DIY: Revamp an Old Plain Button-Down Shirt :)

Hello everyone! Today's blog entry is a Do-It-Yourself sewing project I did the other day that I'd like to share :)

Do you have a shirt like this and the sleeves are too short or you think it's too boring?

Well it's a perfect base that you can be creative with!

I snooped around my mum's studio downstairs (she is a wedding dress maker) and window shopped in Westfield to brainstorm a cool design :)

The first thing I did was cut off the sleeves (it helps if you have sharp sewing scissors-my mum has these really good ones that make cutting through fabric really easy :D )

I kept the cuffs

 I figured I could revamp them too and make them into cool fabric bracelets :)

At first I was going to do a design like this:

With a blue zipper but then in my mum's studio I found these:

A box of lots of buttons and

This fake leathery material that looks scaly :)

Anyway so I decided to do a different design so it's okay to change designs and brainstorm new ideas at any time-in fact it's fun to ! :D

I deicded to make a pocket out of the black pleather material so I cut out a template for a pocket. I used a post-it note for the rough shape and size.

I pinned it onto black material and cut out the shape.

Because my mum sews wedding dresses, she had threaded the machine adn he bobbin with white so I had to change it to black so any mistakes in the stitching wouldn't show up that clearly.

To eliminate messy frayed ends, I sewed around the edges of the black pocket like this.

This is the outside of the pocket

Take in note that beacuse you are sewing down the edges the pocket will turn out smaller than the template you have cut out. A comparison:

Okay so now I placed the pocket around where I wanted it on the shirt and pinned it down

Then I sewed the pocket down. Be careful that you don't button the shirt and sew or else you might sew through both layers of the shirt.

Sew it down but remember to not sew the top so you can use it as a pocket!

The inside should be something like this:

Okay so now I finished with the pocket I went ahead and found some pretty gold buttons to replace the boring white ones on the shirt.

To sew the buttons (if you guys don't already know how) it's really easy :) Thread a piece of thread through the eye of a needle (I chose white so the threads would blend into the shirt well), pull thorugh until the ends meet and tie the strings together at the end into a knot.

Cut off the white button, then push the needle through the underside of the fabric where the button was and the knot will then hold the string to the fabric, push the button onto the needle and then go through the hole in the button down through the shirt and back up again several times until the button is secure and won't move.

NB: Be careful to, when replacing buttons, choose buttons that are of similar size to the original buttons or otherwise the shirt won't be able to button up because the buttonhole might be too small/too big.

Continue the process of replacing the original buttons with ones you have picked out.

Ooh you might have noticed the very top button is different to the others :)

That's always been one of my favourite buttons in my mum's button box :D It's so classic and pretty and I decided to make the top one different from the rest so my shirt would stand out more and have a little bit of 'me' in it HAHA so I kinda wanted to personalize my DIY project :)

ANYWAY TA-DA we are done!! Now you have a cool new shirt you made all by yourself! It took me around 2-3 hours (most of the time was spent changing all the thread on the machine to black and when the machine for some reason failed and I was like ARGH cos I had to unpick the whole pocket and turns out the bobbin thread got stuck somewhere etc)

Hope I inspired some of you! Here is a pic of me wearing it btw with my new pink pleated skirt my sister bought for me :)

Hmm my next project will be to sew something for Muck Up day....if I ever decide what I'm going to be lol. I decide on one thing then keep changing my mind.

Love: Michelle

P.S. When I was downstairs sewing it was around 9pm and I heard this whining by the window and guess whose face I saw at the window?