Quick and Easy altered Girls Shirt

If you haven't already figured it out, I am a fan of semi-homemade. Altogether this option works so much better for me than either trying to hunt down that perfect present, or hassling with trying to complete my idea from scratch. 

Anything from cooking, sewing, jewelry making... well anything crafty, has some sort of semi-homemade alternative. Although I still love to learn new crafts and adapt to my needs, around the holidays... Semi- Homemade is about all you can get out of me when time is so sacred.

I found this T-Shirt for our daughter on the clearance rack of Marshall's for about $4. It is a nice dark fushia (the coloring of the pics are a little off) With silver thread finishes. 

Since this shirt was already kind of sparkly, it made a really nice base to alter to my liking.

Here is the neckline which I hand stitched different elements to.

Here is a close up of the detail of the hand beading I did along the original stitched neckline. For this use a thin beading needle and some bugle beads and simply follow the outline of the original stitching to create this nice sparkly detail.If you are making this for a young child, you may want to double stitch or knot in between stitches just to make sure that the beading remains durable. If you knot in between, this will also insure that if a bead does come off, it will not effect the remaining beads, and you will only have to replace one.

Here is the floral cascade that I created with some Prima Marketing Inc. trim. This trim is pretty popular. If you don't find this trim at your local scrapbook store, you could possibly find it at your local fabric/trim/craft store sold by the yard. I hand stitched each rosette starting from the middle and worked by way to the outer edge by spiraling my stitch out towards the edge. This is a basic stitch, nothing fancy. The one recommendation I do have is that you use a like colored thread and also hide your stitches by stitching the netting backing rather than the rosette itself. This will allow the rosette to remain full as intended.

Here is the full shirt, again... not sure why the coloring is off, but since I wrapped the present already, I can't take new pics... (Note to self, check pics BEFORE wrapping next time!) But being that these pics were taken with my I Phone... I really can't complain :)

 

So if you are in need for a last minute gift idea, but don't want to break the budget (time and money!) this is a simple and easy solution. And it would be made by you which makes it extra special :)

So check your local clearance rack, pull out some thread and maybe pick up some beads and trim (5 rosettes) and create something beautiful! I think the retail value of this project is around or under $10 so it is handmade affordable, which is always a plus in my book :)

Enjoy!

~Liz ♥