T-shirt Projects

Ages ago, I promised variations on my Softie Spiral Headband made from T-shirt coils. Well, at long last, here’s one take — a pair of colorful, bold, statement earrings. As a DIY project, they’re a nice alternative to the headband (if you’re too impatient or too short on time to make all the coils required for the bigger project!).

Materials:
-T-shirt scraps in different colors (T-shirt hems with the stitching cut off are perfect!)
-Fabric scissors
–Aleene’s Fabric Fusion or similar fabric adhesive
-Ruler
-1 pair earring posts and backs
–Aleene’s Jewel-It Embellishing Glue or similar jewelry adhesive

Make It:
Simply follow the instructions for making a T-shirt coil in the spiral headband tutorial. Make three pairs of same-sized and like-colored coils. (In this example, that means: two matching blue coils, two matching gold coils, and two matching pail yellow coils.)

To make sure that the two blue coils end up the same size, start by cutting the T-shirt strips to the same length. The top coil in the earring should be the smallest, with each coil getting gradually larger as you move down the length of the earring (the yellow one is about 1 3/8″ in diameter, the gold one is about 1 1/2″, and the blue one is about 1 3/4″).

Use the Fabric Fusion to glue the coils in a row, rotating the coils so that the ends of the T-shirt strips get “buried” in the seam. Then glue an earring post to each of the small coils (close to the edge, at the top of the earring, as shown) using the jewelry glue.

Allow the glue to set completely, then attach the earring backings, and you’re ready to wear or gift them!

Note: If these earrings are too big for your style (they do measure about 4.5″ long), you can make them smaller — just keep the same basic ratio between the sizes. Alternatively, you can make single coil earring studs for an even faster result!

Tags: crafting with scraps, T-shirt earrings, T-shirt headband, T-shirt scraps, T-shirt transformation, Transform a T-shirt

[ Posted on June 4th, 2012 ]