lolita without brand names?

So lately I've been very interested in Lolita fashion. However on my poor budget there is no way I can afford to buy name brand items, who needs name brand anyway? Some of the dresses can cost over $300 for just one dress! I've made quite a few items lately so I need to catch up on my posts. This will be about two different skirts I tried.

The first skirt I attempted is a simple black circle skirt with a ruffle at the bottom.

Not many pictures since I just used the calculated radius to cut out a waist and the rest of the skirt. I also decided against adding the lace lying in the picture after consulting a lolita fashion forum. 

The next skirt I made is more of an alteration. I found a fun ankle length swishy skirt at the thrift store.

I cut off the waste band at about 4 inches. I had to also cut around the zipper.







I then sewed darts into the waistband so it would fit snug around my entire waist, in the hope of creating a high waist skirt.

Next I pleated the remainder of the skirt and sewed it to the bottom of the waistband so that the length of the skirt was about knee length.