Life's a beach. Wear a bikini.
Swimwear, beach beauty tips, DIY tricks and fitness tips all aimed to help you look your best when sportin' an itsy bitsy bikini. Plus, a few photos that make you want to go hop in the ocean, or book a flight to the nearest tropical destination.
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I’m on a fringe kick lately. I’m obsessed with these tops and want to shake and shimmy around the beach while wearing one.
Left to right: Acacia Montauk / Tyler Rose / Boys & Arrows / Leialoha / L*Space Audrey
Want to try a DIY before you buy…here’s how.
Somewhere in your closet there lies a long sleeve top that’s begging to be revamped, repurposed and worn to death. Help a shirt out with this DIY project that requires no sewing or mechanical skill whatsoever.
This happens all too often. Drive up to parking lot to go surfing. Realize for some odd reason I am not wearing a bikini. It’s too far to drive home to go and get one. Drive to nearest store. Buy cheapest suit I can find. Surf. End up with a diaper-butt bikini bottom and $25 I would’ve rather spent elsewhere.
However, with a little bit of easy sewing and scissors, I took my latest clearance rack purchase, and turned it into a more flattering, fun, festive, & fringed bikini bottom. So, thought I’d pass it along. Hopefully this will allow you to dust off, revamp and wear a few of those old bottoms you might have tucked away in the closet.
Easy fringed & ruched bikini bottom.
*Tools: Bikini bottom with long thick ties, scissors, dental floss, needle.
1. Ruche the bottom as little or as much as you want. For directions, follow my Scruncy Bootie Bottom tutorial HERE.
2. Take your scissors and carefully cut the all the side ties in thin strips about 1.5 cm wide. Cut any bottom or side seams so you have as much fringe as possible.
(TIP: make sure the ties are tightly tied before you cut.)
3. Repeat on all side ties.
4. If you’re feeling saucy, you can braid some fringe strands together or knot the ends of each fringe. I kept mine loose - more shakeability.
5. Enjoy shaking your bom bom as you walk down the beach, and receiving some compliments, or invitations to salsa along the way
*Working on getting better pics of the fringe, but in the meantime, use your imagination. It’s cute. Promise.
Fringe isn’t just for moccasins, handbags, and bangs anymore folks. It’s made its way into the genre of the bikini top. Trendsetting brands like Tyler Rose, L* Space, Acacia and Thayer have all adorned tops with bold or subtle fringed trim that makes you want to shimmy and shake a little bit more than usual. Bonus: it’s really flattering to your bust line, and channels your inner Shakira or Tina Turner at the same time. So, I took an old bikini top, and with a little bit of thread and the aid of a tee shirt, was able to spice things up a bit.
How to take a simple bikini top from blah to fringe-tastic.
Tools: Bikini top, tee shirt you don’t mind cutting off 6” or so from the bottom, scissors, needle, thread
1. Find a tee shirt you deem worth of being your bikini top’s fringe trim. (I used one that matched the color with a fun feather screen print)
2. Using your scissors, cut about 6” off from the bottom of your tee shirt (bonus if you have a tee you want to crop).
3. Cut that 6” tube in half, then in half again, resulting in two strips of fabric.
4. Flip your bikini top inside out, and pin the fringed tee shirt hem (the part where you stopped cutting each strip) in place on the inside of the bikini top where you want the fringe trim to be.
5. Using a threaded and knotted needle, attach the fringed using a whip stitch. (basically loop the needle and thread in and around as you work along the bikini top.)
6. When you’ve covered the edge of the top you want to have fringed trim, knot and tie off the thread, and cut off any extra thread or t-shirt fringe.
7. Repeat for the other side.
8. Remove pins, flip the top right side out, try it on, and feel free to trim if any strips are too long.
9. Shake, shimmy, and pretend to salsa dance.
