DIY- Car applique shirt

The little guy wouldn't cooperate today for a picture in his super cute shirt. That will have to come later. i just wanted to make sure to get up the tutorial for anyone that wanted to try it out :)

Decorating, re-purposing, and re-using shirts and more!

Making an appliqué shirt is a fun and relatively easy way to reuse clothing, give a new look to an item, or decorate items. Below are step-by-step instructions for doing a car appliqué shirt, but you would follow the step for any other appliqué design you might want to make.

Supplies for making a car appliqué shirt:

·      Patterned fabric

·      Template of design

·      Hot iron

·      Heat and Bond adhesive

·      Paper towel

·      2 large buttons

·      Sewing Machine and colored thread

·      Cotton t-shirt

·      Small scissors

·      Piece of stabilizer material

NOTE: Be sure to always keep your area smooth with an appliqué so you don’t get bumps or crinkles.

LETS BEGIN!!!!

1-    The first thing to do is warm up the iron and iron out your cotton t-shirt so there are no wrinkles in your space.

2-    Choose a pattern that you want to make cute it out of a sheet of paper.

3-    Take your piece of cotton fabric and iron it flat then turn it right side down. Take your paper pattern and put it on top of the fabric but have it facing the wrong direction. (Remember we are tracing it backwards because we are working on the wrong side of the fabric.

4-    Trace your pattern onto the fabric with a chalk pen, disappearing ink pen, etc. and cut it out. I cut out the windows as well.

5-    Take your piece of Heat and Bond and lay it under the cotton fabric so that the fabric is right side up and the rough edge of the Heat n Bond is touching the wrong side of the fabric.

6-    Here you could trace out your pattern again and cut the Heat n Bond to adhere to the fabric, or you can do my little cheat J I take a piece of paper towel and simply lay it on top of my stack of Heat n Bond and cotton fabric then iron on top of all the stack. This attaches the fabric to the Heat n Bond and then allows me to simply peel them apart with the adhesive already bonded to the fabric. It also makes it so I don’t get any glue on my iron.

                                     Iron over the paper towel 45 seconds to a minute.

           

Peel the paper towel off of the fabric, then peel the fabric w/adhesive off of the Heat n Bond paper.

At this point your appliqué should look like this:

Here there are a few rough edges that have extra adhesive. Use a small pair of scissors and trim the edges of excess adhesive.

7-    Take your neatly ironed shirt and lay it in front of you. Position the appliqué on the shirt where you want it. Be very certain you like where it is before you move on.

8-    Using your warm iron, iron over the appliqué for about a minute. You can take the iron on and off of it and move it around. Don’t just sit a hot iron on top of the appliqué and wait. Press the appliqué in.               

      

9-    In theory, you could end here, and just attach the buttons for wheels and call it a day. I’ve found that Heat n Bond works for a washing or two, but I don’t want to be re-ironing it or worrying that part of it will fall off, so keep going……

10-Now that the fabric is held in place with the adhesive, take your piece of stabilizer and insert it into the inside of the shirt. You will need to feel around and place it under the appliqué so that it would cover all of it if it were on top of it. Use straight pins to pin in place the stabilizer under the shirt.

11-Set your sewing machine to a ziz-zag stitch that is tight with a wide stitch. I use a 1 for tightness of stitch and a 5 for width around the body of the car and a 1 and 3.5 for the windows.

12-Place your shirt on your sewing machine. YOU MUST BE CAREFUL YOU ARE CAUTIOUS OF WHAT YOU ARE SEWING! Don’t sew the shirt together. You are stitching the applique onto the shirt and the stabilizer under the top layer of the shirt.                                          

                                                              

      Keep the edge of the appliqué in the middle of your machine foot so that the ziz-zag is even. Feed the shirt through the machine, pulling and feeding the appliqué around. There is no need for speed. You want to keep a slow, smooth, steady stitch for the appliqué. You will need to stop at points and reposition the foot and appliqué. That’s okay, just adjust and keep going.  

                                

     Do around the body of the outside and then cut your threads and do the windows.  Using a tight zig-zag stitch to finish off the appliqué gives it a framed look as well as a tight safe hold to the shirt. It makes certain to hold up very well in washings. The stabilizer under the shirt keeps the fabric from pulling or the needle from puncturing the shirt and leaving any pulls in the shirt.                     

 

13-When you are done, turn the shirt inside out. It should look relatively similar to this:  

I cut the stabilizer out with small embroidery scissors because my little one is really particular about things itching.

14-Turn your shirt back right side out. Now take your large buttons and hand-stitch them into place as your wheels. Use a strong thread or a couple of pieces of embroidery thread. (If your sewing machine will do this, you can do that, it’s always been easier for me to hand sew them than to mess with the machine.)

15-Make sure you have snipped all your loose threads around the appliqué both inside and outside of the shirt. Turn it right side out and press out any wrinkles. And then you’re done!

WASHING INSTRUCTIONS:

            I always wash appliqué shirts in cold water with like colors and dry in my dryer as normal. I iron over top the appliqués before wear as well if the shirt is wrinkled. With the stitching on top of the Heat n Bond, I’ve never had a problem with a shirt holding up for me, and my little guy is tough!

IDEAS WITH APPLIQUE SHIRTS:

·      Check out some Etsy stores that sell just the DIY appliqué and purchase solid shirts to decorate.

·      Decorate a pack of plain onesies

·      Add an appliqué patch to a sweater or pair of jeans

·      Applique a tote, purse, or blanket.

·      Cut out letter or numbers for shirts or bibs

·      Applique a monogram

·      You can check out sites online such as www.freeapplique.com for free patterns and templates.

·      Do a Google search for “Free Applique Patterns”

·      Find clip art images on your computer that you can use for an easy template

·      Cover up a stained shirt with an appliqué before throwing out the shirt!

·      Make appliqué shirts for children’s birthday party gifts, holiday gifts, etc.

Have fun appliquéing your items and making fun shirts!

Need any help with anything on these directions, or maybe something isn’t clear enough… E-mail me at  TheWoobieShop@gmail.com

Like the pattern???? Become a follower and leave a comment :) Many Thanks!!!

Hand Stamped Jewelry

So last year I got it in my head that I wanted a hand stamped necklace. And of course, being me, more than wanting to buy one and wear it, I wanted to learn how to make it! So late one night I went online and bought all the supplies and thought I'd give it a go.

Well with so many Etsy stores that sell them, I'm not sure I really have a big chance of selling them. Other than the fact that I price them right. Some stores are seriously high priced, but it must work for them.

The past week has brought in a few jewelry sales which has been encouraging and led me to post a few more necklaces in the shop. So here are some shots of them.

These are of the initial necklaces with the Swarovksi crystals.

This one is of a name necklace with a birthstone crystal.

The only thing not so great about necklace making is that there isn't any room for error. Once you screw up you can take out the seam ripper and give it another go. The silver slips and you've got to start all over.... grrr. But then again, getting to use a hammer to make something pretty is sort of fun!

I've ordered some new stamps, a star, dragonfly and dog bone. I'll make some small discs and post those once they show up. Mocha might even get a new puppy necklace :)

Thanks to those who helped out in 2009

Before starting 2010 on the blog, I thought I'd say thanks to the blogs who helped out with business either by buying an item from the store, doing a blog giveaway, or just throwing support my way. So to the following blogs, thanks!


Adventures of a Wannabe Supah Mommy for sponsoring a review and giveaway of my snack bags :)

Mingle Over Mocha for doing a review and giveaway on her blog. She's got a few blogs about homeschooling, real estate and mom things. Check her out!

Miss Mel at Night Light Stories for using one of my snack bags in her contests.

I'm definitely up for doing a blog review or giveaway if you have a blog and do contests that pull in support for Etsy stores. Just shoot me an email, or send me a message on Facebook!