How to upgrade a High Street brand winter coat.

I bought my winter coat last year at C&A and really love it. I love the tweed, I love the wide collar and I love the belt. But when I had to fix some lose buttons  I decided that it needed a bit of an upgrade. So I spent a happy hour yesterday evening with my sewing box, trying to find ways how to decorate it a bit.

You need: Your winter coat. Two hairclips with flower. Ribbon. 1 plastic (or wood, or glass or whatever) pearl for each button. Sewing supplies like thread,  needles, pins, scissors

I bought some plastic pearls a while ago at the Christmas department of a furniture shop. I applied one to every button. I just sewed the button on and then as last step before securing the thread I sewed the pearl on. I guess it would also look great with a small button applied on top of the normal one.

The sleeves also had a button on it, which I think is quite useless. I removed the button, fixed the fabric with some stitches - quite easy on tweed as it is almost invisible. Good for somebody who isn't able to sew neat and nice... - and then fixed two hairclips with flower to the buttonholes.

As I was already on it I removed the belt loops which were only thick thread. I found some black ribbon and formed it to two loops about the size the original belt loops had. Then just sewed them back in place - I marked the place where the original loops were with a pin before I removed them so that I knew where to place the new ones. I did the same with the buttons - and put the belt back into them. Done.

 Sleeve before

 Sleeve and buttons afterwards

 The button loop before...

... and after

Sorry for the bad quality pictures, light was bad, I wasn't in the mood for testing and trying how to get better pictures, so I just took some while I worked and here they are.