Kids Clothes Week Challenge & Refashion tutorial!

Source: http://www.elsiemarley.com/kids-clothes-week-spring-2013.html

If you've visited my blog before, you know that I LOVE sewing for little people! Their clothing is just a joy to sew and they're much sweeter and easier critics (most of the time). Since it's Kids Clothes Week in the mommy blogging community, I thought I'd put out a few post of my own with some things created specifically for this week!

Today, I refashioned this little ruffled shirt for my little redheaded princess!

She's had this shirt (from Target) for a little while now and it got nail polish in random spots on the front (ahem, grandma). I couldn't bring myself to throw it out because I love the way it looks on her and she's overwhelmed all the time with pink and purple, so grey is always a nice break from the norm.

I knew I wanted to paint something on her shirt to cover the stains, but since there were stains on the ruffles AND the main body of the shirt I ended up doing tiny mint colored polka dots.

Want to do this for your little one? Here's how I did this shirt:

I wanted a nice mint color(as mentioned above), so I mixed white, green and dark teal to create my paint color. Make sure to slip a piece of cardboard, or thick paper between your layers, then start painting!

I wasn't worried about it being perfect, so I just eyeballed the distance between the dots and then when I got to the next row I just shifted my dot placement to match on the diagonal of the previous row. It's sounds complicated, but it's really simple and very easy.

 My secret weapon to making this as quick as possible, my hair dryer! It drys my paint really fast so I don't accidentally smudge anything when I want to move onto another section and who wants to wait an entire day for a project to dry? Not me. The only drawback is that, if you're using puffy paint(which I dislike to begin with), it makes your paint look weirdly spongy when it's dry.

After your shirt is fully polka dotted, make sure you heat seal your paint by running an iron over it through a pressing cloth. This will ensure your paint doesn't peel off in the wash, or during playtime.

Model Moment :)

It worked perfectly and looks ridiculously adorable, plus still a good calm color with the mint dots on the soft grey.

She looks fabulous and completely approved of her "new" shirt.

~Allison

P.S. The fabric in the first picture is part of another project this week, so come back to see what it turns into!