Hello, and welcome to my very first blog post. I'm so happy you're here!

April was a very busy month for me. I created my first sponsored post on Instagram, made my first upcycled piece, finished a ton of videos for my day job, printed all the tags on my flower party tees, and met with some local Jacksonville artists to talk about a future art show we’ll all be participating in (more on that later).

In my inaugural blog post, I’d like to walk you through the process of my first upcycled piece. I’ve been collecting potential garments for months, and I’m so glad I finally put some of my scrap fabric to use!

I started with a white cotton button-up. I used another cropped button-up shirt as a reference for length, but I have to admit I'm not an expert at sewing yet, so cropping pieces always makes me a little nervous. I was pleasantly surprised when the new seams came out exactly how I wanted.

Next, I had to get my emulsion sheets ready. This was also new for me. I found these emulsion sheets from Small Dog Prints on Instagram and really wanted to try them myself. They're 8.5 x 11in. sheets of mesh with emulsion perfectly spread over it, ready to expose. I sketched up some flowers on Procreate and printed them out on transparency sheets.

After leaving everything under the exposure light for about a minute, I rinsed the sheets in warm water. The instructions were easy to follow, and the design came out perfectly!

When this button-up design was just an idea floating around my head, I knew I wanted to include patches or something similar somewhere on the design. I decided to go with star patches made from scrap fabric.

I've been really into primary colors so I chose blue as my main color. I mixed different shades to see which one I liked the best. It's been so long since I created anything for myself, so picking up a paintbrush for this project felt extra special.

In the end I couldn’t chose just one color. I picked a couple different shades and spread them on my white fabric using a foam brush. Tracing and cutting these stars was very therapeutic, I cut them one by one and even made extras in case I messed some up while sewing (and I did)

Next came the hardest part: sewing the stars on the shirt. I always approach projects as if I’m an expert in the field, and I still haven’t decided if that’s a good thing. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to flip the entire shirt around every time to make it up each point of the star.

But I was strong and so brave and sewed every single one on.

I thought about stopping there because, by that point, my body was telling me to just sit on the couch and watch something. But I really wanted to finish (I need to get better about listening to my body), so I did.

Next came the embroidery. My first time embroidering something. This was surprisingly satisfying even though I could tell the thread was not aligning perfectly (it's fine, I'm fine). I cut the piece of gingham fabric from a dress I never wore and sewed it on like I knew exactly what I was doing.

This next part was so exciting. It was finally time to try the emulsion sheets. I used a little masking tape to secure it to the shirt and the smallest squeegee I have to spread my favorite black ink over the mesh.

I accidentally let some ink spread above the sheet but was able to cover that up with another flower later on. The ink didn't come through every part of the design but that's kind of the look I was going for. It was looking so good!

Next, I added rhinestones, that's right. RHINESTONES. I'm not sure what took over me and gave me this idea but I really love the way they turned out and will be looking into getting a better tool to secure them to the fabric (my 200 year old iron wasn't cutting it).

This project was really fun for me. I got to try a few new skills and practice some old ones. I've been saying I want to create more and now that I started, I really don't want to stop. It's easy for me to get caught up in work mode but I need to remember to stop and rest and take time to make things I really enjoy.

I hope in the near future I'm able run this business in a way that gives me time to get really creative. I'm so thankful for anyone reading this and hope it inspires you to create something too ♡