I visited home again this weekend, and as always I had to stop by my favorite thrift store. c;

Didn’t get anything extremely exciting this time, but I’m still happy with my purchases~

I thought I needed more sweaters, but for some reason the weather has been super nice lately.. high of 45 today! Part of me wants the cold weather back so I can have the chance to wear these before winter is gone. But only part. The rest of me doesn’t want to bike in the cold again…

This sweater is a lovely pale blue, almost lavender color~ I plan on decorating it using a similar method as the eyeball sweater (but a different design of course). :]

I’m still working on finding the perfect pair of high-waisted denim shorts. Most of the thrift stores don’t have changing rooms so I try them on over whatever I’m already wearing. :p These fit pretty well.. I still have to cut them to the right length though (they’re only folded up in the ‘after’ photo).

And finally, here’s a cute little (long) floral dress I found. c; It fit me so perfectly that I had to get it. All I’ll need to alter on this one is the length, maybe just above the knees. :D

Look at my new sweater!

Now look more closely:

Hahahahaa, best $3.99 spent ever. I bought this as an experiment (also because it’s awesome). I want to see how many people notice the design, and then see how many of those people actually call me out on it.

I also want to know if whoever designed it realized what they were designing.. or is my mind just in the gutter?

I found it yesterday while hanging out with my friend Nick. We went to a couple thrift stores, then walked around pilson and near chinatown.

After leaving one of the thrift stores, I noticed this car…

It’s BEDAZZLED. On the side was the web address “www.trishpage.com,” which turns out to be the site of an artist who does murals and face painting. (I can’t even imagine how long that took her.. my shoes took me around 15 hours, and she did an entire van.)

Nick swears he saw the van before we went into the thrift store, even though I swear it wasn’t there until we left. But I’m also notoriously bad at noticing things (even things like huge bedazzled vans), so he may actually be telling the truth.

Also, sorry for the lack of updates! I’ve been busy these last couple days finishing up last minute projects and hanging out with friends before going back to my apartment and classes~

Trying to put together an outfit for new year’s eve~~

Dress thrifted for $2.50, shrug was $4 from forever21

Today my friend Matt and I went out thrift shopping in Chicago. :D

My original plan was to go to a bunch of different shops and review them for you guys online, since I often get questions about my favorite thrift shops in Chicago. I never had any good recommendations because I 1) don’t know the names/locations of all the thrift shops I’ve been to in Chicago and 2) prefer the thrift stores in the Chicago suburbs for both price and selection.

But it didn’t actually work out that way today… We only made it to two stores, and both were salvation army whoops. :p So here is my normal post about what I ended up getting~

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Target actually donates a lot of their old stock to Salvation Army. I got these for $0.99 at the Salvation Army located at 2270 North Clybourn Avenue. They had an okay selection there.. Matt mentioned that a lot of the resale/vintage shops (think Wicker Park) go through thrift stores in the morning and pick out the “nice” stuff, so that may be why I don’t like the selection at city thrift stores as much.

At that same store I got this corset/bustier top. Another thing about Salvation Army stores; usually they have a sign hanging outside telling you what color tag is half price that day. If purple is the color of the day and your tag is purple, you get it half off. :D This top was marked $1.99 but it must’ve been half price, because it rang up as $0.99. ;p

I’m planning on altering this one so it’s a cropped bustier top. c;

The second store we went to was the giant Salvation Army 509 North Union Avenue. This one has three huge levels: one for “bric-a-brac”, one for furniture and one for clothing.

On the third floor with the clothing, there is a sectioned-off area for collectibles/things they mark up higher (ew :p ). They had a shelf for records, and on it was this yellow box with 45s in it. I wasn’t sure if they were actually selling the box (it said “$2.00 each” on it so I thought they might just be selling the 45s inside). I asked and the cashier was super nice, and ended up selling it to me for $2. :D

As you can see I was originally using a cut-to-size packing box to store my 45s. NowI have a super cute, bright case to carry them in!~

Afterwards we got something to eat. We were originally planning on going to Family Thrift Store at 2527 West Cermak Road (I think I’ve been to this one before with my friend Nick, but I have a terrible sense of direction and can’t say for sure). But then Matt mentioned wanting to check out screenprinting supply stores which reminded me I needed to get more mesh screen. So we headed over to Chicago Silk Screen Supply at 882 North Milwaukee Avenue.

I was planning to order the mesh online but never got around to it, haha… But problem solved! Now I can start on my next shirt design and make a screen printing tutorial in the process. :]

So that was my day, it’s always nice to hang out with friends~ Hope you all had a great day too!

One last post from today’s adventures before I get to work on a new project.. Here’s my outfit for the day. :]

It may look like I’m not wearing much, and it may be tempting to think that we are having nice weather. But it only got up to 40 something degrees today (actually that is warm nevermind).

I’m actually wearing a couple layers under the sweater. One of them a hooded jacket. But you can’t tell because the sweater is so huge whooo! Shoes made by me, and photo taken by my dad~

I got the sweater earlier this year for $5 while thrift shopping with my friend Nick. He laughed at me when I put it on the first time. I was prepared to take in the sides until Eva saw me try it on and told me I should leave it as is. And I’m happy I did, because now I can wear EVERYTHING under it and no one will ever know.

Eva and I hadn’t been thrift shopping together since before she moved to Seattle this summer! D: So today we fixed that.

We discovered how fun it is to take photos at the thrift store.. you don’t even have to buy the clothes AND you have awesome scenery.

Slight cam-whoring in this album (on flickr here).. but we had fun and that’s what counts, right? ;p

As always, I went to my favorite thrift store when I visited home over thanksgiving break. And I finally got a cat sweater whooo! It was only $0.90~

There was one problem with it though… it came with a turtleneck attached…

For some reason it was essential to the structural integrity of the sweater, so when I ripped the seam the whole shirt collar came off (I just sewed it back on without the turtle neck). :p

I wanted to wear it to class tomorrow but am probably not wearing the skirt since I’m still biking. So here is the actual outfit I’m wearing tomorrow, the last day of class for the semester(!!). :]

The bottlecap bow I’m wearing was made by my twin Eva, I think she might still have some in her etsy shop~

I’ve been going to my studio in between classes lately to try and make use of every spare moment I have. Here are a couple projects I’ve been working on..

The top photo is the top of a 1940s dress I’m making. :] The assignment was to find an image of a historical piece of clothing, then go to the thrift store and find something that you could potentially alter to make it look like that historical piece. I started with a huge yellow dress. ;p This is due thursday so I’ll be able to post photos of the finished piece soon ahhh..

The second photo is of the progress on my lady gaga halloween costume. :D I realized I didn’t have time to do a full outfit from one of the music videos so I am doing a born this way jacket-inspired outfit. The jacket isn’t as close to the original as I’d like it to be, but the thrift stores around where I’m currently living aren’t nearly as nice as the ones around my hometown.. :c

Still need to shorten the jacket and add studs (hopefully they come in the mail soonn), as well as style the wig and stud the bra I’m wearing with it.

So much to do~~

When I went home for the wedding a couple weeks ago, I had to stop at my favorite thrift store. It’s a salvation army in the suburbs and I haven’t found any yet that compare in both selection and price. A Chicago salvation army may have awesome stuff but everything there is way overpriced.

So here’s what I picked up. :D

Originally I thought this was a dress. It wasn’t until yesterday when I tried it on for photos that I found out it was a romper. xD

I already removed the shoulder pades (they were hugee!). I got it with the intention of turning it into a loose/cropped blouse. It’s semi-sheer so I would wear something under it.. But now that I know it’s a romper I’m not sure what I’m going to do anymore. :p

Only ninety cents! I looked at this and immediately thought, “fabric.” It’s actually a huge dress, but in this case, the bigger the better because it means more fabric. c; I fell in love with the planet/moon/stars print..Not sure what I’m making with this yet.

And finally here’s a $2 sweater. I’m pretty sure it’s from the 1970s at least, maybe sooner? I had to mend a few seams but other than that it was in super good condition. I’m trying to prepare for fall and winter, and now I have a super bright blue sweater~

My outfit today. c; My roommate Caro and I decided to wear dresses since it might be the last time we have the weather for it..

While thrift shopping with Eva a couple months ago I got a blue sailor jumpsuit for $3. With a lot of creative cutting and sewing (if I do say so myself :p ) I turned it into a dress with two tiers. :D

The hair bow I made awhile ago (just some ribbon and a hairclip), and the prescription glasses I just recently got for $12.

Here’s the original jumpsuit:

And a couple more photos~

I’ve been wary of actually wearing this dress out because I feel like it makes me look less than 12.. but Caro advised me match it with lace leggings and tall shoes to make the outfit a bit more mature. ;p

I only had colored lace leggings and none of them matched the dress (I didn’t have any black or neutral colors), so I borrowed these from her. I’m pretty sure that between the two of us, we have every color and shade of leggings available, haha.