Made By Lex

How To Make Leg Warmers or Boot Socks

Wow! I’ve been absent a while! I’ve been really busy up at mydaughters school working on some projects for their school auction, then the girls got sick and I got sick. (the kind of sick where I was in bed all day!) No fun! But here I am, so happy to be back. I’ve got a new tutorial just in time for colder mornings and dimming evenings.

I absolutely love layers. One of my favorite ways to layer are socks under knee high boots. But honestly, I hate tucking my jeans into a giant sock. Doesn’t everyone? It gets bunchy and uncomfortable. So here’s a much easier way to get the look.

Feel free to accessorize however you like.

So cute and stylish and much easier then stuffing your leg and jeans into a tight sock.

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend. I’m working on a GREAT tutorial for next week with a BIG giveaway!!!

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Tassel Heels…

..or pony shoes. Call them what you want.

Phillip Lim

Vera Wang

But these. Are. Awesome. Using the tassel tutorial, make your own.

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Loungewear Revolution- Jersey Romper

 On of my favorite things to sleep in is this little jersey romper that I have.  Here’s a way to make your own!

Get two T’s.

Cut the first one off. This will be your top piece.

We’ll use the other one for the shirts part. Fold it in half and cut out a piece as shown. Sort of like oversized underwear.

Here’s what you will have.

Sew the crotch together. I don’t know how else to say that.

Fold the top over to create a pocket and put elastic through there, too. Also, I forgot to take a picture, but add some straps.

I added some lace around the shorts.

Here is the completed romper. Clearly, no modeling in this get up

Bondage Inspired Sweater

I had a cozy, lounging sweater that was on it’s last life. It was too oversized and kept falling off. But I couldn’t let go of it.

In comes two sources of inspiration.

One- This sweater I saw on pinterest. I just loved it.

via middlechildcomplex.tumblr.com

Second- this bondage trend I saw in Elle this month.

So here’s what I did with my sweater. I cut the back into a deep v. Then I sewed it wround the opening so it wouldn’t fray.

Then I just added three leather straps to the back.

(ps- do you know this is me? I think a lot of people think the blonde that I have modeling all the time for me is Lex. But it’s actually my sister. She is living close by in San Francisco so she can’t model at my disposal anymore. I have to do it myself a little now. yikes!)

I love the edginess of it.  To do it over, I wouldn’t have cut it so low. But it stretched FAR more than I thought it would, so keep that in mind if you try it.

I love the ease  of oversized sweaters.  They’re so versatile because you can wear them as loungewear or style them up a bit for an “I-don’t-care” kind of look.

Hope you all like this one!

And don’t forget my fall line of scarves is 25% off for a bit longer. 

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Recycled Lunch Bag Tutorial

 It’s that time again! School supplies, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc… This year I gave the girls a choice. They could buy either a backpack or lunchbox and I would make the other. They chose to buy backpacks so I researched exactly the type of bag I wanted to make. My goal was to make it with recycled materials. I decided to do a fused plastic bag “fabric” and embroider it with scrap fabric. Instead of showing you my own ways of doing it, Dana at MADE did a great synopsis of how she did her  recycled grocery bags and referenced some other helpful sites. My only other addition is that to fuse them, I used butcher paper to sandwich the bags. It worked just great. Also, I didn’t want to go out and have to shop to get my plastic bags. That just seemed wasteful to me since I was trying to make something recycled. We already use recycled bags for any shopping so I didn’t have any around. I used freecycle to get bags and ended up with all I needed!

So to begin my tutorial, we’ll start with your already fused bags.

I let the girls choose whatever fabrics they wanted and shapes and embroidered them right on to the plastic. It’s extremely easy to sew on so don’t be afraid.

Next, I prepped my bag. You need a bottom, two sides and a front and back. ( you also need a flap over, but we’ll get to that later.) This isn’t rocket science. Sew them all together. I serged mine with colorful thread. If you don’t have a serger, use a thick zig zag stitch.

Next I made a strap out of fabric and attached it securely to the sides.

For the flap I cut out their names and did a stitch around the edges.

Then sew them on then attach it to the back piece of the bag so it folds over the front.

Add some velcro to the flap and the bag to keep it closed and you’re good to pack a lunch!

I love it with our reusable snack bags and lifefactory water bottles. So cheery!

Here is the back of them.

And most importantly, don’t forget to include lots of love notes.

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