Buy Nothing New Wedding!

As my real life friends already know, I got engaged this past weekend and I'm getting married in September of this year. Yay!

Since I have no intention of compromising on my "buy nothing new" year, I guess my upcoming wedding has just turned into a "buy nothing new" wedding!

Oooh, this just got interesting.

Turning an old dress into a new dress!

So the school district that I work for holds a teacher prom every year -- there's dancing, drinks, casino games, food, and (of course!) a prom king and queen. Davey and I went this year and it was 10,000 times better than actual prom was back in the day!

Not being a very fancy person, I needed a dress to wear to teacher prom and at first, I was sure that I didn't have anything in my closet. That is, until I found this dress in the very back corner:

This was the dress that I wore when I went to the Oscars in 8th grade, and while I love the color, it's really not something I would ever wear again. I had mostly just been holding onto it for sentimental reasons, and the off chance that I would need a floor length blue dress some day. Because I wanted to give this dress a second chance, and because of the rules of my "buy nothing new" year, I decided to make this dress above into this dress below:

 Picture of the front coming soon! We had cheesy prom portraits taken so I'll upload those when I get them :)

I hemmed the floor-length skirt into a knee-length skirt, and then used the extra fabric to construct a bodice and sleeves. I had some awesome polka-dot ribbon laying around and decided to use that for a sash. (For the record, I am in no way a professional or even talented seamstress -- I didn't use a pattern or anything, just played around with my sewing machine until the dress looked good!)

I ended up loving this dress so much that I am now totally inspired to alter other clothes that have been hanging in the back of my closet into items that I'll actually wear. For $0 I got a perfectly nice teacher prom dress and gave an old sentimental item new life.

I love the way that this "buy nothing new" year has forced me to become more creative and more resourceful, and find creative solutions that I never would have thought of before!

"The things I consumed ended up consuming me"

An interesting and quick article about a man who realized the detrimental effects of all his "stuff" and found happiness in relationships and experiences :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html?_r=0

Purchase #2

(To clarify, I'm using my "Purchase" posts to document all non-gift items that I've purchased, whether used or new. I'm not documenting gifts here or materials that I gathered for projects, as those are getting their own posts)

Over the weekend, I bought a used sewing machine:

My "New to Me" Sewing Machine! Original retail (back in the day) = $1,100. I paid $250.

This was not an anticipated purchase. Sadly, I lent my sewing machine out to a friend a couple of months back, and when it was returned it was acting strange. I troubleshooted the best I could during the make your own couch project, but when I started on my next project (altering some old clothes to make "new to me" clothes), it completely died. I took it in to get it fixed at this local vacuum and sewing machine repair shop (a totally amazing place), and the technician I spoke with said it would cost far more to fix than the machine is actually worth. :(

 

I have been interested in looking at a better machine for a couple of years now, but had no reason to ditch my old machine while it still worked. So when my old Singer finally bit the dust, I decided to see what used machines the store had on hand for sale. My "new to me" Pfaff machine is one of the best sewing machines ever made, and had always been a dream that was totally out of my price range, so I was very excited that this store just happened to have one for a reasonable price!

 

It was also interesting to talk with the technician, who told me that almost all of the new machines now are being very cheaply produced in China and Thailand and that they are very poor quality. He says that these days he really only recommends buying used to his customers, which is pretty awesome. And why not, when you get such great quality for a more affordable price, while simultaneously withholding support from a production system that marginalizes workers and uses up natural resources?

 

I worked on my alterations project yesterday (post coming soon!) on my "new to me" machine, and it is amazing! I can't wait to post all of the fun things I'm working on with this machine.

 

Two Months Update

As of tomorrow, I am officially two months into the "buy nothing new" year, and so far, so good!

Despite celebrating Valentine's Day and going on a vacation this month, I succeeded in not buying anything new for myself!* Yay!

So here is what I bought this month:

- Box of chocolates and newborn-sized hearts t-shirt for family who had a new baby and weren't able to go out and celebrate (gift)
- Four pairs of shoes as a charitable donation (gift)
- *A friend bought me a $2 pair of headphones from the gate at Virgin America so I wouldn't freak out on our flight home from vacation (I am phobic of flying!!). This was technically a gift, but could have been totally avoided if I had thought ahead and brought my own, so I'm partially counting this purchase.

I feel like I did pretty well this month, and really wasn't tempted at all. In fact, I feel like I'm more or less "over" shopping at this point -- the fumes in the stores now make me nauseous, I've found more important things (to me) to spend my money on (or rather save my money for!), and I just don't want or need all the clutter. It's really freeing :)

As far as room for improvement, I think it still all comes down to planning ahead. If I had thought of it ahead of time, I could have gotten some of those gifts and donations used or homemade, and I definitely could have avoided the purchase of the $2 headphones. Let's see if I can do even better next month!

Do I Need This?

I just stumbled across this on the internet and felt compelled to post this. It's how I feel about pretty much all new "stuff" right now, and is pretty hilarious:

Now just replace the word "panflute" with anything at all you are tempted to buy or debating getting rid of. I've realized that, chances are, if I haven't needed it before now, and if I am even contemplating getting rid of it, I probably don't need it. This flowchart is my new de-cluttering motto :)

Buy Nothing New Vacation!

Sorry for disappearing so abruptly -- I was on vacation in Washington DC earlier this week and had a fabulous time!

Now I'm not one to go on vacation to go shopping, so my first vacation in the "buy nothing new" year wasn't too challenging, but it did make me more aware of my past vacation spending habits.

Look Familiar? These little stands seem to be everywhere in every major city in the world.

We went to several of the Smithsonians and many of the national monuments, and every single one had its own gift shop. The Smithsonians had multiple gift shops per museum, and everywhere we went these little tourist shops seemed to be full of people. 

Now I have a confession to make -- in the past, I would have been one of them. I used to (as in years ago) be a little obsessed with collecting, and convinced that I needed souvenirs to remember every cool place I'd ever been. In the last few years, I've started to get away from this as I've begun to de-clutter, but I would still find myself looking for a hat pin or postcard or some small trinket to memorialize the experience. 

Why do we feel that we need physical objects to help us remember fun experiences? Is it because we're afraid we'll forget them? Or because we're drawn to the novelty of something we can't buy anywhere else? Is it to show off to friends all the cool things we've done?

And then what happens to these trinkets? As I've been de-cluttering this year, I have come across several vacation souvenirs. It's probably the first time I've looked at many of them since the vacations they came from. Some of them are so random that I don't even remember where I got them.

And what about the souvenir-less vacations that I've taken? Are they any less special, do I remember them any less fondly because I didn't buy a little plastic Eiffel Tower, etc.? 

Okay, so maybe I had way too long to think about this on the plane, but I'm grateful that I've come to a place where I don't feel that I need physical mementos to remind me of the special times in my life. Not that there's anything wrong with a souvenir here and there, but it's nice to feel less and less connected with objects, and more connected with the memories and experiences themselves. I think this is one of my favorite side effects of my "buy nothing new" year so far.