(FYI: the Japanese word “kawaii” means pretty or cute.)
The goal and mission of DIY Kawaii is to inspire you to be creative and have fun with your wardrobe. I’ve always admired how girls in Japan express kawaii fashion so creatively and without hesitation.
I do hope you find the information in my blog helpful and inspiring.
I welcome your comments and suggestions.
I opened my Etsy store DIY Kawaii for upcycled Tshirt bags and kawaii accessories! I’m so happy to craft and sew again!
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See what you already have in your wardrobe. Do you see a lot of a particular color, pattern, lace, Tshirts, etc.?
Do you like what you have in your wardrobe?
I didn’t.
I was going through the biggest Gothic phase ever since I was 14. I started dressing less Goth for a while but I was only doing it for other people and not me so I went back to my Gothic style.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the elegance from eras past and my share of corsets and I look killer in that style but I needed a change towards the positive rather than black and burgundy. I started adapting a lot more bright colors in my wardrobe and I liked how it looked on me.
If you’re not satisfied with your current wardrobe, start adding color or something completely opposite to what you’re used to buying.
Experiment.
See what looks good on your body type and what doesn’t.
See what colors look good on your skin and which don’t. (Tip: drape that color over your shoulder in front of a mirror. If the color looks too close to your skin tone, it’s washing you out. If the color looks too garish, like black on very fair pink toned skin, it’s not a good color. Jewel tones are universally friendly colors to wear. I know yellow looks terrible on my olive skin!)
Current things in my wardrobe right now: I love Batman, Hello Kitty, and other fun Tshirts. I’ve been getting a lot of pink and purple stuff lately because I love those colors. I love vintage, hippie, lace and Victorian/Edwardian styles. So I use all these elements to adapt my own kawaii style.
If you need a crash course in kawaii fashion, check out Tokyo Fashion.com. I love this website!! These folks go out and report straight from the streets of Japan and is extremely inspiring!
What is your personal style?
Do you like to add things to your wardrobe, upcycle, thrift store, designer, vintage, all of the above?
If there’s anything I admire from the kawaii fashion scene in Japan is how the girls wear their own style with boldness. All the colors, the fluffy tutu skirts, the dollies, Hello Kitty, they wear it all with a huge smile on their face having a good time with their friends.
Find your own style, love yourself, and wear it confidently! ^ u ^
Thrifted top and the skirt I bought from a local festival that was handmade. It’s super comfortable and cotton…..ahhhhhhh
The hemp and puka shell necklace I bought ages ago, and the necklace with the dangling shells was from a local thrift store.
Beautiful Victorian-style earrings I bought from a chain store that’s no longer open.
The beautiful sparkly copper bracelet is made of sun stone. I had to repair it since it wasn’t the best quality made….cough cheap lol The other bracelets were bought from a local artisan.
All bracelets were purchased from a local artisan.
The blue bracelet that looks like an eye is called an evil eye amulet. It’s supposed to help protect you against the evil eye. I have a glass one that hangs in my front door
I was painting my sign to hang for my flea market display the other day.
This is how it turned out:
I sketched down the design and transferred the maneki neko from my computer to my poster board with tracing paper. The paint swatches are a color guide so I knew where to paint what color.
Background painted. It’s kitty time!
Kitty painted! Yay!!
Final result! I went over the DIY Kawaii letters and re-Shapie’d the outline of the kitty.
I hope this catches peoples’ eyes at the flea market!
My husband and I went to my local flea market over the weekend.
RRRRR!!! Here be me booty!!!
First buy of the day! This was only 50 cents!
My splurge for $5. It was too gorgeous to pass up! I’d like to make this from being a pin into a necklace pendant. I love cameos!!!
The next 3 pieces were all just $1 each! There’s a gal that runs a second hand shop down the store from where I live and I swear she has the most gorgeous stuff! Cheap too!
This reminded me of the jewelry from the Renaissance era. Drool!
I’ve been getting more and more into gold nowadays. I used to hate gold, but since I wear lace and older styles, the gold sets off this look very well.
I wore these to work recently with my beautiful DIY’d Mary necklace. I’ve since added more charms to it.
I always find myself buying jewelry at the flea market for some weird reason. It must be a woman thing lol.
I was going to an OOTD but my camera died before I managed to get a picture :p
I haven’t been spending a whole lot of time on Pinterest lately because I haven’t been seeing a lot of things I like.
It seems to be the same thing over and over: organization, some guy on some TV show that I have no idea about who’s not even that cute, desserts, exercise, cliched quotes…..on and on.
Every once in a while, I’ll find some good craft projects or ideas but it got boring really quick.
I logged on today and here are my recent good finds:
