DIY Archives | Page 24 of 27 | Life is Beautiful

DIY- Knotted Tee

August 9, 2010~ SEWING

I made a simple knotted tee using this plain gray t-shirt I had.
I cut the neckline of the shirt into a bigger roundneck and cut the shirt all the way down on the middle-left of the shirt. Then I knotted the top part of the two sides and sewed the knotted part from the inside. (I tucked the knotted part inside the shirt.) *note: when knotting, it’s more like twisting one side around and under the other side while the other side doesn’t really move except just bunching it up.)
and after…

I wouldn’t recommend using an already tight shirt to do this project since you cut the middle and sew it back up. My t-shirt was a size medium.

my project took me about 10 mins. and it cost me nothing!

Anthro DIY Marjorelle Necklace

July 26, 2010~ DIY DREAM HOUSE

My inspiration:

a marjorelle necklace from anthropologie.

gold rope(wal mart $1.20), epoxy, gold chain clasp, 10mm jump ring gold, 2 gold earring clasps(all from jo ann’s for .77 cents each kind), 2 flower rings(baker’s $8.00 each), one gold flower(from a necklace I had).

I took out the rings from the flowers and epoxied it onto the gold rope. Then I put clear tape around the ends of the rope from unraveling and then used the clasps, and the jump ring to connect it to the end of the rope on both sides.

and TA-DA!

it took me about 15 minutes to make for under $20 bucks. I saved over $40!

how to modestify a short skirt

July 13, 2010~ Etc.

It seems like many skirts selling at the stores these days are mid-thigh length or shorter. Which is a bummer since I’ll see a cute skirt at the store and gasp with excitement only to find in disappointment that it’s too short. So this is one of two ways I modestify my skirts.

before.

check the hem on the bottom of the dress. is there extra fabric to play with? this one luckily did. see how the hem stitching of the dress is about 3″ above the bottom of the skirt?

unpick the bottom of the dress all the way around.

unfold the extra fabric down.

fold it twice, then hem the bottom of the skirt.

this is what the finished product will look like.

viola! it’s 3″ inches longer now!

FYI: this will not work on all skirts, you’ll have to flip the skirt over and check the hem to see if there’s any extra fabric to lengthen.

Anthropologie Climbing Cowlneck

July 1, 2010~ SEWING

I apologize for the lack of posts. The charger to my laptop is broken so the only access I get is through my phone or at my parents’ house. Not to mention I went to Vegas for the weekend with my girlfriends with NO kids WOO HOO!

Not using the internet has been pretty nice though I gotta admit, and I realized I’ve been using the computer way too much and that I should focus on what’s more important like relationships with my family. So I don’t think I’ll be blogging everyday, maybe every other day or so.

But guess what!? I did work on a DIY project to not disappoint you readers out there. 🙂

I bought this shirt for $5 at Old Navy in XL. I’m in love with light blue these days so I knew I had to buy it in hopes of making it into something cute.

My inspiration came from this Climbing Cowlneck top from Anthropologie. after a few hours and a few days later:

Regular price: $48

I saved over $45!

*I had so many requests for a tutorial for this one that I couldn’t resist. 😉 The only problem is the shirt is already made so there are n0 step by step pictures. But I can take detailed pictures of the after and explain the how-to’s as best as I could, does that sound good? good, here it is!

I altered the XL shirt into a XS first. I did that by putting a xs shirt on top of the shirt and then roughly measuring how much to cut. Then I cut up the sleeves into a cap sleeve, and cut up the sides. I sewed up the sides and left the sleeves alone. I also cut up the neckline hem so it’s just a open hem. One important thing to note is that the front of this shirt will end up to be the back of the shirt and the back will be the front of the shirt. This was necessary since the neckline has to be pretty high enough to be able to create the draping for the cowlneck effect.

after the shirt is altered, I worked on the sleeves. you pinch about 1/6″ inch of the fabric and sew it straight line horizontally, from the start of the neckline to the end of the sleeves. reverse a few times to make sure the stitches are in place. (sorry i don’t know the term for it, I’m not an expert seamstress!) I did 17 lines in the front and 16 lines in the back. (the only reason why I did so many in the back was because since it was a XL, the neckline was very low. You don’t have to do the back at all if the fit is just fine.) the spacings between the lines are roughly 1/2″ apart.
this is how the back should look. now repeat on the other sleeve.

for the sleeves to be not so futuristic looking and stick out straight on the shoulders, I gathered the end of the sleeves by sewing on stitch length 5 and pulling it together to give it a “curved, round” look.

then right on the back part of the shirt, I did the same as I did on the sleeves but only 8 lines VERTICALLY. I only did this because the XL shirt was too wide for me.

the back of the seam

the view of the back of the shirt. (remember this is actually the front of the shirt when no alterations were done.)
then on the right side of the shirt, I did the same technique I did to the sleeves except it gradually gets longer per line, the longest line being the middle of the shirt. One line after the other is about 1/3″ shorter or longer.

and you’re done! I hope I made sense! 🙂

featured on:

Hope Studios

The Train to Crazy

J.Crew-flutter fold shell Top

June 14, 2010~ Etc.

This week I used an inspiration from this Flutter Fold Shell from J.Crew.

But it turned out to be a little different than I had originally planned and it was a very spontaneous, g0-with-the flow project. So this is the result:
I actually had another top from Anthropologie in mind but I realized after I cut it into thick strips that I wouldn’t have enough fabric. So I went through my inspiration file and picked the tank above. I had to cut the strips into skinnier pieces and went from there. I bought two shirts and used the fabric from one shirt for the strips and the flowers and added it on to the other shirt.

the flowers were not planned, I actually made the flowers for a headband but I was playing around with it and it looked really cute on the shirt. Now I can’t imagine the shirt without the flowers!