Anthropoli-fication Boyer Cream Cardi GIVEAWAY!!!! CLOSED.

If you must know, I love Anthropologie. Despite the fact that there is no storefront where I live. Despite the fact that I have yet to purchase one garment from them. If I had a dime for every time I've drooled over their website....I'd have enough to buy a sweater. And hey, if you know Anthropologie that's a lot!

So, when oogling their site I often find myself thinking of ways I can alter my own clothes to look like a piece I have seen. I call it- Anthropolification. Some of them have actually come out fantastic. Some....not so much. But I thought why not share what I have attempted with all of you. This is hopefully the first of many Anthropolification how-to giveaway posts.

Below is the Boyer Cream Cardi. It currently retails at Anthropologie for $118. To the left is my version. It's basically a black button down short sleeved sweater with crochet lace trim in three thick layers.

To recreate this look, I went out to my local department store and bought a plain black cardigan on sale. The only ones I could find at discount were too large and had long sleeves. Not exactly what I wanted. BUT, if you're brave you ignore the obvious errors and take a chance.

I bought the garment and took it home. Once I got it into my sewing room and onto my dress form I pinned the extra fabric on the sides to fit my shape. I then ran it through my sewing machine and used a very tight stitch since I didn't want the sweater material to unravel. I then cut the sleeves to the same length as the Anthropologie sweater and hemmed the cuff.

Later I took a trip down to my local fabric store and bought 9 yards of white crochet lace similar to the ones used by Knitted & Knotted and pinned them to the cardigan in hanging rows. One around the neckline, one from shoulder to shoulder, one around the waist and finally two around the cuffs. My trim was slightly smaller than the Boyer Cardi, so I doubled the flower trim to thicken the look.

Anthropologie pairs it with a pair of Grey Linen Gauchos. I didn't have any of those but I used a pair of dark grey linen pants I bought at Forever 21.

The ear rings I wore matched this sweater perfectly! They are also from Forever 21. They no longer sell them but you can find similar ones at Manic Trout.

The finished sweater is about a size small to extra small.

In all, the total cost to make this sweater was $6. No lie. I'll admit that up close it's not exactly the same. But from a distance I think it came out pretty parallel. And who doesn't like to save $112 dollars?

If anyone has their own Anthropolification request just leave a comment with the name of the Anthropologie garment and I'll see if it's feasible.

Look for more giveaways this week!

Last day for posts is Friday 3/08/09. Winner will be announced Tuesday!

As usual, if you would like a chance to win this sweater just link back to this post. If you have any questions see the "questions and answers" link to the right. If you use blogger just use the "create a link" link at the bottom of this post.