Customised Chic
My friends and I like to dress up now and then; our latest thing is to custom make T- Shirts. Well I customise them according to what my friends want. I have hoarded a lot of broken necklaces/ chains that come with gardening stuff/ unwanted belts/ keyboard wires/ padlocks with lost keys and wanted a way of recycling them into a cute outfit.
After reminiscing about my university days when my creativity was high due to not having much money (and still wanting to look good when going out), I though it was a shame I didn’t really customise things anymore. I think it is important to be different and also like to share my skills with others.
Cue night out planned in Birmingham- my friends came around armed with fabric paints and we all had ‘Chak De!’ painted on the front and ‘Phatte!’ on the back. The chains were done to our individual tastes, some of us preferred to be laden in heavy gangsta chains and others liked something more subtle.
I thought I’d share what I’d done:
1) Charm Chain top
The bottom edge of this top was decorated with various chains and bits of metal belts that I had saved for a crafty project. I even found a padlock which was redundant as I’d lost the key.
The shoulders were decorated with chains after stapling didn’t work out too well. The staples just came out very easily and also left holes in the fabric. Unfortunately the fabric was also too thick to staple right through at the top of the shoulders. Sewing the chains on required a lot of force even with the aid of pliers. I liked the final effect though the metal chains were really cold on my stomach
2) Keyboard wire choker and earrings.
Keyboard wire (well that’s what I called it as I found it inside a discarded keyboard) is pretty easy to work with. The plastic coated wire is very malleable and I like to shape it into a zigzag shape and then attached it to some chains (broken necklaces actually).
The earrings were made by creating spirals from keyboard wires and attaching them to silver earring wires (available on Ebay if you don’t have any crafty shops nearby). The hole was made in the plastic wire quite easily using a hot needle.I’m sure all types of cool earring could me made by combining this wire with chains.
Overall the customised creations were fab as there was noone in the club wearing anything resembling our outfits. The recycling was a plus!
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