Sick of my plain t-shirts! (nat)

Well being a stay at home mom and having boys with reflux means I have WAY too many plain, boring, spit-up proof shirts. I would love to have a totally new wardrobe but instead I just tried to find ways to vamp up my boring shirts! With just a little creativity and some digging through my scrap fabric here's what I've got so far. The possibilities are endless I began to realize. These ones are nothing special but at least I don't feel totally lame walking around in my sweats all day!

So this one looks a lot better on, the pleating on the shirt makes it cute which is why i got it originally but the white was fading and just wasn't lovin it anymore. I just traced over this area of the shirt with tissue paper, then cut it out and used it as a pattern. Cut the fabric and sewed it on. I didn't worry about finished edges and all that- too much work, and it's not like this is gonna be a date night shirt or anything

Here I just googled silouette of a bird, printed out a few and used those to trace onto a fabric I liked. I did use some interfacing under so it would be easier to sew it on and hold up a little better. Once again, no finished edges but I kinda like the frayed look. Although- word to the wise, adding birds to a shirt that doesn't fit well- doesn't make it fit any better!

Ok now we are getting a little fancier. This is probably one of those love it or hate it ones. After looking at a bunch of different images on etsy I just kinda threw this one together. I took one long piece of fabric, made pleates, ironed them in place then on that right side I just kinda rolled the pleates up until it made a flower. I just pinned everything on and used my machine to sew it on. I may have added a few stitches by hand to the flower part to make it extra secure. Final touch was a little ribbon to hide the stitches... hmm still kinda love it- still kinda hate it, I'm on the fence. Oh I did see a cute dress over at Make It and Love It and she shows you how to make a flower out of fabric similar to this.

OOh now this one I actually really like. Nothing fancy but it's so "me" And it was so easy. I just had a little flowery fabric left over from a diaper/wipe holder I made so I cut out some of the flowers, cut out interfacing to match, and sewed them on! You'd be surprised what you can come up with if you look at your fabric in a different light. Oh and of course I loved it when the lady behind me in costco said, I love your shirt where did you get that!? Ahhhh I made it!

Now this one I can totally give all the credit to Josey and our lovely little craft night. She found some pics of cute ruffly shirts and we gave it a try. Basically you cut a circle, and pinch it from the under side until it makes a little flowery shape. Then you just sew straight across the bottom to make the flower keep its shape. Later I happened upon this site which gives you a little tutorial and instead of sewing it straight on the shirt you sew it to a piece of fabric then attach with safety pins so you can take it off when you wash the shirt so you just have to use a glue gun- you can also move it from outfit to outfit- so smart! You can check out some other adorable flowers here!

After learning the technique I came home and tried it out. This is the only shirt I spent money on- I actually bought this shirt at target on clearance for 2 bucks! Then I used a purple shirt I already had to do the flowers/ruffles. I think I did 3 flowers then sewed them together, then sewed them on the shirt. I did handstitch these on in several places for extra security but if you have a decent machine I am sure it works great! Next time around I would totally go up higher to cover the whole collar (what was I thinking!) but I think I like it.

Oh and I made a little matching headband too. I already had one of these elastic headbands hanging around so I just added a group of 3 on here too- so easy!
Ok and I got really brave and even wore this to church.... and now I am getting REALLY brave and posting a totally cheesy picture for you to see too-consider yourself lucky!