31 Days: Color – Day 14: Orange – Yep, I Put a Bird on It

October 14, 2014October 14, 2014 nicole2 Comments

With a freezer paper stencil. Could I be more of a cliche?

Today’s project was not planned out. All I had in my journal for today’s orange project was “Orange Sweatshirt” – I was sure I could figure something out – I’ve had lots of practice with sweatshirt projects.

Then I saw that this shirt had a little imperfection, so I knew I had to figure out something to cover that. I spent a lot of time on Pinterest, looking for ideas.

Then I just started chopping, hoping the inspiration would come. I thought that covering it with fabric or painting a design might be nice, but I’m not really a graphic-tee kind of person. I thought about freezer paper stencils, but even then, I was unsure. I went round and round, thinking about fall – Pumpkin? Too much. Lace Stencil? Too intricate. Then my eyes rested on Edgar. A bird! I’ll put a bird on it.

Sure, it’s not super original, but it would be pretty easy (considering I had already wasted half an hour of precious nap time to figure this out), and it would cover the dark spot well.

I taped some freezer paper to the glass of an empty frame and propped that up against my computer to trace the silhouette of a bird image I found online.

Then I placed the paper on the shirt and freehanded the rest of the branch to go across the shirt. I used an X-acto knife to cut out the stencil.

I positioned the stencil on the shirt so the paint would cover the dark spot and used a hot, dry iron to press the freezer paper stencil to the shirt.

I used white textile paint and a brush to fill in the stencil.

I used two coats of paint to make sure the white was opaque.

After it dried, I peeled off the freezer paper. It’s like magic, I tell you, and a little addictive. What else can I stencil?!

It turned out pretty cute, even with a bird. (And there’s something about that stripe across the middle that reminds me of a great ’80s Daytona Beach shirt I used to have. I think it was like this one. Who knew it would be “vintage” and worth $20 one day?)

Want me to put a bird on something for you? I can’t wait to try some more freezer paper stencils.

Yes, I just typed that last sentence. I am such a dork.

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This post is part of a 31 day series. Find all the posts in this series here.

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Sewing · Style · Sweatshirt 2.0 · Thrifts

Sweatshirt Tee

June 18, 2014June 26, 2014 nicole8 Comments

A few weeks ago, Husband was traveling to Portland. He travels a bit more these days, and I hold down the fort pretty well. There are always a few things that slip when he’s out of town – the flowers don’t get watered when they are scheduled, floors are definitely not as well swept, I forget to serve fruit.

One thing Husband is in charge of is the Whole House Fan. We watch the outside temperature like hawks and flip that sucker on the moment it dips below 80 degrees. LOVE the Whole House Fan. It was warm the week Husband was gone, so I relished turning it on every evening, and I set it to run all night. I forgot, however, to see what the overnight temperatures would be. One morning, I woke up to the cat trying to get REALLY cozy. I realized why as soon as I got out of bed – it was 54 degrees in our house!

Of course, if you have small children, you know that when anything with sound – room fan, noise machine, Whole House Fan – is suddenly stopped, the sleeping children wake up immediately. It was 5:30AM – no chance I was going to turn that thing off now! (The kids rooms aren’t affected by the fan, so they stay around 72 all night, regardless of the temperature of the rest of the house.) So as I was making coffee, I pulled out a sweatshirt, thick yoga pants, my Uggs, and some gloves and shivered until the kids woke up. Lesson learned!

So even though it’s June, I’m still wearing sweatshirts from time to time, so I’ll post one more Sweatshirt 2.0 project for now. I’m sure there will be others come fall.

While I love a big oversized sweatshirt, I wanted to use a smaller, more fitted one for this project. I started out by chopping off the sleeves.

I thought that might be the end – it looked okay, but the more I wore it, the more I wanted the sleeves to be a little more fitted, a little less bell-shaped. (Looking back at this photo, though, I think it was fine the way it was.)

I marked where I wanted the sleeves to come together underneath and then used chalk to mark the new seams. I sewed along these lines and then finished the edges with a zigzag stitch.

This made it fit more like a t-shirt, which was my original plan.

I paired it with this super fun red skirt I found at the thrift store. I love the mix of the fullness and pleats with a basic sweatshirt.

The gold clutch was another fun vintage find, which apparently doubles as a sun visor when I’m trying to see if my camera is working.

I’m going to wear my sweatshirt tee as much as possible, because I know, once July hits, we’ll have those strings of 100+ days, and sweatshirts and cold mornings searching for gloves will be but a laugh.

Style · Sweatshirt 2.0 · Thrifts

Unchangeable Love of Sweats

March 27, 2014March 27, 2014 nicole4 Comments

We’re on spring break this week. I’ve been spending nap times outside in our swing, reading. Reading actual books! Shocking. The warm sun, the smell of jasmine in the air, getting lost in the pages – it’s been pure decadence.

Today it’s raining, so instead of reading outside, I’m cuddled up under a blanket, finishing a quick chapter. (The book is The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards. Have you read it? I’m only a few chapters in, but I’m really enjoying it so far.)

And of course, like any good rainy day, I’ve got on a nice, cozy sweatshirt. I’m working on a couple more projects for my Sweatshirt 2.0 series, but today, I wanted to share a few other sweatshirt ideas that don’t really count as projects.

I’m a believer that you can dress up or dress down just about anything. I treated the sweatshirt like a sweater and added a big necklace.

This time I added a scarf.

Here’s another sweat(shirt)er I chopped off for layering.

My plan was to make this huge gray sweatshirt into another dress, but it was just too short, so I added a skirt. I like the proportions – oversized on top, slim on the bottom.

I paired it with a scarf I made a few weeks ago out of pajama pants (tutorial to come).

Chopped up sweatshirt again, this time with really bright driving shoes.

Aren’t these fantastic? They are just as orange as they appear. They are Tod’s, and I found them at the thrift store in a whole row of Tod’s – mint green, rust, black & white print, and bright orange. As luck would have it (you know I love Tennessee orange), these were the best in the bunch – almost perfect condition for $3. Might be my new best thrift score EVER.

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Check out the other projects for Sweatshirt 2.0 here.