DIY Diaries: A message to my younger self (December 2023)

IT'S FINALLY DECEMBER! Time to take a break from reality and celebrate with friends an family. For the girls, gays and they's (and the rest of you) this means it is time to pull out your best clothes and dress up!

This DIY is a little different because once upon a time I hated dressing up.

Here is a little backstory for you. I was a young teenager with a whole lot of insecurities that we mostly body issues.

I would despise it when my mum would try and put me in a cute dress. I would always want to be in a huge hoodie and leggings because I hated the way I looked in just about every piece of clothing I owned. My fashion sense at the time was limited to big T-shirts, flannels, leggings and hoodies. I would not be caught dead in a skirt or dress or anything really that showed off my figure.

And isn't that just awful for a 14 year old girl to hate herself this much? Societal expectations of women are ridiculous and yet they are ingrained in young girls from such a young age. It was just so difficult to not compare yourself to other girls who had the confidence.

Women I didn't even know would walk past and I would constantly find myself comparing the way I looked to them until I hated everything about me.

It is a horrible thing for a young girl but unfortunately the sad reality is I am sure too many women can relate to this.

If you are reading this and you can relate, you are beautiful and the way we ridicule ourselves is just not okay.

It took a lot of work and self improvement to get to where I am now and I know I still have a long way to go but my body image has definitely improved.

For this DIY I went to the back of my closet and found one of the dresses that my mum had bought for me back in the day. The dress 1 am wearing in this image used to have a mesh t-shirt bit at the top with a sweetheart neckline where the mesh ended. It was a skater dress that had a very Tumblr aesthetic.

While this is a very lovely dress for a young girl, I had only worn it once and it just wasn't me anymore. I cut away the mesh until I was left with a small black dress with a very low neckline. I wanted a bit more modesty in this dress so I found some black lace and hand sewed it on, making the sweetheart neckline into more of a V neck which I found is a lot more flattering to my body type.

The next part was a lot of trial and error. I originally envisioned a layered skirt at the bottom so it would poof out like a ballet skirt. However, 1 didn't have enough material so I improvised.

Now reader, if you are reading this for DIY tips I suggest you choose wisely about what parts you hand stitch and what parts you use a sewing machine for. I decided to go for two slits up the skirt and in hindsight, I should have used the sewing machine or at least ironed out the pleats after cutting the slits.

If you don't have a sewing machine, I beg of you, iron your pleats before you hand stitch them. I made the mistake of hand sewing with no ironing involved so the hems of the pleats don't look right. But we learn from our mistakes and I know not to do it again.

Luckily because it is a black dress it is a lot harder to see these mistakes, especially as this is a dress I would wear to a dimly lit pub. Good save on me! This is what DIY is all about though. Trial and error. We live and learn because no one is born an expert. You should never be afraid to make a mistake.

Anyway, the next part of this dress was a lot easier. I had this corset type of top that I didn't want to wear on its own so I used a hot glue gun and stuck it to the top half of the dress, in line with the neckline.

Finally, I used a strip of thin lace to hand stitch to the straps of the dress just for a little extra flare.

So there you go; old clothes that you never wear can be turned into a regular going out dress as easy as that.

Believe me, I feel a lot better in this dress now than I used to. As women we should not let these insecurities eat us up. Instead, take a pair of scissors and get creative.