It's Pinspired Friday! {T-Shirt Upcycle Nautical Necklace}

It's Pinspired Friday!

Today, I'm inspired by a pin I pinned about three weeks ago. If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I'm no stranger to crafts made with t-shirts. So far, I've made color block t-shirts, quilts out of t-shirts, and headbands made out of t-shirt strips. I love working with t-shirts because jersey is awesome - it doesn't require hemming unlike cotton, it comes in a billion different colors, and old t-shirts are cheaply and easily obtainable, and often make some pretty neat things.

My sister-in-law graciously gave me a huge bag of t-shirts for crafting, and in there was a few strips of shirts that had already been cut up, which got my wheels turning. I could have made another headband, but I decided to wait and see what else I could do with them.

Enter...

The Conqueror Necklace by Ashen Drift 

I positively love this necklace - especially the silver closure. It is unfortunately sold out - but I also knew I could possibly make something similar.

While my "clasp" isn't nearly as nice - it gets the job done. :) And it actually does look great on and it is ultra light... and can be made very cheaply!

 So do you want to make your own? Here's what you'll need.

Kind of a lame looking picture... sorry about that!

• Three strips of t-shirt, pulled. If you don't know how to make those, check out my headband tutorial - I am using the shirt strips that were already cut up in the bag but they were 26" long.
• 1 non-looped t-shirt piece, about 10" long.

I'm using all navy for this one as I made the white and blue necklace first to see if it could be done first and I didn't have any more white strips! :)

Start by taking one loop and twisting it. I used both hands, rotating in opposite ways and twisted it until it was a tight twist.

Using something like a counter or toe or a little helper, bend the twisted loop in the middle and slowly move it off so it automatically makes a chunky, shorter twist.

It'll look like this. Carefully set it aside (move it around too much before you make it into a necklace and it'll unravel) and pick up one of the other long loops.

Now you've got two chunky loops. Stay with me here for this next step... it's so easy but sort of hard to explain...

Take the third long loop and thread it through the loops at one end, making sure you get the middle of both.

Now take that same long loop and thread it through the other chunky loops on the other side.

Now it should look like this. Take your 10" unlooped piece and thread it through the two loops at the top.

It'll look like this. Now, knot it tightly and tie it in a bow. You might need to pull on that little strip to make it thin enough and long enough to make a small bow.

You're done! Try it on!

Fun, easy and cheap, and great for your spring outfits. Let me know how this works for you! Thanks for following along.

P.S. Have you liked Little Oak Creations on Facebook yet? Like us today to get the first look at projects, coupon codes, and get ahead of the game - I'll be hosting a giveaway soon! :)

P.P.S. (haha):
Wishing you and yours a very Happy Easter! 

It's Pinspired Friday! {DIY Color Block T-Shirt}

Alright lovelies, it's Pinspired Friday and I've got a good one for you today...

Color blocking is everywhere...and maybe I'm a little late to the party but dang it, I love the trend and I had to have some color blocking in my life. 

My sister-in-law gave me a whole bag full of t-shirts of all different sizes and colors (thank you!!) and I wanted something NEON. Am I too old for neon? Maybe. But I figured if I mixed some navy it would tone it down a bit and make it age appropriate. I originally wanted to make the bottom blue and the shoulders neon, but there was a logo on the yellow one that would have required a lot more thinking on my part and I wasn't having it. ;)

Here's what inspired this shirt:

Uber Chic for  Cheap: Refashion: DIY Color Block Tees

And yes, this girl is super cute and puts my selfies to shame later on in this post.

Need to have one for yourself? Here is what you'll need.

• 2 T-shirts - 1 of mine (the navy one) was a Hanes "Favorite T" so it was slightly more fitted and had cap sleeves... making it a little easier. The other (the neon one) was a Fruit of the Loom "BEST" shirt (basic shirt... the kind you see screenprinted locations or attractions on.) Both were the same 50% cotton/50% polyester though - which is important for a steady and even stitch when you stitch the two pieces together.

You'll also want:

• A sewing machine

• A bunch of straight pins

• A rotary board, a rotary cutter, and a big ole' ruler. It'll make your life easier than cutting it with scissors, trust me.

Here's my shirts. As I pointed out above, you'll want them to be the same material, and at least similar width wise in size. You can always make bigger smaller, but obviously you can't make smaller bigger. As you can see, I have about 1" or so on each side that is larger than the blue shirt. No worries, we tackle that later. Figure out which one you want on top, and which one on bottom. I picked neon on bottom, navy on top. If you have a logo that lines up with your armpitties, find a different shirt. Logo-less shirts are best for this. Kudos if you buy the same exact shirt in two different colors.

Grab your top shirt. Get it to lay perfect... smoothing wrinkles, making sure seams line up, etc. I used my ruler to make sure the arm pit lines matched up and were straight... important so you don't make an awkward wonky line.

I cut about 2 inches under the armpit. If you want your top half of the shirt to sit a little higher (more on the top of the breast, for example), you can cut it higher, but leave enough to for a seam allowance. Line up your ruler straight and cut.

I cut the bottom shirt about 2 inches under the armpit. Make sure it's straight, smooth and then cut.

You've now got two pieces of shirt, so turn both pieces inside out and start pinning around the parts to be sewn together. Before you start pinning willy nilly, you have to think about seams if your shirt has any (pin the shirt where the seams would normally go), and pay attention that you're pinning the pieces correctly and that the insides of the shirts will be both inside when you turn the shirts back inside out. Make sense? You don't want your top to be correct when you turn it back and your exposed hem to be facing the outside. When you go to pin, start pinning in one armpit region, just in case your shirts don't match up size wise like mine.

My yellow shirt didn't have any seams (score) so I didn't have to worry about where they were, which was good since I have to take that yellow shirt in a bit. Pin around the shirt, and if you're like me, you'll have more of one shirt than the other.

That white-ish piece in the middle left is the yellow shirt. Had to use crappy flash to get the seam to show though.

As you can see, I had too much yellow. So I lined up my excess with the blue seam and then pinned that down the shirt so I could make a new side seam so my fabric would match. NOTE: If you are using the same size shirt, don't worry about this step!!!

Pinning the new side seam... And yes, this means that my shirt will have one side seam. I ain't hatin'.

Now my side is seamed, and the blue and yellow fabric are equal sizes. Yay!

Switch your sewing machine to zig zag stitch. Zig zag stitches will help so the fabric doesn't pull as much when you sew this type of fabric. My machine was set to this stitch, size "3" length, 3 width, 4 tension. Pretty normal tension settings.

Start sewing in one of the armpits. I recommend the one you didn't have to make a new seam on if you can avoid it. If you used the same size shirts, either armpit will do.

Sew around, hit your reverse button to reinforce the beginning stitches... and turn that bad boy back out. You're done!


*deep breath* *awkward selfies...*

.Yes, this is me...and I did not 'shop this picture (even though I wanted to very badly...) 6.8lbs down in this weight loss journey...  and not stopping :)

Luckily, this shirt can shrink right with me. :) I think this'll look cute for spring with some white capri's or skinny jeans with heels like Uber Chic. :)

Update: I tried this shirt this morning with a cardi and necklace :) 

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Try it out - I might make another with a navy base and pink top. We'll see! :)

I'm linking up to these parties!

Adventures in T-Shirt Quilt Making

Happy Tuesday all! Today I am going to share my adventures in T-shirt quilt making!

It all started when one of my friends from high school contacted me about making a t-shirt quilt out of her husband's high school sport shirts. I had never made a t-shirt quilt before, but she had saw my craftiness through me sharing my blog posts to Facebook, and thought that I could give it a go. I decided to give a try, we met up and exchanged the shirts and material. How hard could it be, right?

A little background: I made two quilts a few Christmases ago for some friends and when I told the lady at the quilting store that I planned making two quilts by Christmas (this was October when I bought the material), she laughed at me. Well nyeahhh lady, I did end up finishing both before Christmas (maybe one was being finished about an hour before it was supposed to be given...) but I felt a bit burnt out on quilting and said I'd never do it again. Fast forward to today... ;) I wanted to help out a friend and do it for her much cheaper than other places that we saw, so I decided to do one more. :)

I told Mama LOC that this was my last quilt... and she said that it won't be. And she's probably right. :) We'll see. ha!


Back to our adventure!

First, each shirt had to be cut out. We used a total of 12 shirts, and tried to cut as much as possible from each shirt. You can see in the top right that I was trying to figure out how a thick panel of plaid was going to look between each shirt.

My friend picked out some neat yellow and black plaid flannel to go between each shirt. Plaid is a little harder to use as it can be hard to cut straight and sew straight - a little stray sewing can be very obvious, but if you can follow the lines of the plaid, it will be easier.

I sewed each horizontal panel of shirts first and laid them in order. A quick tip - take a picture like the first picture in this blog to help you know which shirt comes next! It's an easy reference to flip back to.

The one thing you need when working on a quilt this size? Room to work! I am thankful for my craft room and my foyer for things like this - and for Mr. LOC and his patience with the quilt on his foyer floor! <3 Here I am setting each panel into the black dividing horizontal strips. Each shirt panel will get sewn to these strips to create the top!

Black strips are in place!

This pic is a little fast forward in the process - at this point, I am sewing the quilt together - I have cut down the black flannel backing, added a layer of quilt batting, and I have hand tied the quilt together in strategic spots so that the quilt back, batting and top are tied together so they don't move. I have also basted the quilt with large stitches so that as I'm sewing my binding around the quilt, nothing moves around on me. Those large stitches come out. :) This also shows how much quilt there really is as only a little part of it is under the sewing foot at this time!

Fast forward even more...

And we're done! For some reason, that bit of flannel looks really crooked in this picture, it's not crooked like that in real life (or even if it is, it is certainly not as obvious in real life!)

It measured almost as large as a twin size bed! And the flannel she chose was perfect for this sort of thing. It is a very heavy quilt and I know it'll be great for snuggling. :)

Overall, it was a fun project and a great learning experience. Thank you to my friend for coming to me with this project, I hope you enjoy your new blanket! :) Also thank you to Mama LOC for helping me cut down the shirts, figure out the measurements multiple times, and generally being my cheerleader to keep going! ;) Also thank you to our other pair of friends who gave me a fantastic rotary cutter, board and quilting ruler for Christmas! It was a life saver.

And thank you for following along! :) Hope you enjoyed reading about my little quilting adventure.

It's Pinspired Friday! {My Very First Pin}

Good morning all! It's...

I thought today that I would showcase my very first "pin"! I was on Pinterest shortly after it started making it's rounds on the social media's and so I hopped on the bandwagon and never looked back! ;) I remember thinking... oh my word. This is crafts galore. And oh! That room is beautiful... and that outfit is stylish... pin pin pin... and suddenly found myself at over 1k pins. Yikes! As you've seen here on the blog, I do actually try to do or at least interpret the pins into something I would like to do and would actually do. I use it as a recipe book quite often now, pinning away foods I would like to make. I have a pin board for those pins I actually do - and I often write a little commentary so that if something I made was God awful, I'll remember it and maybe help someone out along the way as well. So without further ado... my first pin.

DIY Floral Pillows with Ultrasuede Petals

Is anyone surprised that it's a Martha Stewart tutorial? That wonderfully crafty (slightly crazytown) lady. I had no intention of making the pillows but I remember thinking the flower was neat. Where would I put it? I don't know. Would I buy ultrasuede to make these petals like our lovely Martha? That's a big nope. But, that's the beauty of Pinterest - you can see where you've come from, how your styles and tastes have evolved, and even release a little creative energy too.

SPEAKING of creative energy... You're probably wondering where all the tutorials are! I've been loaded with lots of different things going on this past week... and that's where my creative energy has gone. lol :)

First - Mr. LOC asked me if I would be willing to make him a bag for his tip ups, for ice fishing, and I said of course. How hard could it be?

Famous last words. ;) It actually was not TOO hard, it was a bit of trial and error as I had never made a duffel type bag, and the circles on the end were tricky. Since I wasn't following a pattern, I had to sort of...wing it when it came to measurements, and I made the bag a little long BUT, this way it actually can sling across his back vs. being carried on a shoulder, so it worked out. It was a neat experience and I had all of the materials, including that zipper (it was a super vintage one I picked up NIP at a garage sale), and he loves it so that's all that matters to me! :) And no, sorry, there will not be a tutorial since I didn't write anything down and was using scrap fabric, but I can tell you that those brown circles on the end were about 8" across.

My other BIG project of the week was a t-shirt quilt that I was commissioned to do for a friend from high school. I am THRILLLLLED (with that many L's, you know I'm pretty jazzed about it) with how well this came out as it was my first time doing a t-shirt quilt. I'll be writing a feature post next week on how this all came together. I'm very excited for my friend to receive it! :)

So tell me - what was your first pin? Why did you pin it? And do you think you would pin it again today? Thanks for stopping in!

P.S. I am not in any way affiliated with Pinterest or Martha Stewart either...! I realized about half way through that this looked like a giant plug for Pinterest. I just think it's a neat social media and a great creative outlet, that's all. :)