Recently, I’ve been thinking about making some outfits for my daughter and yet the reality of how long that would take (my sewing machine and I are not on friendly terms) made me take a step back. As a creative person who has a penchant for cute things, this kills me. I mean, little girl clothes are pretty much the cutest thing ever. (If you don’t believe me, take a stroll through the little girl’s department at Target—tiny tutus, flower petals attached to hot pink shoes, cats on pjs!!!)
Knowing that the sewing thing wasn’t going to happen, I began to look around for some other options and lucky for you (and for me), I found a few that I was able to pull together to make a super cute new outfit for my kiddo. The hardest thing was finding tops and pants that were not patterned so I could add my own touches but once I found those (Yay, clearance!), I was good to go.
The other bonus with using clothes that didn’t cost too much in the money department was I felt a bit more free to go for it creatively rather than hem and haw because I was afraid to ruin an expensive shirt and pants set.
Embellishing clothes is fairly simple and doesn’t need to be a project that consumes your entire weekend. Have fun with this and let your personality shine!
Three Easy Ways to Personalize Little Girl’s Clothing
Add small elements for sparkle or a cute touch to an outfit.
Hair bows can quickly add a unique touch to your little girl’s clothing without you having to spend a small fortune. Check out the clearance section at stores like Target during the end of each season and you’ll find a lot of treasures there.
A fancy hair bow can be carefully removed from the clip and hot glued or stitched onto the collar of a shirt. You can see a simple bow in the shirt below (though this shirt came with a bow, this is the idea I’m referring too.) Also note that you could simply make your own bow if you have ribbon on hand.
Related:
Pull out the paint.
Fabric paint is NOT what it used to be and is much more fluid and easy to “paint” with these days. There are even paint pens which I absolutely love (see a t-shirt where I used a paint pen here.) For the cat and flowers on the pants in this post, I used acrylics that were watered down.
I sketched my design with a water soluble pen
I found some beautiful gold acrylic paint at Target recently but Martha Stewart also has a line of metallic paints here
Side note, I left the pen and paints out to “quickly” run and get something and came back to discover my daughter happily adding her own touches to her shirt. Thankfully she was using the water soluble pen. Maybe this is one of those projects I shouldn’t have worked on in front of her. I can already hear myself trying to explain how mommy can paint on clothes but little girls can’t. Hmmm . . . still, her drawings of happy dancing people were stinkin’ cute.
Use iron-on designs.
Iron-ons are not what they used to be either. Click here and see a onesie that I transformed into a sweet owl t-shirt for my daughter. I love how the designs for iron-ons these days are pretty much limitless and if you’re so inclined, you can design your own and print them out on your home printer. I did that for a watercolor flower that I made for my mom last year here. Because I have that flower image scanned and ready, I could easily print it again for a t-shirt for my daughter. How sweet would that be?
Well, those are three simple ways to personalize little girl’s clothing that you can make this weekend. Whether you use a pre-made bow or paint your own design, I’m sure you’ll make something super cute that your little girl will LOVE.
2 responses to “Three Easy Ways to Personalize Little Girl’s Clothing”
I love making kids tee shirts and embellishing their clothes. Great tips! Thanks for sharing at the Inspiration Spotlight party. Pinned & shared.
Thanks for sharing, Theresa! Hope you’re having a great week! 🙂