In fixing the top of the dress, I’m going to go the strapless route.  Before we get there, I’m taking both of the sleeves off!

Seam ripping sleeves!

Using my seam ripper, I began unstitching both sleeves around the armpits.  I got one off without a hitch…

Sleeves are off!

…and the other one followed.

They're both off!

In prepping the top for the straplessness that was around the corner, I took off the top six buttons with my seam ripper and then cut a straight line across the top of the dress that hit where the fourth button was just removed.

Buttons off...

I folded the raw edges under to prep for a new seam and sewed up the sides where the sleeves were removed to close up shop.

I paired my new dress with some of my eBay gold and purple baubles, a lavender belt, and my black Michael Kors kicks (another eBay find a year ago) for my night that included a little hang out action with some friends at La Vida…

Day 277 - After

I ran into the awesome/fab/insanely talented Lauren, Billy and Chike who are A, still rehearsal-ing before the SYTYCD tour starts up in a few weeks and B, making me want to go take a dance class asap because bopping to Cee Lo and Kanye tonight just wasn’t enough…

Just a little hanging with some new friends

…before taking some iPhone pics with my favorite @nyquil32.

Cheese!!

Awesome way to ring in September!! Humpday hang nights rule!

Day 184. 181 days and $178 left to go.

It’s been an eventful holiday weekend and today was the perfect, veg-full, sunny, warm-until-the-sun-went-down day!  PS, I don’t know about the rest of you but I literally couldn’t get it straight that it wasn’t Sunday – this always happens on these long weekends and I get totally skewed.  I am fully clear that tomorrow is Tuesday though and my alarm has been rightfully set for the proper time in the am 🙂

It began with this…

Day 184 - Before

l honestly chose this because of what I wanted it to look like at the end (STRAPLESS!!) but I think it may have helped the Duke lacrosse team, including my awesome cousin Mike, secure a win in this year’s NCAA competish against Notre Dame.  Team colors in the house…albeit a minor fluke 🙂

Day 184 - Take Two!

OK, so there was a lot of fixin’ that needed to be done.  First I snipped off both sleeves.

Cut the sleeves!!

Next the rest of the dress needed to be taken in.  I began pinning all the way from the top of the dress to the very bottom…

Pins!

…and then got on the sewing machine to stitch it up.  After stitching, I trimmed off the excess and used half of that material as a belt around my waist and the other half as a bow that I tied onto the belt.

Day 184 - After

There’s nothing like the backdrop of Los Angeles to take my after pic in front of.  Spending the late afternoon bbq-ing on the rooftop of LG’s building was exactly the thing to close the long weekend out.

Before the cheeseburger and chicken sausage action, my favorite pic of the day was shot by KK during the magic hour.

Love my camera for taking such a glammy pic & love my friends for being such glammy models 🙂

And post magic hour came sleepy time hour where I made my way to the most comfy chair on the roof that I just sunk into with my matching cup…

Matchy, matchy!

…and watched the sun set into the hills.  A most blissful day 🙂

And scene.

Love to all the past and present service men and women out there 🙂  Happy Memorial Day!