{embellished shirts for children}

Guess what? I was featured on another great blog! Everyday Inspirations is a blog done by my good friend Ashley. She asked me to do a craft blog and I was thrilled to participate.

So, here is how to make embellished shirts for your babes! And, if you want more inspiration, please, check out her blog, it really is amazing.

{embellished shirts for children} 12 days of holiday diy 12/05/2010

1. Find a plain piece of clothing that you want to embellish. I found a simple navy blue tee for $3.50 (and it is organic cotton!) and a simple burnt orange tee that was $1.00 at a thrift shop.

2. Pick a pattern. This is the most fun and creative step of the entire process. For the owl tee I used an image that was on a baby card that I was given and enlarged it for the shirt freehand. For the polar bear tee I just did a simple Google search for "polar bear silhouettes" and came up with the image. I re-sized the image in Word (yep, you don't need any fancy software) and printed it out.

3. Decide if you want one solid piece of felt or multiple pieces. For the owl I stacked pieces; for the polar bear I used one solid piece.

4. Cut the pattern out on felt in the color of your choosing. I used acrylic felt as it is easy to find and quite inexpensive.

5. Place the felt on the clothing item. Move around until you have the look you are after.

6. Sew around each piece of felt. This can either be done by hand or machine. I used the machine on both of these projects. For the owl tee I changed the color of thread each time the felt color changed. And on the polar bear tee I went with a fun simple look by just crisscrossing the polar bear with colored thread before sewing him onto the tee.

7. Add any last embellishments. I added a handful of tiny buttons to the toadstool on the owl tee, as well as button eyes. On the polar bear tee I didn't like how the bear was floating in space so I used two simple parallel lines to created the ground.

Once done, these shirts are washer and dryer safe. Have fun crafting! Happy holidays!