Old T-Shirts Become New PJs

A neighbor gave me some old Phineas and Ferb shirts a while back. They were well worn, but I knew I wanted to do something with them. But what?

I've been on a PJ kick lately. They are crazy easy to make, but kind of expensive in the store. My kiddos wear clean ones every night, so we need several pair.

The shirts weren't quite wide enough, so I had to use two for the one pair of PJs. I was lucky I had two very similar shirts. You can use one adult shirt or experiment with up to four - one for each panel - Personally, I think it would be pretty cute.

Anyway, I made these while the boys were in the tub tonight. And Parker put them on right after. I even had him stand up in the tub, so I could get the waist measurement.

Here's how they came out.

Cute. Right?

Here's how I made them. You'll need:

• two t-shirts
• elastic for waistband
• thread and pins
• sewing machine
• a pair of shorts that currently fit (as a pattern)

There are the shirts I used. Great, but there was some fraying at the collar and sleeve.

First line up the hem on the bottom of the first shirt and smooth it out. Then lay the existing shorts on top. This will be your pattern.

My new ones will be a little shorter, but I was okay with that since the Star Wars ones are really long. Cut around your 'pattern' leaving about 1/4 inch for seams. You'll have something like this...

To make sure both sides are even, I used this piece as the pattern for the other side. Flip it over and cut out.

Your pieces will look like this. See why I flipped over the first side before cutting the second?

Now, you're ready to start sewing. Lay the two front pieces on top of each other, right sides together. And sew together leaving the crotch alone. You'll do that last.

Do that to both front and back. Now, you're ready to sew your two pieces together. Pin the edges together making sure to line up the bottom hem. No hemming! Yay! I hate hemming. Sew together and you should have a tube with the crotch open.

Pin the crotch together and sew.

Time for the waistband. Pin down the waistband to make a channel for your elastic. I used 1/4 elastic because it's what I had on hand and I didn't have a lot of fabric to work with.

Since this is t-shirt fabric, it won't fray. Just a simple fold will do. Sew up your channel leaving about an inch in the back to run the elastic through. Cut the length you need and using a safety pin push it through your channel. Sew the ends together and close up the whole.

Done! He thought he needed to pull up the shirt (a Walmart clearance T for $1. I bought about 10 of them a few months back).

Dillon wanted to get in on the action too. He happened to be wearing a pair I made using this method.

Are they cute? Or what?
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Happy Camper Bleach Stencil T-Shirts

There has been a pin floating around a while on Pinterest for these super cute bleach stenciled t-shirtswith the names Josh and Kate. Here it is from Homemaker: http://jameehomemaker.blogspot.com/2010/02/bleach-stenciled-t-shirts.html

I looked at it and thought, "Hummm. I can do that. I can do it better." So started my mission to make "Happy Camper" shirts for the boys.

We are BIG campers. Last year we set a record of six trips for the season. With my husband's schedule and the fact that we have a kindergartner at a year-round school, that's pretty good. A few years ago, I made shirts for all the campers in our group (including my husband, my sister and brother-in-law and me). They were cute, but I used an iron-on that you run through the printer. They didn't wash up all that well.

Enter the new camping season. I needed something better, so I set out to make some bleach stenciled shirts.

In the original tutorial, the letters were cut out with a Cricut and layed out on the shirts. I decided to use the outside of the Cricut cut-out to make a true stencil. For this step, it helps to have a Gypsy (http://www.cricut.com/gypsy/), so you can lay out your design before you cut it.

I designed this super cute cut-out that says Happy Camper using a campfire and a tent for the 'A's, a tree for the 'Y' and a fishing pole for one of the 'P's. For scrapbooking, you would use the inside of the cut-out for your layout. For this project, I threw out this part and used the outside - making a true stencil.

I used white cardstock, so the color wouldn't run on my shirts. Then placed a plastic grocery bag and a piece of cardboard inside the shirt (to keep the bleach from getting on the back of the shirts). I layed the stencil on the shirt and using a spray bottle full of bleach, I went for it.

You can see I got a little carried away on got a bit of bleach on the sleeve, but it just adds character. Right?

Here's how they came out, with my happy campers modelling them. Well, not exactly modelling them, but they sure are rocking them while fishing with Dad and Pops.

I'm already planning baseball T's for next summer. I'm dying to try out freezer paper stencils. Happy Camper on the front and a number with our last name on the back. Parker has already claimed 8. His lucky number and student number at school. Cute. Right?

Easiest T-Shirt Skirt Ever

I've been reading a lot of DIY articles about creating a skirt out of and old t-shirt. When I thought I found the easiest one, here: http://www.littlebitfunky.com/2011/05/20-minute-crafter-how-to-make-t-shirt.html, I decided to give it a shot.

This tutorial is really great and I'm in love with the bicycle skirt she made (gotta find that shirt), but I made mine even easier.

I started with the hub's old t's. He wears a L. Since the gray one had some deoderant stains, I chopped it straight across, under the pits. This makes the skirt body.

Next, I chopped the sleeves and cut the waistband out of the chest section (about 5 inches wide). I'm just making a fold over waistband (hence the reason it's so easy), so I measured the two pieces around my waist and sewed them together end-to-end making a circle. You'll want both pieces to be the same size (I'll tell you why later).

The red t-shirt has seams on both sides, so it made lining up super easy. Take the seams of each of the circle waistband piece and pin to the side seams of the skirt body. Next, I found the center of the waistband front/back and the center of the skirt front/back and pinned together.

I didn't want to cut the skirt body, so to make it hang nicely, I put two little pleats in each of the 1/4 sections (between the pins). Pin each pleat to the waistband. Now the waistband and body should fit perfectly. If you're thinner, you can make three or more pleats.

Now, you can sew the waistband to the skirt body. Pull it on and fold over the waistband and you're done. The red one is a little shorter because it had a grease stain in the middle (thanks for fixing my car hun).

My neighbor stopped by yesterday and noted that we were wearing the same skirt. My reply, "Yeah, but mine was a shirt yesterday."

Now I have an eye on this old navy blue shirt. What can I ask him to do to get a stain and make that one mine too?

T-Shirt goes from frumpy to OooLaLa

My family wears these silly "Happy Camper" t-shirts on all of our camping trips, which, during the summer, is a lot. We try to go as often as possible.

We got back from a trip last summer and I saw this pic of myself in mine. Yikes! Since when did I look so frumpy? And it's like P is staring at the worst part! Oh, and cut me some slack, we are camping after all.

I've been reading the Dress A Day blog for a while and figured I could take some scissors to the offensive t-shirt.

I started by cutting off the crew neck and turning into a slight sweetheart line. Next, I shortened the sleeves and length of the shirt itself.

I'm really into a banded bottom t-shirt right now, so I ran a quick straight stitch all the way around the new bottom of the shirt, pulling the string to gather it a bit. Measuring the left over bottom to fit around the upper part of my hips, I trimmed off the excess. I sewed the left over together forming a big circle and pinned it to my newly gathered shirt bottom.

A quick seam to attach the band and seam around all my raw edges, and BAM! new t-shirt.