Corporate Shirt to Off- Shoulder Blouse

I wish I had bells with me, so I could ring them. This is the first DIY on the blog. Woo hoo!
Saturdays can be such a drag, especially when there’s no light, no wedding, and no Jollof to eat. After the compulsory Saturday sleep, which I was rudely awoken from by heat, I was bored, and that’s putting it lightly.

As I lay in my bed, thinking of what I could do, I thought about a kimono I had, and all the things i could possibly do to it. I thought about how to turn it into a bohemian maxi dress, but as that seemed like too much work I continued racking my brain for something less stressful.

And then, light bulb! It occurred to me that I could transform an old boring work shirt i owned into something cute and cool. And I decided to try an off the shoulder top. I got so excited, I quickly grabbed three shirts that I wouldn’t miss so much if the ‘experiment’ went wrong, and finally settled on one. One I thought to be my unlucky lab rat.

Well, that shirt isn’t so unlucky anymore. It has a whole post dedicated to it and it’s glo up.

This is amazingly easy,  and easier if you have a seeing machine, or a tailor that can accommodate your creative mind close by. All you’ll need are

1. A loose fitting shirt.

2. One yard of elastic fabric. (That’s how much I used. you may need more or less. A simple measurement using a tape rule would be helpful). I used the chunky kind, that costs about N100 for a yard.

3. A pair of scissors

4. Needle and thread (please try to match the color of the shirt you’re using).

5. One large safety pin.

Here’s how to do it.
Step 1: Cut off the shirt collar from the point where the shoulders begin. You would to have to collar off and a little bit to accommodate your shoulders.

Step 2: Create a hem around the neck, leaving some space to pass your elastic band through. My.elastic was about 1″ thick, so I left a little over 2″ for the hem. I must confess, I started sewing it by hand, then I got tired and went off to find a tailor.

Step 3: pass the elastic through the loop. This may seem like a daunting task, but this is where that large safety pin comes to play. Insert the pin at the edge of the elastic. Using the pin, pass the elastic though to the other side to meet the other end of the elastic.

Step 4: Using the measurement you took of your shoulders take half an inch off the elastic. This is to make it a but snug around the shoulders . You don’t want your blouse to be a droopy mess. Sew the two loose ends together, and close up the hole open in the blouse. And your blouse I’d ready to wear!
This was so easy and such fun.  I’ll be making a ton of these with those boring old shirts of mine!
I wore mine neatly tucked into my jeans and with a pair of high heels.

So get to DIYing and let me know how you style yours!