Now I haven’t been to many sample sales…but I recently checked out the Oscar de la Renta sale, and stumbled upon a beautifully embellished skirt — I mean metal embellishments have been everywhere lately, including the runways of this past New York Fashion Week. Inspired, I grabbed a skirt I had made from an old turtleneck (seen here), and some sparkly ornate trim I had been eyeing at Mood, and I married the two. It’s easy. It’s fun…and it takes any skirt from drab to fab!

Supplies: Skirt, embellished trim, coins, scissors, thread, needles, and chalk.
Editor’s note: Beaded trim is also available at MoodFabrics.com.

How-To:
1. Take nickel (any uniform coins) and mark out your desired layout.
2. Removing each coin along the way, mark out where each embellishment will be sewn.
3. With one long and continuous thread, first hand stitch center crystal into place.
4. Then sew in place middle row of embellishments (Note: the two silver pieces are separate pieces).
5. Next sew into place third row of embellishments below the crystal.
6. Then sew into place bottom/lower middle embellishment.
7. Now sew into place the very top row of the embellishments (Note: by doing this one last, you are able to control the height of each cluster, for perfect alignment against other groupings).
8. Working counter clockwise, sew in between each silver piece, the thin gold embellishments. On the last one triple knot the thread on the inside of the skirt.

Brandhyze Stanley is the chief voice of Frugal-nomics.com; a platform designed to share with women how to live and look fabulous on a dime. A DIY girl at heart—Brandhyze has been featured on The View, The Early Show, The Today Show, InStyle Magazine, Essence Magazine, and MTVStyle. A Wilhelmina Model for nearly a decade, with a Business Degree from Loyola University Chicago, Brandhyze is a Fashion & Style Writer and Video Contributor for Newsday Westchester, and provides DIY content to the popular How-To Site, eHow. Brandhyze is a huge thrifter and a lover of all good deals, follow her on Twitter @MyFrugalnomics and on Facebook at Facebook.com/Frugalnomics.