Denim Vest Restyle

I was shopping at the good ol' DAV last week with a sweet friend and I spotted this denim vest.  Technically it was hanging out in the little girls' section (I was browsing for Hope), but the thing about the 90s was how we all wore our clothes WAY bigger than what's in style now.  The vest looked like a good fit, so I spent a whole $0.98 and took the risk.  Hey, if I was totally off I could always save it for Hope in a couple of years, right?  ;)

Here's what she looked like before:

Oh, yes-- that IS an Express tag.  ;)
There was some crazy doily/embroidered flowers/candy colored buttons thing happening on the back, but in my excitement I ripped it all out before snapping a picture.  Doh.

So, now comes my trusty friend, RIT dye...

I decided to dip dye this vest, rather than dye the whole thing.  I filled my kitchen sink with a diluted amount of the black dye and after I soaked the entire vest in water, I dipped the bottom portion in the dye bath.
I'm a gal who doesn't like wasting things like this, so after I got what I thought was the desired color, I saved the dye bath while I rinsed the vest and ran it through the washing machine.  When it came out it was lighter than I was wanting, so I repeated the process again with the leftover dye.

Once the vest was the right color and all dry, I began adding the patches and buttons.  The patch on the back is an Olivia Mew patch that I've been saving for justttttt the right thing (seriously, I think I've had this for a couple of years).  The red patch on the front came with my 23 Skidoo dress (she has such beautiful packaging) and then I added some of my other favorite things to personalize it.  Here she is in all her glory:

I'm super happy with how it turned out and I can see myself wearing this a ton.  I love it when that happens, don't you?