T-Shirt recycle!

Hello everyone,

After high school or college, you may not be sitting on loads of money, but I'm pretty sure that you'll be sitting on loads of old T-shirts.  I think I have a drawer (or 2,, or 3) full of T-shirts from my college sorority years.  It was great while I was an undergrad, and I was all about wearing those and showing our sorority some love, but when you have a new shirt for every single event, man, they sure do add up!  and while they were a great item to throw on when you're an undergrad,, well, let's just say that I don't find myself wearing those T-shirts to my grad school classes and performances!   haha

I know I can still wear some of them around the house--for sleeping or exercising, and etc--but the thing is that majority of them are boxy T-shirts that are simply too hot to wear in Houston... too much material!! I very rarely find myself reaching for T-shirts when I could be in a tank top, or a loose fitting sleeveless shirts instead, especially when I'm exercising.  So, I decided to perform some DIY magic on some of them, with a little help from Pinterest, to see if I could turn them into shirts I would reach for when I'm not attending classes.

All you need for this project is an old T-shirt and scissors.

I would recommend picking a T-shirt that isn't too baggy--basically any activity T-shirt that you used to wear should work--and that doesn't have writing across the chest.  Because we're going to be cutting the neck area and cinching the back for a more fitted look, if the shirt has a writing across the chest, it is going to look like the writing is just below your chin by the end of the project.  If you don't mind the look of that, then go right ahead!

So here is my T-shirt of choice. An old recruitment shirt from 2009.  I know, I feel so old right now,, meh..  haha   Anyway, notice how the design is at the bottom of the shirt, and not across the chest.  

Lay the shirt out on a flat surface like so, and start cutting!  I wanted it to resemble a tank top, so I cut the sleeves off first, about an inch away from the seams, making sure to cut the bottom part more (you're going to need the room because you'll be cinching the back).  For the neck, I just left about an inch of fabric for the 'sleeve' of the tank top, and cut a scoop neck shape out.  You don't have to cut the bottom, but I did since the shirt was quite long on me, and I wanted to keep the 'curving up edges' look uniform throughout  haha

Then, turn the shirt over and cut the back parts of the sleeves and the neck area more. The reason I took the sleeve area in more was because this shirt wasn't super big on me, and therefore I didn't need the 'cinching' in the back to be very extreme.  If you have a larger shirt, you can make the sleeves cut less extreme (leave it similar to how you cut the front) and that should make the shirt fit more snugly.  The reason for cutting the neck area deeper is so that when you cinch, you don't have a whole lot of fabric leftover around the cinched area.

Then, using any ribbon or leftover fabric from your shirt, cinch the back together, and voila~!
A new tank top!

I wore it to our cherry picking adventures with a bandeau, and it was so much better than wearing a stuffy old T-shirt!

and here's the back picture with the cinching.  I used the scrap material from the shirt to tie the back together, so you can't really see how it's tied, but I just simply double knotted it.  You can be fancy and make a bow if you want, but since I'm going to be using this T-shirt tank top for mostly staying at home or exercising purposes, I didn't feel the need to do so  =)

I hope you have fun experimenting with your own old T-shirts!  The best part about this is that because these shirts were not being worn anyway, you don't have to have any fear of 'ruining' a good item of clothing!  And chances are that you have more than enough of these shirts lying around, so you can experiment until you find the right fit and cut you're looking for. Nothing to lose, and so much to gain!  =D

I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday, and thanks for stopping by!!

--Janny

Happy 4th of July!

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!

We spent the majority of the day in Yakima, Washington, at a cherry orchard before meeting up with our family friends for a good old fashioned BBQ  =)  It was an all day long event--starting at 7 am and ending well past my bedtime haha--and that's why I didn't get to blog yesterday.

Anyway, the orchard we visited is called 'Barrett Orchards', and it was a pretty large orchard with a nice pick of cherries.  The only thing was that we had to rent one of the step ladders that were $5 because most of the cherries on the lower branches were already picked over.  It was free admission, and you could eat as many cherries as you want for free there, but the ones you wanted to bring back were priced by weight.  It was fun getting to pick them off the tree, and I swear the cherries we ate at the orchard tasted better than the ones we brought back!  haha  So here are some photos from yesterday!

Into the forest we go!!

It was actually pretty chilly when we started because it was pretty early in the morning,,,  but of course, once we started picking fruit and the sun started coming out, it warmed up nicely!  I know, I know, I'm not wearing red white and blue. I thought I would wear the tank top I made from an old T-shirt for the orchards because I thought I would get sweaty, then change for the BBQ  =)  The tank top was so easy to make, and I will be posting a tutorial soon so if you like how it looks, you can recycle your old T-shirts too!

pick and eat.  repeat.   

helping daddy with the picking while he climbed up the ladder.  but mostly, eating cherries that he handed off to me  haha

Look at these beauties!!!

Mommy even got in the action  haha   She couldn't climb of course, but we were able to find a few trees that had cherries at her level =)

It's one of the strangest things.  You look up at the cherry tree, and you see so many cherries, but then as soon as you get on top of the ladder, they disappear!  It's the weirdest thing.  So you always have to use teamwork lol  one showing and one picking  ;)

so sunny..

Towards the end of our picking spree, we noticed these lovelies at the very top of the tree, and we could only reach it if we got on the very top of the ladder.  And guess who got the job of climbing to the very top? me.

This may not look very high, but let me tell you. hooo boy!  It was a pretty tricky business.  but completely worth the effort!  the cherries up there were SO amazingly sweet!  I guess because they get all the sun?  All I know is that they were the best cherries I have ever tasted!

Our hard work  =)

It was such a fun day, and we definitely had a blast out there, but it has also made me realize just how much work goes into getting the fruit to our tables every day.  I mean, I was so tired after only a couple of hours!  I can't imagine how difficult it must be for people to do it for hours on end.  So thank you, farmers, for all of the work you do! =)

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th, and have a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny