My friend Leandra, of Man Repeller fame came to me with a little project idea… A pair of never hit production Chloe pumps crossed her path, and she had the Eureka! moment all of us crafters have had at one point at another: The “I COULD DO THAT” moment. So we had a little DIY for Duh-mmies date at my apartment and made a project!

The results are pretty stunning and their goodness is twofold: 1. They were the easiest things in the world to make and 2. They look SO LEGIT.

And no it’s not lost on me that she is wearing a pair of elegant Louboutin DIY’ed pumps and I’m in my painted Tom’s.  We are who we are. She’s one of the few friend’s I have that inspires me to wear heels to lunch. (And I gotta tell you, I think it works… Dress for who you want to be?)

Hit up Leandra’s blog to see more of the project… The inspiration, the fun with glue guns…etc… We used red leather tape from M&J, but we used the suede side.

And thats the money shot…

They are just too good. I must admit, I was skeptical about those Acne jeans when they first hit the internet and Leandra told me about them, but now I must say: MAJOR. I think I need to DIY those next.  And also, my photos look awesome, too… I wish I had the foresight to be in some!

Check out the rest of the collab HERE!

Just a little intro: Liz, my fantastic intern, is an amazing DIY’er. You saw her first project a few weeks ago, the Washi Tape art, and she is going to be sharing projects with us at Sketch42. And now, without further ado, the DIY, written and executed by Liz:

Many of us have free time with summer coming up, and what better way to spend a day with a friend than immersing yourself in a plethora of DIY projects! I myself have quite the extensive list of creative activities I’d like to attempt this summer and why not start with studding a pair of Converse sneakers?? I’ve forever wanted a pair of What Comes Around Goes Around Studded Converse Sneakers, but I just couldn’t bring myself to spend $195 on a pair of Converse kicks. So, on a leisure day with my sister, we decided to get in a dose of M&J style DIY. After a lengthy search for the specific pair of Converse I wanted to stud, we finally found success at a store called Grand Slam in midtown – I chose the AS Light Hi Top – they have a much thinner sole than the standard Converse that I find a bit sleeker. Next came M&J – with so many options, it was hard to decide, but ultimately I chose black, medium sized screw studs.

Supplies:

1 Pair Converse – any style
Multiple packs of studs (quantity depends how you would like to stud the sneakers)
1 Leather hole puncher (available for purchase @ M&J)
1 Ruler
1 Pen or marker

Step 1: Figure out the stud pattern. Though I initially wanted to stud mine similarly to the What Comes Around Goes Around version, I quickly figured out that the size of my leather hole puncher limited me to punch only up to 3 inches from the tops of the shoe, so I needed to come up with a new gameplan. I decided to make 4 straight lines of studs on the top part of the outer side of the sneaker.

Step 2: Using your ruler and marker, carefully make equidistant marks on the shoe, marking where you would like to place the studs. Being that I lacked the handy dandy assistance of a ruler, I used tape to give me a straight line edge.

Step 3: Now that you’ve delineated the exact placement of the studs, it is time to start punching. There are many different sized holes that the leather hole puncher is able to make. I recommend testing on a separate fabric to see which size hole will fit your specific studs. Once you have determined the proper size, using the leather hole puncher, start punching holes in the places you’ve marked. The studs I used were 1/2″ small spike with screw and I set my leather hole puncher on 3.5.

Step 4: Once you’ve punched all the holes, start screwing!!! No tools are necessary – simply screw in the studs through the holes and voilà, you’ve got yourself a brand new pair of kick-ass studded Converse.

There are so many different ways this project can be done. For my next pair, I am going to spraypaint silver studs in multiple neon colors and I’m going to stud the tongue of the Converse. I obviously wore my Converses that night and got so many compliments!!!

Ever since Lana del Rey came on the scene with pounds of fresh flowers on her head, floral crowns have been a thing. Then my friend Leandra, The Man Repeller, was all excited about wearing one at Coachella… And so, now I wanted one. But then I thought, DAMN IT, Coachella is over, and I didn’t go. So am I really going to wear a crown of flowers on my head for no good reason? No. But…. I know someone who would, AND COULD! Cookie! Is there anything cuter than a little girl with flowers in her hair? Of course there isn’t. I originally conceived of this post as a flower girl for a wedding post, Cookie is going to be one in my sister’s wedding in a few months, and a crown of real flowers would be insanely gorgeous. I was going to put her in a dress and take sweet photos. But then, after we made the crown, and put it on her with her regular clothes, I thought it was EVEN CUTER as a little mini-hipster, hippy girl child! She insisted on wearing it to school, and I brought my camera, so lets just say it was an interesting walk!

You need: A few yards of wire, and a yard of ribbon with rosettes attached.

The how to is very easy: Buy some wire, measure the head and twist a few strands of wire into a circle. Take the strand of rosettes, pop one of the rosettes throughout the wires and secure the edge with glue (you don’t even really need the glue), then wrap the ribbon around the wire, I chose to wrap very tightly and have the rosettes be on the inside and outside of the loop, but you could do it so that the rosettes are only on the outside of the crown. When you get to the end of the crown, take the last rosette, pop it through the wires and twist it through a few times so that it doesn’t come loose. You can add glue here too.

And now: Some gratuitous pics of Cookie modeling the crown! I have  billion cute photos from this 5 minute walk. Maybe Ill post them on my Facebook Page?

I know street style for kids exists in the form of Planet Awesome Kid, but I would love it if a serious street photographer made a blog with consistently beautiful photographs of kids being awesome! Someone do it!

And now I think I need my own flower crown too.

After seeing my Tom’s, the people at Remi & Emmy asked me to fancy up this little Paulina clutch for them… I obliged! I think it came out pretty cute, huh? The purse is a great size for running around town, and I think the splats are fun! See, now we are back to neon splatter, just needed a little break!

Have a great weekend everyone!

This Spring is apparently all about the execution and finalization of the trends we saw budding last spring… The chickens are coming home to roost. Anyway, last spring I was OBSESSED with the Proenza Schouler necklace above, and equally obsessed with the creations of Holst + Lee:

I even modeled one the day I visited Cut 25! Of course I thought I could, should and would make one of these myself. But it wasn’t until I happened upon the perfect tubular necklace at H&M that I decided to follow through. Sometimes its all about waiting for the right supplies to find you.

Anyway, I made a super simplified version of the above, and now Im thinking perhaps I should jazz mine up with nuts and bolts and more layers…

Here we go:

The basic premise is that you are doing the “Chinese Staircase” stitch around the tube. Do that by first looping a large piece of string around the top of the necklace. That allows you to work with a double strand of floss. In this case, the tube is acting like the second strand, if you were just doing the stitch normally. You put the thread over and around the tube and pull through the loop.

Keep Repeating until you are satisfied with how thick the color is. Then you can bring in other colors by just layering it on top of the thread from the first color. You can bring back old colors by just taking them out of the pile of threads and using it to loop around again.

And there you go! Mine is just OK compared to the original, but it gets the job done for now… I think I may need to add one hundred more of these to get the job done right!

Of course, you can also buy Holst + Lee HERE.

Have a great day everyone, I will, cause it’s my birthday, and I’ve decided to not be a moron about it this year! Have a good one!

Oh! Additionally, I added some new and unsold paintings to my gallery HERE- check them out, and email sketch42blog@gmail.com with inquiries.

This one is pretty self explanatory, huh? My friend Rebecca came to the studio today with a brand new pair of TOM’s  in tow and told me to have at it… I used a fluid acrylic paint and used a bunch of thin paint brushes to splatter the paint on. You dip the brush in the paint, and then use your wrist in a flinging motion to get the long stripy lines, or you can shake the brush to make the little dots… You can even squirt right out of the bottle if you are feeling crazy!

But yea, simple is sometimes the most fun isn’t it? This is a great project to do with your kids over spring break, and they virtually cannot screw this up.  Cant wait to wear them, now I have shoes to match my hands and pretty much all of my jeans. Ha.

If you don’t follow my instagram, you should, you’ll see projects like this happening in real time.

Have a great day everyone!

Have you guys heard of Washi Tape? It’s basically japanese masking tape made of translucent rice paper. It was created by a japanese company called  Kamoi Kakoshi after a group of artists approached them with a  book of art they had made using their tapes and requested that they make a tape for artists. You can learn more about Washi Tape HERE.

It was a huge success with artists and crafters. It comes in every color, in patterns and  widths – but it aint cheap, for tape. My new intern Liz made this piece of art for her apartment using Washi Tape and a canvas that she spray painted silver.

She basically started with two different groups of colors, the cools and the warms. She layered the reds heavily on the bottom, the blues on top, criss crossing them over each other at a slight angle slowly blending the color groups toward the middle.

She wrapped the edge of the canvas and used masking tape to secure the edges on the back. Et Voilà!

Her tips:

Use the edge of a credit card to smooth out any bubbles, and the tape is very low tack and easily removable and reusable, so you can peel off any strip you don’t like.

Enjoy!

You can buy Washi Tape HERE. Just don’t scroll up and down this post too much, you might get dizzy.

I bought my first pair of actual non-stretch, non skin tight jeans, jeans this week. First pair since about 2004 or 5. Do you know how good it felt to wear actual real jeans? Made out of real soft worn in denim? That wasn’t painted on like a second skin? And didn’t give me muffin top? It felt good.

We’ve been seeing the cool girls wearing boyfriend jeans for years now. But I didn’t want a boyfriend jean. Because I’m short and I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by a big hulking mass of denim that would ultimately make me look 10+ lbs larger. Not a good look for the under 5’6″ set.

What I wanted was apparently a slimmer version of a boyfriend… one that would just cover my legs lightly but not suffocate me.

Here are a few pairs that I really love, wear with chunky heeled sandal, Marni cuffs and  vintage inspired shades… and I’ve been loving that gray/green leather fisherman looking vest for weeks. I’ve been quietly stalking it… It might be just what I need to finish off my spring uniform. And I may just DIY a super distressed pair of jeans.

Sources:

Karen Walker Shades $220

Gray Marni Bracelet $157

White Marni Bracelet $117

Theyskins Vest $1150

Givenchy Sandal $880

Acne Pop Trash Jeans $485 (Center left)

What Comes Around Goes Around Vintage jeans $59 (Far left)

Alexander Wang Woven Leather Sandal $276 (Far left)

Levi’s Vintage Jeans $142 (Far right)

Current Elliot $525 (Center right)

So even though I knew about the shoot for weeks…. Obviously some things still didn’t get done in time. For example, the TV was hung on the wall the night before the shoot and the unit that is supposed to be floating below it didn’t get hung. Not a big deal for these purposes because the TV wall is by far the most boring elevation in the space, but annoying. Another thing that didn’t get done, we are on the hunt for a huge black and white photo for the space near the couch. This is not something you buy overnight, and so for the sake of the shoot we literally hung one of my  raw unstretched canvases on the wall, just to add some color to the photos. That probably won’t be there permanently, although I do love the color in the photos… Hmmm… what else? I brought over my own coffee table books for styling purposes, but now I think that I should leave them there….

Also, I had 8 BILLION pictures to choose from. Like I didn’t want to show 8 pictures of the lucite chairs, but TRUST, those chairs are amazing from behind. And I have even more to show of the bar area and the desk behind the sofa… one day when I hang the TV, I’ll take some photos of that view.

And last, I’ll give you a little insight into my thought process in this space: I wanted to make something fun and cool without being too serious. It’s a rental, and the client is a young fun dude who wanted his space to be exciting! (“Im from LA, I can handle it!” he said!) I did NOT want the space to feel overdecorated and I wanted to play with the ideas of a masculine space, but obviously putting my own spin on it. (I even tried to choose “masculine” flowers for the photos, nothing worse than seeing inappropriate flowers in a bachelor pad!) I also wanted the space to be colorful but Im not the biggest fan of color, so this is my take on that.

We really love the space, I hope you enjoy it too! Overall, it was a fun space to make, not taking anything too seriously and just having fun with it!

Enjoy and have a great day!

The SOURCES post is now up HERE with more photos.