Square Flower Embellished Shirt

This past weekend I bought some plain long-sleeved shirts off the clearance rack. What can I say, I can't pass up a deal! Since the belly is growing, I thought they would be a great cheap shirt to stretch out without feeling bad, PLUS they are super comfy and soft, me likey a lot!

The only downfall is that they are plain and rather boring. I needed to spice them up a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love myself some plain t-shirts but our winter here has been sooo long and drab I just needed to wear something fun! So, the Square Flower Embellished Shirtwas born. Want to take a look-see?

Pretty and no longer boring...yay for me!

You see, what I did was cut up small squares of fabric and stitched a star pattern in it that makes it look all flower-y and pretty...and non-boring! Not your normal flower but whoever said I was normal ;) It was so easy, I tell you...let me show you how I did it.

Square Flower Embellished Shirt

1 plain, boring shirt that you like but don't love

1 cheap-y t-shirt (or 1/4 yard of knit material) to cut up...may be similar color or not!

thread (contrasting thread stands out and looks super pretty!)

sewing machine

rotary cutter and mat

Here is my boring but comfy long-sleeve jersey shirt...it just needs some fun, doesn't it!?!

Here is the cheap-y Hanes shirt I used to make the square flowers.

Cut one sleeve off your t-shirt on the sleeve seam (where it attaches to the rest of the shirt).

This way you can still repurpose the rest of the shirt for something else!

Cut your sleeve up into 1 inch x 1 inch squares.

Pin all your squares in place so that you can see if you like the placement of them before you sew them down.

You may also want to try on your shirt to see how you like it too!

Now, take the pin out of one square at the top of the shoulder and stitch a line diagonally from corner to corner...don't forget to backstitch too!

You don't ever want to sew over a pin, that would be a big ouchy for your sewing machine!!!

Then, stitch the other two remaining lines of your flower to make a criss cross pattern.

You are now down one flower, pat yourself on the back...woot woot!

Keep doing this for each flower until they are all secure on your shirt.

Then, just cut all your loose thread ends and clean this beauty up! Unless you weren't lazy like me and didn't wait until the end to do this :)

All finished...an easy shirt embellishment done in no time!

Ahhh, so pretty!

LOVE!

Football Jersey-Style Boys' Shirt with Reverse Applique

So, ever since I made Penelope her little girly-punk dress from this post for the the Dharma Trading Design Challenge that Lil Blue Boo is putting on, my little Noah has been asking daily...more like multiple times daily...when I am going to make him a dress too. Now, I might have just sealed the deal for future years of therapy for telling you all he has been begging for me to make him a dress but I what I think he meant was just for me to make him something too. Clarification and interpretation of a 3 year old, that's what it's all about, right!?!

Well, I had been debating what to make him and then I thought that maybe I could just shorten the Sienna dress pattern and make it more box-y instead of dress flare-y at the bottom and it could be the perfect easy shirt for me to make him. So that is what I did and it worked, the perfect boys' shirt!!

Inspiration hit me during all my Super Bowl prepping last week...a Football Jersey-Style shirt...and when I found the cutest t-shirt with the Lucky Charms logo and little leprechaun on it I thought that it would be even cuter to put a St. Patrick's day spin on it too. It was all coming together, don't you love when stuff like that happens!!

What I did was use the colors from the Lucky Charms t-shirt, yellow and green, and found some cheapy Hanes t-shirts in those colors to construct Noah's shirt. I kept the word 'Lucky' from the old t-shirt and part of the leprechaun's face for the center and added a reverse applique shamrock underneath it, so it could read, Lucky 'Charms' but the charm is a four leaf clover...get it!?! Then, I reverse appliqued another shamrock on the back and freezer paper painted some football jersey-style stripes at the tops of the sleeves.

Want to see how it turned out?

Front view of my boys' shirt version of the Sienna Dress pattern

Back view

Close-up of backside with reverse applique shamrock and football jersey stripes on sleeves.

So, do you likey!?!

Want to see how I did it?

To make the football jersey stripes, I just cut strips of freezer paper and ironed them on waxy side down at the place on the sleeves where I thought they looked most 'football jersey' like!

Then, I used a foam brush and fabric paint to make the stripes. I put about 3 coats of fabric paint on to make the yellow color really stand out on the green. Also, make sure you paint in the same direction as your fabric so you have the best movement from your sleeve pieces. I painted mine left to right ONLY...and let me tell you, it is so very tempting to just paint in all directions, trust me!!

Here is the paper cut-out I used for the shamrock. Really, just a bunch of hearts and a stem.

Trace it on your fabric and cut it out carefully, then place your reverse applique fabric underneath (on the wrong side) and pin on the front (or right side) of your fabric! Straight stitch all the way around very, very slowly!

Voila, the finished reverse applique!!

And here's my little guy in his new shirt...he's so excited that I made him something!

The backside view

And now it's time to play!

See ya later!

Reverse Applique Toddler Dress and Legwarmers

Alright, so you all probably know about the Dharma Trading Design Challenge that Ashley over at Lil Blue Boo is doing right now, right!?! If not, it is a design challenge wear you create a unique outfit for a boy or a girl using a Lil Blue Boo pattern, the challenge ends on Feb. 15. The neat thing is that Ashley is donating one of her Lil Blue Boo dresses to a child in need for every 10 entries she receives, Wowza, cool right!!! Isn't that motivation enough to get at least one done?

Well, I finished my challenge entry this weekend, yippee, it was floating in my head for a couple weeks now and it feels so good to have it made! It's what I call a 'girlified punk' dress. I found my inspiration in a KISS band t-shirt that I magically happened on in the little boys' section of Target, and for only $1.98 on clearance!! I thought the KISS aspect of it might make a cute Valentine's Dress but with a punk/edge-y twist. I decided to add some red with a generic red Hanes t-shirt and then the stripes are from an Old Navy knit yoga top I bought for myself last fall for .97 cents when they had their additional 50% off on all clearance sale but I never thought fit me quite right. So this little dress is really quite the bargain! I embellished the dress with hearts on the body and sleeves to give it that girly look but placed them on with reverse applique because I thought that gave it a more punk-y look in my eyes :) I also made Penny some matching legwarmers cause I thought those just made the dress even punk-ier!

It was my first time ever doing the Sienna pattern and you all know how I am not much of a pattern girl, right? But, really this pattern is SO easy, it seriously only takes an hour (or two if you are a slow pattern cutter-outer like me) to finish! The Sienna pattern starts at 6-12 months and goes all the way up to 6T so it fits a wide range of ages but I noticed size 12-18 months was not on the pattern!! If you have a little one between 12 months and 2 years of age you can just average between the two patterns and cut that out, that's what I did and it fit Penelope great!!

Ok, so want to see my entry?

Here goes nothing:

Front view of my version of the Sienna Dress for the Dharma Trading Design Challenge

Backside view with a cute little heart reverse applique over the left-side of her bum!

Close-up of some heart reverse applique on the front.

Sweet girl and punk rocker all in one!

Ok, so let me show you how I designed this cutie little dress:

To make hearts that weren't lop-sided, I just folded a piece of scrap paper in half and cut a half a heart! See, nice and symmetrical hearts, oh so lovely!!

Then, I just placed the half-hearts along the seam of the sleeves and cut them out, like so. I also opened the hearts and cut around them on the front and back of the dress body too.

To reverse applique, I placed a piece of the red t-shirt knit on the wrong-side (or underneath) of the sleeve cut-outs and pinned in place. Then, I just straight stitched around the hearts. Mine definitely aren't perfect appliques but I was going for a girly-punk look so it worked for this dress!

That's basically the dress in a nutshell, what do you think!?!

For the legwarmers, I just used the sleeves from my long-sleeved yoga top. They were a little big, width-wise, since it is a ladies top so I just cut off some of the width.

Then, sew a new seam (using a straight stitch) with the legwarmers inside out. Then, I just added elastic to the top like I showed you here with these legwarmers. Easy peasy matching dress fun!

My punk rock little girly!

Front view

Side view

Backside view

Lovin' her new dress!

And of course, a box of conversation hearts is how we get most pictures done these days!

So sweet!

Love it!

Repurpose: Girl's Shirt to Toddler's Dress

Ok, so here is Part II of the Girl's Shirt Repurpose, turning that shirt into a Toddler Girl's Dress!!! This is a super easy way to make a dress for a little girl and because you're using an older girl's shirt there isn't lots of fabric to deal with like there would be with a men's or ladies shirt, hip hip hooray!

Also, make sure you check out yesterday's post here for a how-to on taking the sleeves and turning them into legwarmers! These two tutorials will show you how to use the complete shirt to make a whole new outfit for your little girl! I just love this repurpose because you use every piece of this shirt to make the cutest little outfit...a dress and legwarmers combo. No excess amounts of fabric leftover, what could be better than that!!

My little lady...I think she looks so 'ski bunny' in this outfit!

Ok, so let's get on with the tutorial, shall we?

Girl's Shirt to Toddler's Dress

1 Girl's shirt (ages 6-14 from the pre-tee-teen sections...mine was a thermal shirt!)

rotary cutter and mat

thread and sewing machine

pins or fabric marker

Again, here is the Target clearance shirt I bought for $2.48!!!

Ok, so get out your scissors or rotary cutter and cut off the sleeves and some of the bottom hem. I wanted short sleeves for the dress so I cut my sleeves off accordingly. Then, I just took a dress for Penny's closest and used that length to figure how much of the bottom hem I should cut off.

*I contemplated making Penny's dress without sleeves so she could have sort of a tank top dress for the summer and then she could just wear a long sleeve shirt under in chillier weather. I think I am going to do that with the other shirt I bought cause I have a feeling it's going to look cute!

Here is what the dress looks like after a run-in with my rotary cutter, mwahahaha!

A close-up of the sleeves.

*I washed this dress after cutting it up and guess what I learned? Thermal doesn't fray all crazy ugly!!! I really liked the look so I didn't do any hemming. But, of course, if you want a more finished look, just turn the edges under 1/4 inch and then 1/2 inch and straight stitch your hem into place! Easy peasy no matter what you decide!

Another view of the thermal fabric after cutting and washing. Me likey :)

Now, at this point you may want to put the shirt/dress on your little girl to see if you like the sleeve and dress length as well as to mark or pin where you need to take the neckline in.

Cut down the middle of the back of shirt ONLY to the point where the shirt flares out to go over your girly's bum, or just to the top of the skirt portion of the dress. This will help give the top a more fitted look and still give a flare to to bottom half of the dress. You probably don't have to cut it down the middle but doing so helped me figure out how much I wanted to taper the dress and gave me a visual of where to end my pinning.

*This is the difference between nighttime and daytime pictures, yikes...sorry about that!!!

Now, turn your dress inside out and fold your dress in half lengthwise, so that the two cut edges are lying one on top of the other. Pin from where you marked on the neckline down to the top of what is going to be the skirt portion of the dress. Make sure to pin slightly past the cut portion of the dress! Penny's dress needs to be brought in about 2 inches at the neckline and then I just tapered it down from there with a nice simple curve.

Zig zag stitch along the pins to create your new seam!

Now, just cut off the excess fabric.

If you'd like you can press your new seam flat or just go ahead and flip your dress right side out and put it on you little girly girl!

Wow!

The fastest shirt to dress repurpose ever, am I right or am I right?

You can see at the bottom of the new seam, here, how it puckers out just a little bit...perfect for that diaper bum!

The full on dress and legwarmers view...with her crazy striped hat and box of conversation hearts, of course :)

Feed me! Feed Me! Feed Me!

I guess it's time for the little Miss to eat!

At least she'll look stylin' while she does it :)