4th of July Spirit!

So, in my quest to be a competent seamstress, I thought I'd try something easy and of course, cheap.

Enter, the Dollar Store T-Shirt Flag dress!I had an idea for a T-Shirt Dress in my head, and thought for sure someone else had probably done a tutorial somewhere. Sure enough, I found one here and here. (Cute blogs, too!) I didn't make my own tutorial on this one since, as usual, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing until after it's all done. (With quite a bit of seam ripper action in between.)
I added a ruffle around the collar & at the bottom of the dress from an old red T-shirt of mine that is now shorter than I prefer. (Not crop-top short, just "at-the-waist" short; a length that kind of bugs me now. But oh, the knit fabric was so soft & yummy.) I just chopped the bulk of it into strips then ruffled them with a basting stitch before sewing them on.
Then I painted the stars on with fabric paint. You could totally use a freezer paper stencil or something from one of those awesome cutting machines, but since I'm too cheap I didn't have either, I cut out a star shape from a leftover scrap of card stock & used that as my stencil. Or heck, you could go hog wild & applique on some stars like my original plan that fizzled because I ran out of fusible webbing.
Since I was having a tough time determining the front from the back, I stitched on a little tag. (I was having entirely too much fun at this point. Time to wrap it up before I get too carried away!)
There you have it! It makes me kind of giddy for the 4th of July! Maybe because it reminds me of the movie "Pollyanna"where she's in her flag costume. Or perhaps because it's a bit Wonder Womanesque. Either way, I can't wait to put my little cutie in it & head off to a parade! Happy 4th of July, everyone! Linking up here: