Discarded to Devine denim wedding dress

I´ve seen a few denim wedding dresses browsing through the net, but they all have looked sort of funny in light blue... Then I stumbled upon this... A natural white dress reconstruckted from old jeans and bleached to natural white.. Stunning.

See Flickr user St Vincent de Paul Society SF (San Francisco) Discarded To Divine 06 Set. This set had some amazing trashion dresses and jackets all made from reconstructing old clothes including ths denim wedding dress.





Discarded to Devine is a recycled clothing design competition hosted annually by this charity organization. Unfortunatly the 2008 entries have closed on January 31st but the designs will be displayed in various locations in the San Francisco area. They will be auctioned at the end of April.

More than 100 one-of-a-kind stunning fashions and accessories created by student and professional designers were auctioned in the Discarded to Divine 2007 event to benefit the Vincentian Help Desk, a place where the poor and homeless can “shop” for a fresh change of clothes in a safe, respectful environment, free of charge. See the event images HERE.

Creativity through a lens

Most of us have at least a pair. It can be for protecting from sun light (or paparazzi!), to be able to see further or to read or just for show if you are into the nerd-look. I´m talking of course about glasses. (image from Adventures in Trashion)

Glasses can also be used as materials for trashion creations. I came intrested in this material a while back when I realized that basically any thriftstore or secondhand shop has a box full of different sort of glasses that they are just dying to get rid off. Here are some of my specs-favorites.

Lens necklace by Maison Martin Margiela


Necklace by Elena Mary


Spectaculous artwork from Stuart Haygarth








Granny glasses curtain from PlanB

DIY CITY the magazine

It is finally out, the new DIY CITY magazine! This 245 page first issue is mostly about indie DIY artists, shops and brands located in the NYC area. I love the fact that this magazine is thick as a phone book and it will propably take me a couple of days to browse it through. I´ve been waiting a very long time for a complite DIY artist index like DIYCITYmag since as a turist in NYC it´s really hard to find all the cool craft shops. I´m so looking forward to going to the Big Apple now.

I was honored to be one of the few European artist featured on two pages of DIYCITYmag. First Eco-Remix: Inspiration Painters denim and second Pigment & Paper: Inspiration Rock jewellry.



DIY City mag is available in three formats - here on the magazine homepage, in flash version and also in PDF. The PDF version costs $5 but then you are able to print it out - that way if you are looking for some of your favorite shops in town you will have a handy reference. Just send an e-mail (diycitymag@gmail.com) and they will arrange a download for you. I´m definately ordering a copy for myself!

If you are intrested in hooking up with some creative DIY people check out and sign in to DIYCITY community.

Patchwork denim

Denim is by far my favorite material to work with. It is easy to find from thrift stores and secondhand shops + it usually does not cost much. It is also pretty easy to sew and theredore a very good material to start with if you are a novice customizer.

I´m currently working on two bags that I have created from worn out denim pieces. Patchwork technique allows you to use even the smallest pieces from your craft fabric collections so it is very ecological. I will post the images (and tutorial) of the bags when they are finished but in the meantime here are some of my favorite denim patchwork projects by other crafty trashionistas and my inspiration book.

The technique is simple. Arrange the denim pieces on to the paper patterns and sew together. There really are no rules! The denim pieces can be of different colors, they can have raw edges and as much freehand over stitching that you can possibly think of. Cut of extra fabric, but remember to leave allowences. Sew together according to the models instructions. The seams make the pieces a bit stiff, but this technique works well on bags, jackets and home textiles.

Patchwork denim jacket by E.Patzig




This fab bag is made by (room#15)from southern califolnia



This lovely denim teddy was made by suzysu sparkles



Denim covered armchair by Mattia Bonetti

On pirated fashions

Ok, so this post is not just about recycling and trashion. I´m posting this because I think this is one of the best advertisement I´ve ever seen in fashion magazines. This kind of campaigning is needed so why arent there any more like this??? I´m sure any fashion brand would support this since figting piracy is in their best intrests.

Anyway. If you do buy new fashions, at least have the decency to pay retail prices. There is nothing worse in fashion than an ignorent wanna-be who thinks they made a good bargain by buying pirated fashion. Fake just smells. In my opinion, Johnny Depp and Vivienne Westwood are the only people that can pull of "the pirate trend" with style...

Trashion Cartoon tutorial - Boxy t-shirt

This is an old project of mine, the 80´s boxy t-shirt. I thought you would enjoy a new tutorial made in cartoon form. I think this looks funnier, so I´m propably making more of these cartoon-tutorials from later projects as well.

You can find all the original tutorial images also from MY TRASHION TUTORIALS.

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Etsy favorites - February

Since it´s a new year, I´ve decided to start a new "column" in my blog - This months Etsy favorites. The name says it all, I will present you with some of m favorite Etsy shops and items. Support sustainability - buy handmade.

Painted shoes made by ndeurshoes



Groovy LP-cover journals made by Alyssa aka MockTheRock



Music inspired crafts ad jewellry from Wonderful



Reconstructed skirts by tskirts.



Hats couture by BoringSidney



After seeing these... who wants to go to H&M and Gap anymore....?

DIYthing.com featured my inspiration book

DIYthing.com, one of my favorite indie fashion blogs, featured my inspiration books on their website (compete article HERE)!! My "painter´s denim" page will also be featured in their new DIY CITY Mag in the February issue. The magazine is mainly for artists from the NYC area (I´m from Finland) so I´m super happy and honored to contribute to this new release. Thank You Wendy and Deb!





Inspiration scrapbooks became a necesity for me when my fashion magazine piles hit the livingroom sealing. My husband threatend to throw them all out so I had to come up with something more compact for my ideas. Scrapbooks are a very good way to pass time and for me it feels like therapy :) I´m able to organize my clippings by theme or material. I also use them as reference a lot of times. Pictures just say so much more than words... I have usually two inspiration books with me all the time. They are perfect reading in busses and cafes. I believe that inspiration should always be shared. I could never have enough time to do all the ideas from my books so I have decided to upload the in to the www for all the world to read. The large images also show the details a lot better than in real life. I hope people enjoy browsing them and possibly find ideas for their own projects.

DIYthing will be lauching a new magazine on Februry 14th called DIY CITY MAG. The first issue will feature over 70 artists - and countless shops in NYC where you can find DIY supplies. A must-read for all creafters visiting the Big Apple.

My favorite clothes reconstructions

I noticed that I have not introduced these reconstructions to you earlier in my blog. I made these in April-May 2006. Glancing at these projects later have given me a lot of inspiration to start new ones. I know now that I have found MY THING through recycling fashion and customizing clothes. You can find all of these reconstructions and more in my Flickr gallery. CLICK HERE.

Making skirt out of a pair of jeans... Not very original, but these jeans used to be my husbands workjeans, for painting and such. They were filled with gorgeous paint stains and other crap that would not come off in the wash. Fantastic treatment, I thought! Really original and unique! So I made them into a shirt and gave my husband an another pair to wear. :) Good deal. Since these, I have collected so many pairs of paintstained denims from fleamarkets and from my husbands work collegues. At the moment I´m making my first paintstained denim-bags. I will post images of them when thry´re done. Sky´s the limit with this material.







I bought three narrow (1cm wide) belts from the flea market. I bound them together with some left over curtain rings. Simple and did not require any sewing! Plus I can take this apart any time I feel like if I need the rigs or belts for something else.



I found a crochet table cloth from the flea market. I coloured it black (it came out dark navy) and sewed it on my old H&M black satin dress bought in 96´. This is still my favorite evening dress. Timeless I think.