The easiest, coolest stripe tee DIY tutorial

The easiest, coolest stripe tee DIY tutorial

• 12.16.2013

It's been ages since I did a J.Crew tee knock-off... I used to do them all the time, back in '09 and '10, I guess... ruffles, fabric flower shapes, even some painting... very trendy back then. But I saw this one randomly on J.Crew the other day and figured it was time to do another!

It's way more fun for me to make my own version of a cute tee, and it's not realistic for me to spend the big bucks for the real one every time I like something. So while I feel a little bad copying, in this case, it was time to DIY.

So here's the original: the gold/natural J.Crew bar-stripe tee.

And here's my version! Plus a few photos for the tutorial, nothing too in-depth, because, do you really need a tutorial for this? Well, you'll see in a bit...

DIY Gold Spray Paint Bar-Stripe Tee Tutorial

You'll need:

• Tee (I used the pocket kind from Target, so I carefully removed the pocket with the seam ripper first)
• Masking tape (perfect width!)
• Spray paint!

Instructions: Tape the pattern onto the tee. Tape some protective paper or plastic around the edges so you don't get paint anywhere but the stripes. (I recommend folding the tee in half lengthwise after each stripe to make sure they're straight and even. I also recommend doing this while watching Elf, because it worked well for me! ;) )

Oh, next step--go into your garage because it's way too cold to do this outside this time of year, and spray evenly over the taped area. I gave it one heavy coat, maybe three passes all at once.

Ta-da!!

Success!!!
It would be really cool in the black stripe-on-grey version, too, edgy but simple. I guess you could do all kinds of shapes, but I love the constrained stripes, and so easy to do with straight lines.