old shirt, new look.

this afternoon i was browsing through some of my favorite blogs and i kept finding myself running into a pattern: embellished t-shirts. now, when i think of embellished t-shirts, i think of a twelve year old that has gotten ahold of a bottle of tulip paint and a bedazzeler and gone to town on a denim jacket. that's not the type of embellishments i was swooning over on these blogs...i'm talking about fun, cute embellishments that create a new look to an old t-shirt.

after getting a little inspiration from blog-land, i rummaged through my closet and found a few old t-shirts that i decided to embellish upon.

shirt number 1: the ugly yellow shirt-

i have always really hated this shirt. BUT it was cheap and i really like yellow, so i bought it thinking i could always just wear it under a cardigan. i added a row of fabric flowers around the collar to add something to this not-so-wonderful t-shirt. 

better, huh?

t-shirt number 2: the gray-stained t-shirt-

i use to really love this shirt. it's soft and super comfy, but a little incident with some bleach gave this shirt a nice pink blotch right in the middle of the shirt. so, i decided try a little experiment with this shirt. i soaked it in bleach for a few minutes thinking that it would turn white. wrong! it turned a pale shade of yellow...even better!

i really liked how the seams stayed gray on the shirt. of course i couldn't just leave the shirt like this, so i made a fun little flower to add onto the side of the shirt. 

t-shirt number 3: the simple tank top-

like most girls, i have lots of these cheap tank tops in nearly every color floating around my closet. i found an adorable tutorial (i can't remember the site that i found it on, but i'll keep looking and post it later!) that gives an ordinary tank top a nautical twist. the tutorial used a navy blue tank top but the first tank that i came across in my closet was this gray one so i went with it. 

to "embellish" this simple tank i added ruffles around the collar and a tie right at the neckline. 

ta-da!

after this evening i feel like i almost have a new wardrobe! what a great way to turn old shirts into a new creations.