I love the fact that our society is experiencing a surge of hand-made creativity. A craft renaissance, if you will. People are beginning to realize that manufactured items doesn't necessarily mean better. Thanks to sites like Etsy and Pinterest and the legion of DIY blogs, it's cool to "make your own stuff".
It's about freaking time.
With this is mind, I wanted to share this simple DIY top I made for my daughter Maya. Miss Maya is quite the fashionista--she loves the idea of putting an outfit together, playing dress up and going shopping. I love to have my little ladies looking cute and stylish as much as the next mama but the numbers on the price tag often make me want to weep. So it's time to get creative.
I saw this young girl wearing the cutest top--a sweatshirt style top with lace cut-outs in it--at Forever 21 a couple of months ago, and I immediately began to figure out how I could recreate it on my own. I found something similar on Pinterest, but without any kind of source or tutorial, so I just used my noggin and figured out how to do it myself. I loved the idea of a basic heart shape for the cut-out, since it was for Maya.
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| I bought this basic long-sleeved tee from Old Navy for $6 in heather grey. |
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| Find the spot where you want your heart to go. I chose the back, right in the middle. Now, looking back I realize I made the rookie mistake of not turning the tee inside out before I traced the heart on it but oopsies. |
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| My heart was looking kind of funky so I folded the tee in half and used that old snow flake technique so I could have an even-shaped heart. Make sure you have sharp scissors and you aren't using a dull pair of craft scissors like I was. |
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| See how off my heart was! I bought a yard of white lace for $2/yd. Next time I will buy black lace. Oooh la la. I traced around the heart cut out and used it as a template. Make sure you give yourself a couple of extra inches around the edges. |
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| Since the top is for my daughter who is eight years old, I doubled up on the lace. I felt better about the extra coverage. If you are making a top for yourself, by all means hoochie it up and give yourself one layer of lace. You little minx! |
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| Here is where I used my smarts and turned the shirt inside out. I then glued two panels of lace onto the t-shirt with fabric glue and let it dry for 24 hours. Yes, fabric glue. What? I'm lazy and sewing machine-challenged. Don't judge me. |
That's it. I know, mind-blowingly easy, right?
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| After the glue was dry, I turned the shirt right side out. It looked super cute! The white lace looked cute and age-appropriate, and the double paneling was perfect--you could tell that it was lace but you couldn't necessarily see through it, either. |
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| Close up. You probably can't see it, but there is a tiny bit of ball point pen on the t-shirt from me tracing on the outside of the shirt like a numbnut. No worries, it washed out. |
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| Work, Miss Maya! |
I really wanted to cut additional panels from the front of the shirt right by the neck so it could be visually interesting from the front but meh, I'll save that for the next one. Oh, before I forget it, when I washed the shirt, one of the lace panels came loose. Stoopid fabric glue. So, I will be hand-sewing the panels soon.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy (as Maya likes to say).
This tee is cute, comfortable and offers a little somethin' somethin' from your average Old Navy tee.
