If I could give anyone good life advice, it would be to look past the high street and designer shops when buying Chelsea boots, but to find your local country store and buy them there! Seriously, every time I have wanted to buy boots like that, I have nipped in to my local country store and amongst the hay and horse food, there has always been the perfect pair of leather boots, for under £30!
In my mind Riding boots = Chelsea boots! They look the same, no?
Anyway, as mine were so cheap I though I could experiment with them, without worrying too much if I ruined them.
For this little D.I.Y. venture, all you will need is a pair of boots, spikes and a craft knife... And maybe some blu-tack.
Boots - Bought from Scats Country stores. £25 - Real Leather.
Spikes from ebay - You will need the spikes which screw on from the back.
Start by blu-tacking the spikes on, just so you can play around with the layout and design.
When you are happy with the placement,
take the spikes off one by one and mark each one with a metallic pen.
Cut small holes with your craft knife, whilst twisting the knife to make sure the holes are circle shape. One of my most useful tools was a long spike from a broken earring I had.
It was useful to push in and make the holes wider.
One by one cut the holes and screw in the spikes. Pushing in the screws from inside of the boot. It is easiest to start with the holes at the end of the toe, as they are most difficult to reach from the inside, so it is best to get the worst done first.
Finished!
I am really annoyed because I forgot to take a photo of the finished product before I wore them in Paris, so now they look all muddy and beaten up.
But you get the idea.
I must admit I got a lot of strange looks from the Parisians!
Surely they are accustomed to studded boots? I was a bit worried at first that I wouldn't be let through security at the Eurostar station, because trust me they are sharp! A kick to the face with these bad boys and one would surely be scarred for life!
I am now into my 3rd week....wait..no 4TH :OOO week of University :O
Apart from having flu/tonsillitis and then an allergic reaction to antibiotics, I have literally LOVED every minute of Uni life so far :) All my flat friends are lovely and the tutors are really friendly and inspiring (that makes a nice change) :D
The first couple weeks of lectures were a bit of a slog, just because of the fact that I completely could not focus on work, with freshers going on etc.... but now I have got into my first project properly I am quite excited for it all :P
Today was the best day so far! We were in the knitwear department on the knitting machines, making samples for our technical files...
My attempt...
(I was trying to make a cheeky scarf but my machine broke so I had to stop half way and start a different piece)...
Our project is called "Opposites Attract", so I have been creating some mood boards of opposites that could influence me... Our final choice has to be two opposites that compliment each other...
Rich
Poor
Embellished
Minimal
Along with the project and the knitwear lectures, we have also had fashion/paper styling and art/drawing lessons and visual communication lectures. Here are a few photos from these...
Painting and Drawing...
Paper Styling...
Fashion Styling...
I must say, we had an interesting array of clothes (and blankets) to work with! It was fun...
Hehe I dressed Millie up :3...
She really loved me dressing her up like this, especially as I made her stand on a chair without being able to see :P Oh no health and safety...
In sewing class I tried to create a bodice/top by draping, pinning, tacking and then overlocking fabric...
It would have gone well had I not sewn it inside out :P Oooops!
Along side Uni work, my friend Laura and I have been going to several societies as we share the same interests! In the second week of Uni we went to Astronomy society to chill with all the very clever Astro students! I bet they loved us fashion lot asking them very blonde questions :3
Laura and I also joined the Wessex scene magazine, which is the Southampton Uni magazine, so we should hopefully be helping with layout and imagery on the next issue.
On Saturday we took a trip to Surge Radio which is the Southampton Uni radio station. The guys from the DJ society were doing a two hour show and offered to show us the ropes, so that in a couple months maybe we could DJ on the radio...
http://surgeradio.co.uk
... and finally yesterday one of the guys from the DJ Society invited us round to give us a lesson on mixing on Vinyl decks :D All very exciting!!! And definitely something I would like to pursue further as I really enjoyed it!
Last Tuesday evening we also went a bit cray cray and decided to do D.I.Y. Tattoos with needles and India ink :O Ok it probably wasn't one of my best decisions, but hopefully when it has healed it should look quite nice and I feel it is more meaningful doing it myself :P (Cheaper too :D)
Mine is the little heart <3
With all this musical DJ-ness going on I have been on the look out for new music! Furiously creating new playlists, swapping music and downloading thingssss...
Last week I downloaded the album DJ-Kicks by Digitalism, which is a mix of songs by Digitalism and other similar artists! It's not really new or recent but seriously if you have £7 spare DOWNLOAD IT!!!! It is most definitely one of/THE best albums I have heard in a while!
My faves from the album...
This video is SO cute :3...
Heha going to see Digitalism at the end of the month in London :3
The other day my sister, her friend and I had a tie-dye day! Between us we tie-dyed around 13 garments. We used turquoise, navy, pink, yellow and red dye which when blended created the whole spectrum of colours. Luckily the weather was nice enough to do it outside, because we stained the grass different colours and even the rain hasn't washed it away yet! Oh well at least it wasn't carpet!
My plain white clothes ready to dye..!
The two t-shirts were from Primark in the men's section for £2.50 each :) I got XXS men's t-shirts because I find all the women's ones are stretch fabric in Primark! Stretchy t-shirts and tie-dye just don't go!...
All tied up...
We used paint brushes and small bottles to dye the clothes. This makes it alot easier to get specific colours in specific places :) As you can see, the 5 colours we used blended really nicely to make a whole spectrum of colours...
This one made a spiral pattern!
I can't really explain how I tied it like that, but here is Bill at Banana plantation to show you how to do it!!...
All of our clothes tied and dyed!...
MY SPIRAL TEE! Yaaay it worked!!...
All of my clothes...
Everyones clothes dyed...
We were really pleased with our tie-dyed clothes but the thing that really sucks is that when I went to tumble dry everything after rinsing them out all the red dye ran :( We managed to rinse most of it out but it made the other colours quite faded :(
So NEVER tumble dry tie-dyed stuff straight after dying it!!
Just after Christmas I bought this polka dot pencil skirt in the Topshop sale. It was £5 because it had a massive rip in the lining, so I decided to fix it and shorten it slightly to fit me. I was happy with this for a few months, until the other day I realised I had only worn it once... I think I was being too optimistic trying to suit a pencil skirt. I just don't have the legs!
Soooo, I thought I would have another go at changing it (in a more drastic form this time) to make a PEPLUM TOP :)
The skirt before...
I usually make my own patterns, but I found a top from a dress patttern that I wanted to try! It was a tight fit getting all the pattern pieces on the fabric, so I had to combine the polka dot fabric with some plain black left over scraps from FMP! I think there is a bit of a bias cut issue on the back of the top, where I had to rotate the pattern to fit it on the fabric :P
Oh well no one will know! (Shouldn't have told you that) Ha!
The skirt layed out flat...
You can see how much of a squeeze it was... I had to fold most of the pattern over to fit it on my last scraps...
Some serious tailoring going on there! Btw patterns are sooo not size accurate! It's best to cut a size larger so you can take it in if neccessary...
Almost finished! I'm not showing you pictures of the back yet, as I still need to sort out the zip!
I will post final photos soon!
< 3
What I have been listening to today...
Absolutely LOVE Xilent!...
Also really enjoying Darwin Deez today! Especially his lyrics :P
