A General Guide of When to DIY vs. Buy

I think I mentioned before that I started DIY'ing during my first maternity leave ~3 years ago when I had a lot of time on my hands and zero income (personal income, still had family income from husband) flowing in.  I had always been a shopper and being off work for a year meant that if I wanted to fiscally responsible, both for myself and my baby, I needed to just turn it off.  Meanwhile, I'd feel the itch for something new when looking through magazines, watching TV / movies, or just walking down the street and seeing someone wear something cute.  Many times (especially then when it seemed like ruffles were all over the place), I'd notice the designs were generally pretty simple - like a basic tank / shell silhouette with some kind of embellishment.

I had tried "draping" a dress before (Project Runway was on my brain) and it looked awesome on the mannequin, but could not be worn practically (was a strapless knit and did not have any of the required structure to stay up).  Prior to that, I had a short stint of pillow sewing in middle school Home Ec.  I also used to watch my mother when I was growing up.  [An aside: I remember my home-sewn clothes to be very well-made, but unattractive (a mishmash of overly embellished garments featuring ugly prints - my very own "immigrant chic" look) and always 3 sizes bigger so I could grow into it.  To this day, whenever I sew something, Mom asks, "That's too small.  What if you get fatter?"]  So, armed with those experiences and years of Project Runway watching, I felt inspired to tackle making my own versions.  See my first projects here and here.

Hmm, that was probably more wordy than necessary - moving on to a general guide of when to DIY versus buy.

Easiest Items to DIY:

• Tops
• Skirts
• Most dresses
• Scarves - even knit / crocheted ones
• Simple jewelry

Simple embellishments to add onto DIY'ed or existing tops (great for beginners!):

• Ruffles - see ruffled cardigan tutorial here
• Bows - see bow top tutorial here
• Petals - see petaled top tutorial here
• Any kind of trim - pearl strands, rhinestones, rope, fringe, chains, lace (but do watch out from a washability standpoint), see chain cardigan tutorial here

Simple trends to DIY:

• Peplums - see a pencil skirt + peplum tutorial here and some other projects here and here
• Colorblocking - see an easy color blocked maxi dress tutorial here and t-shirt dress here
• Some spiking / studding / beading - see my spiked shoe here

When to Buy:

• Difficult or time-intensive to make - Blazers / Outerwear, Sweaters
• Hard to find prints
• Cheaper than making / Effort for DIY exceeds cost of buying - i.e. Bubble Necklace materials were going to cost me about $10 plus at least an hour or two of making, easier to just spend $20 buying one from eBay

If you have questions about whether something is DIY'able or how to approach a project you're planning, please feel free to leave it in the comments below.  I hope this post was helpful!