DIY: Taylor Swift's shirt in "22" - Not a Lot Going On at the Moment

I am a ginormous Taylor Swift fan - I think she's simply amazing.  As some of you might already know, her music video for one of my favourite songs - that totally describes me at the moment - from her latest album, Red, called "22" was released a week or so ago and it's so quirky and fun.  One of the things that I loved the most about it was the wardrobe, especially the Ashish shirt she wore at the very beginning.  Unfortunately, that shirt costs about $895 or so.  WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY SO NOT IN MY BUDGET (and I doubt that they are in most people's budgets).  So I decided to DIY it.  And maybe you do, too.  If you do, stick around to see how.

P. S. The blog url is going to change to stylegeneris.blogspot.com on Monday, September 9th. If you want to learn more about the change, check out my blog post here.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

• a white t-shirt
• black fabric paint (I'm using Martha Stewart's Multi-surface Satin Acrylic Craft Paint in Beetle Black) you could use some glitter fabric paint if you want the letters to be more sparkly
• a metallic fabric paint (once again, I'm using the same Martha Stewart paint, but in the colour Rose Chrome)
• a (fabric) paintbrush
• a piece of cardboard or styrofoam that fits inside your shirt and is able to stretch it out

(Beetle Black on the left, Rose Chrome on the right)

The special thing about the original shirt that I don't know how to replicate unless you happen to be lucky enough to find a sequin shirt similar to this is, well, the sequiny part.  (Notice how I tend to make up words...)  If that bothers you a lot, then, have fun hunting down a similar shirt or buy the $800-something one, but it doesn't really bother me, so I'm sticking to a regular white shirt and saving myself a few hundred bucks.

So first off, FIND THAT WHITE SHIRT.  You might notice how it's not complete white, so mine's almost a cream colour.  Make sure that the shirt is a bit oversized, hitting about the three quarters of the way from your shoulder to your elbow.  I suggest going to your local thrift shop(s) and see what they have if you have trouble finding some at the usual places like Forever 21 or H&M.  I got mine from Smart Set a while back.  It's optional, but a good idea to iron the shirt before the next few steps. 

Put some stiff cardboard or styrofoam in between the two pieces of fabric of your shirt so the shirt stretches a little bit.  This is also so the fabric paint doesn't seep through to the other side of the shirt (you really don't want it there) and ruin all your hard work.  I learned that the hard way...

**For the following steps, I suggest that you keep a photo of the shirt beside you for reference.**

Use a soft HB pencil or some chalk that is meant to be used on fabric and outline the words "NOT A LOT GOING ON AT THE MOMENT." If you're worried about the lettering getting messed up, you should make stencils of the letters. I'll include a quick tutorial of how to do so down at the bottom of this post.

Next, mix the black paint with the metallic one. The metallic paint is to add a little.. sparkle, a little something extra to the shirt.  You should get a colour that's just a bit lighter than the black with a nice sheen to it. 

After experimenting with the colours a bit, I think that more of the metallic colour is necessary, so just put more or less, trust your judgement. :)

Once you're happy with how the lettering looks, go over it with your paintbrush and your paint, of course.  It's preferable to use a fabric paintbrush, but as those tend to get a bit pricey - at least more expensive than I would want to spend on a brush that I wouldn't use often - a regular, cheap paintbrush from the dollar store is fine. 

If you think the colour needs to show up a bit better, go over it with a second coat after letting it dry for a good 30-40 minutes.  I know that on the Martha Stewart bottles, it advises you to wait an hour, but I personally don't find it necessary.  Correct any little mistakes you might've made and make the lines of the letters sharper and make sure they're as straight as you can possibly make them.  If you - unfortunately - happen to have gone out of the lines, I honestly don't know how to fix that.  Sorry!  But you can definitely Google how, maybe it'll give you an answer.

(The chalk in the photo will go away once you wash the shirt.)

Let the paint dry for a good hour and a half or two hours, three hours if you want to be super sure.  Then, iron over the letters at a low-to-medium setting to set the fabric paint so it stays on after you wash your shirt.  DON'T IRON OVER IT IF THE CHALK IS SHOWING.  Ironing it will set the chalk as well, which is not good.  I suggest washing it and if the paint fades a bit, go over it again.  I'm not sure how many washes the paint will survive, but I think it'll be quite a few before the colour starts to wear out.

Stencil:

1. Firstly, draw the letters on to some thin cardboard (cereal box material) or cardstock.
2. If you're printing the letters out, the next step will be to cut out those letters.
3. Then, put them on the cardboard/cardstock and trace around them.
4. For both methods, your next step is to get an exacto knife or a sharp pair of scissors and to cut out the letters carefully.  This might be a little time consuming, but it's worth it, trust me.  (You don't have to, but you should.)

That's what you could use instead of drawing it on the shirt directly.  With the stencil, use a pencil or chalk to draw the letters on lightly just so you know exactly where to put the stencil when you paint.  Make sure that if you're reusing a stencil that it's clean around the edges.  You wouldn't want some random black lines on your shirt.

So that's that.  There are many different ways to DIY this shirt (ironing on letters, getting it printed directly on the shirt, etc.)  This was just the way that I liked to do it and I hope that you found this helpful and that you'll have fun styling this shirt!  If you were wondering, you can get the cat ears that she's wearing in the video at Urban Outffiters for just $12.

Thanks for reading!

- J

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Image from eonline