Buy or Diy: Embellished collar shirt

Hey there,

I went online window shopping on Koovs :) and found some really nice casual collared shirts. They have lovely embellished collars that give them a fun feel. These can be worn casually or even to office (if the bling is not too much). But I was really disappointed at the price of these. Come on, just adding little bit of embellishment does not  escalates its price 3 times!

I will not spend 1500 on a shirt, but I still want to have something like this. I searched my closet and found a plain black shirt that I never wear anywhere because it makes me feel like I am going to a funeral. So its time for funeral shirt to get jazzed up and be party ready.. Scroll down for my DIY

 No crafting skills or time.. Then buy these

Buy These HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE from Koovs.Com

I mostly never take pictures when I am making something (I simply forget) so here are some inspirational DIY's from the web to get started.

Here are a few Links

See these HERE, HERE and HERE

Here's what I made.

Things you'll need,

1. Collared shirt

2. Embellishments/Sequins

3. Fabric Glue/ Needle+Thread

5 Some Imagination

In the above DIY links the embellishments are glued to collar. But I seriously prefer sewing them instead on sticking. Using glue is fairly easy than sewing them but here's why I don't do it.

While I was doing my shirt I had to do the second collar twice because the pearls didn't come in a straight line. So i ripped off the stitches and did it all over again. But if I had stuck them I wouldn't have been able to redo it in case I was unsatisfied with the result.

Secondly, in these time when fashion changes at the blink of an eye, I want to be able to reuse my shirt for any other purpose when embellishments go out of fashion. It will be really bad if a shirt with glue laden collar is hanging in my closet, totally useless. Thirdly, if you're using glue then keep a few spare embellishments spare, in case you loose some from the collar. I never find fabric glue too reliable for the long term, I do have to wash my shirt sometimes :)

I made rows and rows with white pearl on my collar and small triangles on the sleeves to match the collar, The shirt is pretty duh so it needed more help. Here's a trick to get a straight row if you're using pearls.Mark the starting and end point of the row on the collar. Stick out the needle on the collar at the starting point of the row, now make a string of pearls and then pass the needle through the end point of the line. The needle is now under the collar, again bring it to front side and start passing the thread to the pearls one by one this time securing each on the collar individually. Using this method is very fast and gives better result than sewing on the pearls one by one.

For the triangle on the sleeve, I made the center row first using 5 pearls. then I finished one half of the triangle making a row with 4, then another with 3 pearls and so on. Then finish the other half. And if this much is still less.. then put some more on shoulders. Happy sewing