I am not a fashionista, primarily because I cannot afford to be one. I don’t have the money to buy the cute clothing I have seen others wearing, so I’ve reduced my fashion vision to purchasing serviceable pieces that are mix and match ready. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? It is, I have to admit, a pretty boring way to dress. It doesn’t reflect who I REALLY am, and over the years, my wardrobe has become more and more bland. It’s sad … I’m anything but bland, I think, but my wardrobe is just … well, it really IS sad.

So you can imagine my fascination with Marisa’s blog. I saw this on one of the news sites the other day and I have to admit that I’m still reading back, but I am absolutely fascinated. The premise of her blog is based upon her idea of dressing herself for one full year on $1/day. That isn’t $1 a day based upon a certain number of wears, that’s the garment she purchases cannot cost more than $1, and she wears a different one everyday. She then takes her garage sale & Goodwill finds and transforms them from some of the ugliest things you’ve ever seen into things that even the snobbiest fashionista would envy.

And that’s where the blog gets interesting. She takes muu-muus and dresses straight out of 1972 and makes them adorable. I read in the news article that Marisa had no mad sewing skillz when she started this project, but I can’t find that on her blog and I don’t know if I believe it, because she does a bang up job of cutting, pinning and sewing – and showing us what she’s doing as she goes. She transforms one garment every day and then models it for us – she even wears them out in public to get reactions, which she reports is almost always positive.

The first few dresses don’t see a major reconstruction, though. Some of them she shortens, she maybe changes the sleeves a bit, and other minor changes. They’re cute, but they don’t have the same WOW factor that her more recent rennovations have. You can see her confidence grow as she takes on more difficult alterations. It is amazing, cute and just plain inspirational. She’s a little wisp of a female, so I think it might be easier for her to take $1 finds and turn them into something cute, but it DOES make me want to drag out the pattern box, dig out some fabric and start sewing.

Check her out. I’m really hoping that when the year is over in November, she doesn’t stop doing what she does so well … I could take a lesson or two from her!