Anthropologize

Anthropologize: verb. 1. to modify or augment an item so that it appears to be have been purchased at a usually overpriced store with a fetish for the unique 2. to make something mass produced look handmade through the artful addition of details

This post starts with a story.  Many moons ago, I was offered a job a few days after graduation from college.  They wanted me to start within 2 days.  I talked them up to 5 or so, which allowed me enough time to find an apartment, move a suitcase full of stuff and an air mattress into that apartment (having sent the majority of my belongings home with my parents mere days before while I informally subletted a room in some friends' rented house), and desperately shop for a work wardrobe on a very limited budget. 

One of the things I purchased was this boring green cardigan from Target.  I'm going to guess that I paid about $10 for it; it had to have been pretty cheap because I bought an identical white one at the same time.  I wore it all the time when I first started working since I owned approximately 5 work appropriate tops.  Over the years, I built a more extensive work wardrobe and the boring green sweater fell out of favor.  Why wear this when I could wear a purple or teal or yellow or grey-with-embroidered-birds cardigan?  It was retired to the laundry drawer--the bottom drawer I desperately rummage through at 7:15 on a weekday morning when all my other work clothes are dirty. 

I decided it was time to make something more of this sweater.  I looked through my scrap fabric and cut out some shapes.  I arranged them and tried to sew them on with the machine.  Tried is the operative word, as I used the seam ripper and detached them from the sweater.  I cut out replacement shapes, rearranged, and sewed them on by hand.  I found some beads in a bag of craft supplies and sewed them on as well.

Ta da!  Anthropologized.

I'll admit that I don't love it yet.  I'm afraid the black beads on the yellow look too much like cheetah, especially from a distance, which isn't really my style. I might have liked it better when it was just the leaf shapes.  Any thoughts or suggestions?  No beads?  Different beads?

Even though it's still a work in progress, I feel very industrious in taking something that I rarely used and making it more fun and special.  It's the first real "wardrobe remake" that I've tried, and it has emboldened me.  Next up: "J.Crewifying" a tank top?