Fall is in the air today. Our usually sunny blue sky is grey and dreary. Everything in my yard has finally stopped screaming for water and constant attention and for the moment at least I feel the pace of my life slowing a beat. I have been a little neglectful in my crafting and blogging duties the last month or so but I am hopeful that I can now get back on track with posting once a week.
So lets get to it.
You may or may not already know that I am an Ebay Seller. Here is a completely unapologetic link to my store :-) Anyway I sell mostly second hand items that I purchase. I certainly try to look over the items before I pay for them but I do sometimes get home with items that I can't list due to flaws that I missed when I looked them over the first time. Usually these I just get ride of these items but this week I had a maternity dress that was in perfectly good shape except for some oil stains.
Well I just happen to have some fabric paint on hand so I thought I would do some experimenting.
Here is what I came up with
And here is how it all happened.
The Dress
As you can see it isn't wearable.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to do but after some google searches for designs I came up with this as my original concept.
I wasn't sure how to transfer the design to the fabric and then I realized I had a lot of chalk from my last project the chalkboard t-shirt. So for starters I traced around the edges of the design with the chalk. A lot of people like to use a piece of cardboard between the layers of their garments but I have a large plastic cutting board that I like to use to separate the layers. It provides a more sturdy surface to work on.
To transfer the rest of the design I used cut up pieces of the design to trace around, laying them in the design like puzzle pieces.
I wasn't totally in love with my original design and as I was working on the dress I noticed one small oil spot on the bodice part of the dress and one more toward the bottom of the dress. So I printed off some copies of the original design, cut them up and worked out a new frankenstein version to cover the additional spots.
As I worked I got a little more confidant with the paint and my finished design so I used the paint to outline instead of the chalk.
I like the 2nd design much better than the first. Don't you? Sometimes your projects lead you in such happy directions.
Happy Upcycling,
Of course I don't have any need for a maternity dress so I finally have a new listing in my pitiful little Etsy Shop.
Update 10-7-12
Ok so the joke is on me. I found another spot on the back of this dress after I wrote this post. So there was a little more designing and painting.
Now I think it is finished.
:-)
