Upcycled T-shirts

Been pretty busy with my day job so I haven't had time to get in the studio as much as I'd like to. But I am trying to get ready for a little sidewalk Art Stroll next week in Baldwin Park. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=99819432058&ref=ts So I'm bustling away making postcards to fill up my cool new postcard rack (I showed it here a few posts back) which I will be using in the show. But, DAMN, that rack holds a lot of cards. I have been making cards like there's no tomorrow and its still not full. Close, though. Today I completed sixteen T-shirt post cards. Since I'm a pack-rat from way back, I naturally saved some of my kids' cutest t-shirts from when they were just little guys. Couldn't bear to toss them or pass them on to good-will. Thought I might someday make a quilt out of them but that idea has since palled. Hmmm, but post cards! Now there's an idea! I did have to iron on some stabilizing interfacing to the back of the t-shirts and then I just trimmed out the images and did some simple contour quilting around them. A matching or contrasting color for the blanket-stitch that goes around the edge completed these fast and easy postcards. Check them out!


Here's the whole batch all piled up. Can you tell we have 2 boys and a girl who all like critters of all sorts, especially bugs? They still do, too even though they're not so little any more.


My favorite is this froggy one. I love the whimsical aspect of the drawings. I got 2 cards out of this particular shirt.


There are also a lot of realistic image shirts in my stash, including these spiders. I sure hope someone else like spiders as much as we do and buys one or more of these!


It occurred to me that I've never shown the back of one of my post cards. As you can see, I use some vintage style letter stamps to write "POST CARD" and delimit the address side from the message side. The plain white fabric takes writing from a sharpie or other permanent pen no problem.