As the new year begins with the promise of a fresh start and a new opportunity to reinvent ourselves, we make long lists of resolutions we promise that we will keep. Here you can see I’ve already kept one of mine to give my room a little makeover:
Before:
After:
I know that for many of us, a new wardrobe is in order to match our newly revamped personas, but who really has the money to go out and renew their closet? This is the problem that I’ve come face to face with; so many clothes and so little money to buy them! This is why I’ve recently been super obsessed with thrift shopping. My favorite go-to store right now is Saver’s because not only is it cheap but they have a great variety of nice clothes and if you look well enough, there are some really awesome hidden gems to be found.
On my last Saver’s trip I found this awesome t-shirt (shown below) for a band called Depeche Mode. Apparently my mom even used to listen to them in the 80s-90s. You can listen to some of their music here.
I’ve recently been really into black clothing so that was a plus, and I also have a thing for red roses so that really did it for me. When I tried it on it was a little tight, but for $3 I knew I could sass it up somehow to make it a little more fitting and edgy. So here I’ll show you guys how to take old clothes and make them suit your tastes and personality better to start the year off right!
Materials:
- Shirt that needs a makeover
- Scissors
- Lace fabric (or old lacy shirt in my case)
- Needle and thread
- Ruler
- Any other things you want to add to your shirt such as jewels, iron-ons, buttons, etc.
1) First cut the sleeve off at the seams. I would recommend doing this on a flat surface to make the cleanest cut possible. Even though it’s already kind of tank top shaped, I want to cut them off a little more to make it more loose. To give it a more frayed look, cut on the inside of the seam. If you want to make a clean cut, cut on the outside of the seam.
Tip: Try it on after cutting to see if you are happy with the sleeves, if not go back and cut again.
2) Since my shirt is a little too tight for my liking, I’m going to cut the sides and insert a panel to make it a little looser. Cut the sides of the shirt at the seams from the waist to the armpits.
It should look open like this:
3) Depending on how big you want the panels on the sides to be, measure that amount on the fabric you want. Remember to make two panels of the same size to sew on both sides and add about an extra inch or two to sew them on. I had an old lace shirt in my closet that I never used so I’m cutting my panels from there. Since I don’t want my shirt to be too loose, I’m going to make my panels about 4 or 5 inches wide and go from there. Make sure to measure the height to be how far it is from the waist to the armpit. It’s better to make your panels bigger than you think you need and then trim off excess so you don’t have to go back and cut another one if you decide you need bigger panels.
4) Now just go back in and sew the panels into the shirt. Like I said in the Heart Leggings tutorial, I’m not the best sewer, but you don’t have to be! Just take your time and don’t worry if your stitches aren’t perfect, nobody looks at that anyways.
5) After adding the panels, the shirt still needed a little pizzazz so I decided to add some lace trim on the bottom to give it a more girly edge. It had little black flowers and just rounds out the whole rocker vibe. In this step, instead of adding trim you could also cut the bottom off if it is too long, but remember to cut off less than you think because once you cut you can’t go back!
This is what the finished product looked like:
This is what it looks like with a few accessories:
So there you go! An easy way to revamp any tight or old shirts you may have lying around.
Here are some ideas of other ways you can give your closet a makeover:
Add some lace to your shorts!
- Whenever I wore these shorts, I felt like they were a little too short so I added the lace to not only add a little length but also some excitement! Lace was very in last year and it’s no doubt that it will make a comeback again this year.
Give your handbags a whole new look!
- Bag 1: This bag was getting worn out and even the color was chipping off so I colored in those parts with a nail polish similar in color. I used gold and balck sharpie to draw in the kitty faces and give it a more cutesy look.
- Bag 2: I never wanted to wear this bag because it was just so plain and boring and beige. To revamp it, first I used copper nail polish to color in the outside pocket. Then I used black sharpie to outline the seam parts of the bag. To finish off the look, I added some black studs to the front pocket.
Happy Crafting, HC Cuties!