$5 craft

Tee Shirt to Fabulous in Under $5

One of my mom’s superpowers is sewing. I never had a store bought dress growing up because she always made them. Every one. every dress for every dance from junior to my Senior prom my mom made. Now, my girls love going to the store with their MaMaw, buying some material and other goodies, and heading back to MaMaw’s house and into her sewing room. With my mom on Spring Break with us this week, we have been trying to come up with things to keep us busy and today was another sewing day.

After grabbing some $3-4 shirts from Walmart and some material to match, we went back to my parents’ house and Mom and the girls went straight to her sewing room. They laid out the shirts, matched up materials, and began to create. Each of my younger three girls came home with a new shirt before the night was over. Here are the simple things they did to add some bling to their inexpensive shirts.

Tee Shirt to Fabulous in Under $5

Shirt #1 was a basic teal-colored tee shirt. We paired it with a glittery, multi-colored butterfly print and a sheer and shiny fabric. After cutting out pieces to fit across the shirt about 3″ wide, mom serged down both sides of the fabric and put a baste stitch down the other sided. By serging the side it will keep the fabric from unraveling and we could then pucker the other side. Princess helped her and explained the process as they were going. “The reason we left a tail and backstitched the other end is so that we can then hold the tail and gently pull to make the puckers. The backstitched ends holds it all in place.” After puckering the pieces, they were each pinned to the front of the shirt and then sewn into place. That was it. One shirt down!

Shirt #2 was actually a layered-look, long sleeve shirt on clearance. First things first, we cut off the sleeves {to be used later} and took off the silver belt. Next, we cut 2 pieces of material about 7″ in width each. Again, we made sure to serge down both sides of the material to keep it from fraying.  And then, just as before, with a basted stitch down one side, we gathered the material so give it a nice look when we attached it to the shirt. After stitching both skirt pieces together, they were then pinned and sewed on to the bottom of the shirt. A quick overlay of some teal-colored rickrack and shirt #2 was done! JJ loved it!

$5 craft

Shirt #3 was the quickest and easiest to make. We found a $3 tank top that was perfect for Monkey. We cut a 7″ wide piece of purple material and prepared it as we did the others above using the serger. Another basted seam along with more puckering and pinning. Some purple ribbon to cover the seam between the shirt and the skirt and that was it. This one took all of 10 minutes and Monkey had her own little tank dress.

There you go! 3 super simple ways to turn a t-shirt or tank top into something fabulous inexpensively and easily!

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