3D Flower Tee Tutorial

Sometimes I tend to take things just a little overboard...as a case in point, just look at what I sewed for Sam the other night...

see what I mean?  A humongo 3D beaded flower appliqued tee.  

Sam and I L.O.V.E. how this shirt turned out. We both especially like how the wavy petals and leaf give the shirt dimension.

Want to make one? 
But first a disclaimer: I want to apologize for not taking enough pictures for some of these steps...not only do I tend to go overboard at times but I also tend to forget to take pictures along the way when "crafting". So if you have questions, please email me...
3D Flower Tee Tutorial

I started out with 3 tee shirts: a plain long sleeved thrifted shirt and two patterned tee shirts that I already had.  The floral one should look familiar to you...it's the same as the one I used for this shirt here. The striped one was already in my stash of shirts that no longer fit Sam.

Making the flower applique

1. Cut your tee across at the arm pits.  

Now you should have a tube from the bottom part of the tee.  

2. Cut down the sides of this tee tube. You should have two pieces. Use fusible web to fuse these two pieces together...WRONG SIDES to each other.  

3. Make a flower pattern using freezer paper.  You can free hand it or do like me, find an image on the web, copy and paste to a word document and enlarge...trace your image onto the dull side of the freezer paper.

4. Iron on the freezer paper, shinny side down, onto the fused fabric. Let the fabric cool down and using the outline of the flower, cut out the flower piece. 

5. Now find a plate that is large enough to cover up most of the center of the flower.  Using said plate, make a pattern on freezer paper.  Iron on the freezer paper to right side of fabric and then iron on fusible web to the wrong side of fabric. This circle is only one piece of fabric and not two like the flower part. Once cooled, cut out circle. Now you have the second part to your applique. 

6. Repeat the above process but now use a smaller plate to make the inner circle. Now you should have a flower and two different sized circles.  

Assembling the flower applique 

7. Lay down the flower piece and lay the bigger circle on top, making sure to center it.  Be sure to have the wrong side, the one with the fusible web, down. Iron on that circle to the flower.  Now repeat with the smaller circle.

8. Now that the flower is all fused together, zig-zag around all the edges. Use a tight zig-zag stitch. I used the shortest stitch length and the longest stitch width to get a nice tight zig-zag. I also used the gap on the sewing foot as a guide while sewing the edge.  It works every time.  

9.  Sew on beads if you want.  Since this fabric had small flowers with a blueish center, I just sewed on a bead at each of the blueish centers.

10. Use freezer paper and draw out a stem and leaf. Follow the steps 3 and 4 to make, cut and fuse the stem to your shirt.  

Once fused, zig-zag the edge of the stem to the shirt.

11. For the leaf, follow step 2...it needs to be double-sided. Zig-zag the leaf edges. Pin the leaf onto the shirt and sew a straight stitch down the middle of the leaf onto the shirt.

12. Now position your flower onto your shirt. Pin it securely and

 sew a straight stitch right along the inner edge of your zig-zag stitch. Again, use the gap on your sewing foot to guide you.

*Make sure to alternate your fabric patterns when cutting out the flower, circles, stem and leaf so that your shirt has a contrasting pattern to it. 

This has been the hardest tutorial I have ever written because of the lack of photos, but I hope it made sense to you.  If not, please just email me and I will try to clear it up for you.  

Butterfly Love Shirt

I love the look of a faded graphic t-shirt especially when it's personalized for my girl. 
Purple? Check. 
Butterflies? Check. 
Glitter? Check. 
Super long lashes? Check.

Last week, Happy Hour Projects had a great tutorial on  how to make a graphic using freezer paper and bleach. So using that tutorial, I made this shirt and took it a step further... x 3.

I started with a regular purple shirt.  I traced the butterflies onto the freezer paper, cut and ironed onto the shirt. I purposely ironed the butterflies over the sleeves...

I lightly sprayed bleach onto the shirt...just enough to get the fabric wet...and by total accident, a couple of drops of bleach fell onto the bottom of the shirt...in the end, it worked in my favor. Make sure to insert cardboard or plastic bags into your shirt to protect the back of the shirt...you don't want bleach to stain that part.

When it was dry, it looked like this

When I removed the butterflies, it looked like this...see how the accidental drops of bleach worked in my favor...looks like butterfly dust as they flutter about.

I liked it but it was missing something...so then I did this...using freezer paper, I traced and cut out the word LOVE.  Ironed on the stencil and proceeded to paint the letters using several fabric paint colors. I painted and blended in the colors over each other.  Once the paint was dry, I went back and repainted the letters again using fabric glitter paint.

Then it looked like this...I forgot to take a picture of the shirt without the hearts, but basically, the shirt still looked too blah at the top.  So I drew and cut out heart stencils using freezer paper.  When I ironed them on, the white fade from the bleach turned yellow... :(  I painted the hearts in just like the letters.

I wasn't loving the yellow "glow" in the middle.  In my attempt to "cover up" the yellow, I added more sparkle to the shirt with glitter fabric paint.  I just dabbed on some glitter dots and smeared them with the paint brush. 

Now the shirt looked like this

 Now the shirt looks like this...much better

After washing it in a regular load, the yellow came off...whew.

And this is what the shirt looks like when Sammie is in model mode...

Work it girl!

The Mommy Touch...

It is no big secret that I have an obsession when it comes to embellishing my kids shirts or mine for that matter. You know it's bad when my son complains about a plain shirt; "Mommmmmm, this shirt doesn't have ANYTHING on it!" So what I'm I to do? To appease my little fans, I change up their shirts, just a little. 

I give it the MOMMY TOUCH.

See the eyes...no eyes really...

now look how much better rocker panda looks...just by sewing on buttons

Brontosaurus' skeleton looks like it has something to say...

...he does!! I made a freezer paper stencil for this shirt.

Trex's eye seems off with his large head...

so I sewed on a large button...he's looking good now.

I really liked this shirt when I bought it...

but seriously DUDE...this is much better, just use fabric paint.

Another dino shirt...although the bottom blue head sure pops...

it looks better with orange fabric paint...I just filled in the lines and smooched a button in the eye socket  

True story: All I did to this shirt was iron on the strip of rhinestones to the front. Neighbor's kid was over and she said, "Oh I have that shirt too!" and when she took a second look she said, "Oh never mind, mine doesn't have diamonds."   It's easy to make your child's store bought clothes different from the rest.  

Another simple striped shirt...but add a store bought iron-on applique

...bet you no other kid has one like this.

I did sew it after I ironed it on...just to make sure it stays on.

I hope I've given you some simple ways to give your kid's clothes the MOMMY TOUCH.  

Pretty soon, no shirt will be left untouched...just like at my place.

DIY Angry Bird Backpack

When we bought my son's backpack for school, I was surprised that he wanted a plain Jane backpack.  No Spiderman. No Batman. Not even Spongebob. He chose a black, red and grey backpack.  But I was not surprised that Joshua already had something in mind for his plain Jane backpack. He wanted an Angry Bird backpack...more specific, he wanted the black bomb bird and the red angry bird.  So this was my solution to his 'simple' request.

I found Angry Bird clip art online and traced it with freezer paper.  I cut out the images and ironed them onto the flaps.  Cheri at I Am Momma-Hear Me Roar has a really good tutorial on freezer paper stenciling.

Right about this point is when I regretted the whole idea of the freezer paper.  See how I burned the nylon around the black edge of the flap...ugh! But I just carried on...the only option I had was to try to make it better.  So once I was done, I went back and painted in the burned part with fabric paint. It doesn't look that bad. And the best part is that Josh didn't notice...or at least he didn't say anything.

So, I painted the flaps with fabric paint, including the beaks.  I added googly eyes with fabric glue.  

A week later into kindergarten and the eyes are still on.

Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out, burned flap and all.

It's the perfect backpack for Buddy to wait for Joshua every day.  We NEVER leave home without Buddy...

not even on the first day of school. 

Sam's shirt tutorial.  Rose clip tutorial. Joshua's shirt tutorial. 

So far, Buddy has perfect attendance 

and he doesn't mind waiting in the backpack until the end of the school day. 

That is when he gets to come out of the backpack and ride the bus shot gun with his best bud, Joshua.