Today's inspiration all started here...

I was having a movie night with my pal BU and the storefront at Juicy Couture caught our eyes. We loved the sweater that hung in the window and had an immediate moment of, we can DIY this!

So, that's what today's project is...my version of Juicy's Nautical Hibiscus Sweater.

To really emulate the essence of Juicy's sweater, I wanted something royal blue to work with and found just the right piece - a Mossimo sweater from Target that I scored at Goodwill for $3!

Now that I had the perfect base, it was time to get crafty!! I started with some rhinestones (these larger ones came from Darice's "Big Bag of Bling") and Aleene's Jewel-It glue...

...and began my copycat adventures!

I started off by recreating the anchor on the sweater, just by placing down rhinestones. Before I began rhinestoning, I put a magazine in-between the top and bottom layers of the sweater just to avoid any issues, come glue time, of the top and bottom sticking to each other from seeping glue! Not until I was happy with the formation did I begin gluing. I think this actually might have been the trickiest part of the project!!

Once I was happy with the design, it was glue time! I put dabs of glue on the back of each stone, placed them down in their spot...

...and then let the newly formed anchor dry overnight!

Once my anchor was dry, I began the yarn portion of the project! Seeing how there were lots of green shades of yarn forming sorts of leaves and some white/purple/pink shades creating the hibiscus flowers, I went to my knitting stash and pulled out the appropriate colors. (I ended up snagging the lime skein at Joann's for $4 to complete the foursome because that was the one color I was missing.)

I took a huge needle from my sewing collection, weaved the forest green yarn through, and knotted the ends of the yarn before I began my stitching. I freestyled this part of the project weaving in and out of the sweater, going over stitches multiple times to give the leaves a bit more depth.

I had the image of the Juicy sweater on my computer as a template to look at as I made my way around the anchor.

With my leaves completed, I created the flowers next. I found a traceable image of a hibiscus...

...and used this as a pattern to cut out three flowers from felt. Once my flowers were trimmed...

...I took the ivory yarn and followed the outline of the flower while hot gluing the yarn in place. I kept following the shape of the cut out until the entire flower was covered in yarn. I was going to stitch these flowers down directly to the sweater, but I opted to add pin-backs to them instead so they'd be easily removed when washing. (Feel free to take whichever route you feel most comfortable doing! I can always go back and make the flowers more permanent, but for today I was super pleased with the removable flair!)

Once the ivory yarn was set, I grabbed the forest green yarn along with some purple. I tried to mimic the flowers on the Juicy sweater by adding a few flecks of the purple in the center as well as the green.

I pinned down the flowers to the sweater next and couldn't wait to get this piece on!!

I have to say, I love how this turned out!!

I wore it out to dinner and the gentleman server even complimented me on it! Nothing like saying that I made it myself and saving close to $260 at the same time. Yep, you heard me! (Full pricing below...)

I thought about trying to make the stripes on the arms, but actually liked the piece better all blue! Also, the sleeves hit about 3/4 length on my thrifted sweater, so it really didn't even matter.

I could add more leaves to make the sweater fuller (which is how Juicy's looks) however I'm really enjoying the placement as is.

After all is said and done, my sweater cost just about $9 - $3 for the sweater, $4 for the yarn, and $2 for the rhinestones. Whoot, whoot!! Not a bad job when the inspiration piece retailed for $268.