This one’s for all you “shorties” out there :) Theextreme vintage flares are one of our hottest items right now, but they run a little on the long side – which is great if you’re tall, but for the shorter girls they may need to be trimmed. Luckily our Free People San Antonio girls put together this adorable tutorial showing you how to cut your extreme flares to make them the perfect length for YOU.
Free People King of Prussia is dreaming of Fall! Whether it is curling up in cozy oversized sweater while sipping cider, or strolling through the park in a sweeping pair of extreme vintage flares while leaves fall at your feet, we are so excited for the start of the season! To celebrate, this weekend we are giving away a hand-made dreamcatcher with a purchase of $300 or more, to help make all your dreams come true!
Tonight is our fashion night out event; we’re kicking off fashion week with style!! if you’re around that area please come and join us – we’ll be there with our creative directors and these ever so cool bloggers from Honestly WTF who will be carrying out a special DIY project.
Here’s what inspires them about NYC
New York in 4 words…
Ambitious, home-away-from-home, sleepless, and fashion, baby.
What we are packing…
We’re totally embracing the grunge-chic trend this season: ankle boots, skinny pants, oversized sweaters and a little sparkle to top it all off. Of course bell bottoms, maxis, and hats will forever be staples in our closets.
Best Places to go in NY?
1) We love brunch in NY. It’s a battle between the baked eggs at Café Gitane and the Turkish eggs at Public . . . I’ll have both, please.
2) Christie’s Auction House in Rockefeller Plaza is a great place to go see an art exhibition. Not a lot of people know that it is free and open to the public.
3) Daha in the Lower East Side has the most extensive collection of vintage boots in New York City.
4) Whenever we’re in New York, we always stop by The Little Branch for a sweet libation.
5) Dropping by the first floor of ABC Carpet & Home is always a must – it’s full beautiful things and perfect place to pick up a gift for someone.
One Free People item you’ll be taking into fall…
We’re kinda dying over these Hatchett ankle boots – love the asymmetrical cut and distressed details. They are the kind of boots you live in all season long!
Hey guys! I’m not quite ready to share the results of my natural dye experimentation just yet… i need a little more time, so check back for that next week! To hold you over, here’s a lovely little idea from Liz of Late Afternoon:
Spice up ice water (or any beverage for that matter!) by putting berries and flowers in your ice cubes! Just drop them in the ice cube trays before freezing :) This would be such a sweet touch for a party!
I have been wanting to experiment with natural dyes for a while now, and with all the great new fall colors that have been popping up on our website (and featured in our monochromatic trend) I decided that it was time. This is such a fun, environmentally friendly project that takes a little time, but very little cash.
For today’s DIY I’ll tell you about what natural ingredients you can use to make natural dyes, and what shades of color they will yield.
What I got: red cabbage, lemons, oranges, beets, yellow onions, blackberries, blueberries, spinach.
For bluish/purple dyes:
Blackberries and red cabbage can be used to make bluish/purple dyes. It’s important to remember when working with natural dyes that experimentation is key – depending on the amount of ingredients you use and how long you leave a garment in the dye, the color you get can vary.
For pinkish/red dyes:
Beets and blueberries can make a really lovely dusty rose color.
For copper/orange dyes:
I never realized what a beautiful color yellow onions can have! Their skins can make an alluring mustard yellow, coppery color.
For yellow dyes:
Orange and lemon peels can be used to make a soft pale yellow dye.
For green dyes:
Finally, spinach can be used to make a beautiful shade of green.
Now what?
To make the dye, chop up your ingredients and put them in a pot with twice as much water as ingredients. Bring the water to a boil and let simmer for an hour. For deeper colors, you can leave the ingredients in the water (without heat) overnight.
Remove the hard materials from the mixture with a strainer, leaving you with the liquid dye.
Before dyeing, you will also need to create a fixative, which will help your fabric hold the dye.
When working with berries, use a salt fixative – put 1/2 cup of salt in 8 cups of water, put the fabric in and boil for one hour.
When working with vegetables, use a vinegar fixative – mix one part vinegar and four parts water, add your fabric and boil for one hour.
When you remove the fabric, rinse in cold water.
The fabric is now ready to dye! Just drop it in the desired color, let sit until it reaches the shade you want, remove and hang to dry.
I am going to make my dyes and start experimenting this weekend – I’ll share my results next week!
Yesterday I showed you our incredible new fall store displays, and today I have a really fun DIY project featuring an item from those displays!
One of my favorite parts of the displays are the patchwork flannel canvases hanging on some of the walls – I love all the detailing like cutouts, tassels, beading, fringe, etc. But in addition to looking awesome on their own, these flannel blankets can also be used to make a pretty sweet lantern!
Wouldn’t these look amazing at an outdoor party? They’d look good inside too, of course, but I just keep envisioning them outside at night, with the light bouncing off of the sequins and creating a beautiful sparkly light. I love the rustic touch of the tree branch to hang them, too :)
There’s no question, we love the feather hair clip trend. It’s a great way to add a unique touch to a simple outfit and they are perfect accessories for summer festivals (like Outside Lands this weekend!). Read More
One day I was on Vogue.com when I saw when of their editors wearing this really cool beaded necklace. It almost looked like it was constructed using safety pins, so I tried them out to see if I could pull off the look by making the necklace myself. The end result is really cool. The seed beads give it a tribal look, and the safety pins no longer look like safety pins, but rather a cool silver skeleton. I finished it off, with a beaded “chain” to make a long necklace that you can throw on with any basic shirt for a neat funky addition of color.
the inspiration
You’ll Need:
Scissors, strong beading thread, safety pins, nail polish, and seed beads
Open the safety pin, and feed on seed beads.
I decided to us lime green and black with the black beads jumping around, but you can come up with any pattern you want.Notice the pattern changes.
As you finish safety pins, line them up on the table, so that you don’t lose the order you want them to go in.
Once you’ve finished. Begin feeding the safety pins into the beading thread.
Make sure they are all facing in the same direction.
Thread a needle with the thread
Thread seed beads on until you have reached the desired length for you necklace.
I decided to do mine in a contrasting color – white.
Once you’re done, loop the thread around the last bead on each side of the “chain.”
Feed the needle through the last few beads on the opposite side to close the circle.
Loop the thread around individual beads a few more times, and then thread it back to where the loose thread is hanging out & tie a knot.
Cut thread ends.
Paint the knot and last few beads with nail polish to secure
so inspired by this look today! our office coordinator took an old oversized button-down shirt and turned it into a skirt! she just buttoned it up halfway from the bottom, stepped into it and tied the sleeves around her waist – add a cropped tee and boots and you’ve got 90s grunge perfection.
just another reason to nab your boyfriend/dad/brother’s button-downs! vintage printed ones are a plus :)
Today’s DIY project was inspired by this post on apartment therapy. Free People has an instagram account and I love so many of the photos that our home office girls post there – it’s like our little visual diary. I LOVE the idea of printing out our photo memories and making them into wall art!
What you need: I used white poster board and double sided tape, and printed our photos out on a regular printer.
I picked photos at random and just started lining them up in rows :)
And that’s it! I think this would look awesome framed and hung up in our office :)
remember liz, our brooklyn fp girl who makes rad vests? well she’s at it again…my jaw dropped when i opened my email this morning and saw her latest project! not only are her patriotic vests to die for, but these photos are so inspiring. thank you liz!
