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I'm a voracious thrifter, music aficionado, heathen, and owner of a 1984 Westfalia Vanagon. I'm a writer and a designer, but mostly just a secret cat lady. Vanagon Champion is about all of these things with a little bit of thrifty goodness and old-fashioned magic for good measure. Learn more about me here.
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Category Archives: DIYs
Heart Sweatshirt DIY
Ever since I saw ModCloth's Frocktober dress, I've had a hankering to add some hearts to my wardrobe. Rather than spend $109 on a dress, I did what I always do and took to the thrifts to make a silly little heart piece of my own. This sweatshirt! I know--not as elegant as the dress, but this technique I learned from my awesome sewing teacher could easily carry over to a dress should that tickle your fancy.
Here's what you'll need:
- two sweatshirts (mine were both from Savers--each $0.99)
- disappearing ink pen
- scissors
- sewing machine
1. Freehand your heart onto the sweatshirt that you want to be your heart. If you don't want to freehand, you can cut out a heart on a piece of paper as a stencil. I just used my disappearing ink pen and went for it because I'm lazy like that.
2. Cut out your sweatshirt heart, turn your main sweatshirt inside out, and pin your heart where you want it to go.
I chose to use the fuzzy reverse side of my purple sweatshirt as the front of the heart to give it some texture. This means I pinned the WRONG side of my purple heart to the WRONG side of my grey sweatshirt. If this doesn't make sense, skip down to the last step to see how it all turns out.
3. Now just sew along your heart! Be extra careful at all times to be sure you're not sewing the other side of your sweatshirt. I used my machine's free arm and went very, very slowly.
You should now have one cozy heart sewn onto your sweatshirt.
4. Here's where it all goes down. Turn your swetshirt rightside out and cut a tiny little snip in your grey layer being EXTRA careful not to snip your purple heart.
Cut all the way around your seam until you've got a nice, happy heart peeking through.
Yay! You're done! And you are now the proud owner of your very own cozy heart sweatshirt.
It's Pagoda approved!
If you end up making your own heart sweatshirt or dress, send me a link! I'd love to see it. And really you could go wild making any sort of sweatshirt you wanted--I'm thinking a cat shape? Yes please!
Enjoy!
The easiest, most ridiculous DIY possibly ever
Today's $5 Thrifty Thursday is a little treat. A DIY treat, if you will. And it just so happens to be THE easiest DIY possibly ever as well as one that I wish I would have thought of years ago.
Yes indeed! Perhaps you've already thought of this one, but it barely occurred to me the other day whilst thrifting. Why pay $10+ to warm up your furry counterpart when you can spend $5 or less? How? It's as easy as thrifting a toddler sweatshirt.
Yes! As I was searching for vintage baby clothes for my soon-to-arrive niece (yay, Abi!) I came across this awesome blue sweatshirt for $0.99. And then it hit me--ROYAL NEEDS THIS.
So, all you need is a nice toddler sweatshirt or sweater, some scissors, and your cat/dog.
Cut the sleeves to desired length, and you've got yourself a $0.99 cat sweater. You could definitely sew the sleeves to fit better and not be jagged, but Royal isn't picky. He's all about comfort.
Pagoda tried to act like he was too cool for it, but really deep down in his heart he was green with envy.
So, now you know just how crazy of a cat lady I really am. I guess it never really was a secret, but at least you now know to what degree my cat ladydom has reached. Judge me as you see fit.
If you make a thrifted pet sweater, send me the link! I'd love to see it. Happy pet sweater thrifting!
Posted in $2 thrifty thursdays, cat lady chronicles, DIYs
23 Comments
Frankenstein Nail DIY
Just a quick note to let you all know that I did a silly little Frankenstein nail DIY over on Kate's Irrelevant! She's having a killer Halloween party all week long, so be sure to check it out!
On a side note--I still have some small sponsor spots available, so if you're interested in advertising your blog/shop on A is for Ampersand, let me know! I'd absolutely love to have you. Click here for sponsor details.
