(electronic music)
Raven Elyse TV.
- Hey guys what's up, it's Raven.
Today's video is gonna be a
little bit of a throwback vibe
because a lot of you guys who
have been following me for a long time,
may have started following me
from my DIY tutorial videos.
I used to make a lot of tutorials
for how to turn a regular,
plain item into a cute outfit.
For example, take a big, baggy t-shirt
and turn it into a cute
little two piece set
or take a old, thrifted skirt
and turn it into a cute little outfit.
Just different stuff like that.
I used to do a lot fashion,
transformation, DIY projects.
That was more so back in my college days
when I was tryna save money and
I still wanted to look cute.
I really haven't had a lot of time to
just like play around with
different DIY ideas recently.
It has been awhile
since I've actually just
made something of my own
or did any DIY projects.
But I still like fashion,
I still like making stuff,
I still have that artistic,
creative, little thing
in my soul, and it is
asking me to come back out.
A lot of you guys have been requesting
for me to bring back the DIY videos,
show us how to make something cute, Raven.
Where are the DIYs?
So today, we're gonna make somethin'.
Now, I'm basically jumping into this
with absolutely no plan.
Like I said, it's been a long time
since I've even made anything or
sewn anything or anything like that.
But, I had the idea to just go to Walmart.
A lot of times in the past I would go
to the thrift store to get my materials
or get my pieces that
I'm starting off with,
but I don't know, thrift stores have been
really, really hit or miss for me.
The last few times that I did go,
I really wasn't able
to find any good stuff.
So I also thought that if I go to Walmart,
then you guys will be able
to recreate whatever I make
because you can go to Walmart
and buy the same thing
that I'm about to buy.
Basically just looking for something
that'll give me a starting point
or inspire me to make
somethin' else out of it.
I think it would be cute if I can make
a little mini dress for the summer
or a two-piece set, with a
crop top and some shorts.
But, I don't know.
It's all gonna depend on what we can find.
All right, so I guess
I'm just gonna go inside
and see what I can find.
All right let's do a
little quick Walmart haul.
So I spent $37 on all of this stuff,
and I think I got enough stuff to make
like, six or seven,
maybe even eight outfits
'cause I plan on making dresses
and two-piece outfits out of everything.
So for $37 I'll be able to make like,
eight outfits, which is pretty good.
So if you like to make stuff,
this is a good way to save money.
The first three things that I got
are these three giant plain t-shirts.
My first tip for you guys is
to shop in the men's section,
whether you're at Walmart or
whether you're at the
thrift store or whatever.
If you plan on doing these type of DIYs,
always shop in the men's section
because you're able to get giant t-shirts
that you can turn into
dresses or two-piece outfits.
So at Walmart especially, they
go up to four x or five XL.
So for me, because I'm
tall, I need a three x
for it to be long enough to
actually be a dress on me.
So I got this neon yellow, giant t-shirt,
this is a three x.
These were like, $4 or $5 each.
So really good deal but
actually really soft.
Fruit of the Loom, pretty
decent quality for $4.
So I got the highlighter yellow,
I got a white one, also
in the giant three x size.
And then I got this kind
of coraly, pink color
which they had in the men's
section, which was nice.
So to get the most fabric,
because when you're tryna make something,
you want a lot of fabric to work with.
So maybe you can even make
multiple things from one shirt,
so you wanna get the most fabric.
So you wanna get basically
the biggest size that you can find.
So that's why it's better
to go to the men's section.
You can get t-shirts from
the thrift store as well,
but sometimes it's hard to find a three x
and it's hard to find t-shirts
that are in really good condition,
'cause sometimes t-shirts
from thrift store
can be real stinky and dingy.
So you can get a brand new one
for a couple dollars from Walmart.
So what I was really hoping
to find is cool, graphic tees.
But they really did not have
very cool graphics, at all.
They had some very weird graphic tees.
Sometimes they have really cool ones,
but this was the only kind
of cool one I could find.
It's a tie-dye MTV t-shirt,
so I got a giant one.
Then from the women's
section, I got some tank tops.
So I had the idea to
make some two-piece sets
'cause these tank tops were only like,
$2 each, which is super cheap.
And they're really nice
and soft and stretchy.
I mean not like, really nice,
but they're soft and stretchy.
I got two of the same tank
top in two different sizes.
I got one in a size small,
which I plan on using
for my actual top size.
I wanna cut it into a
crop top or something,
and then I got another one of
the same tank tops in a size large.
So I plan on using this tank top to make
a mini-skirt or even a
pair of shorts out of it.
So, got the larger size so it would be,
you see where I'm going with this?
So I did the same thing for
this mustard yellow colored tank top.
This one has a little
scrunchy detail on the top.
And then the last thing I
got from the women's section,
I just got this because
I really like the color,
you guys know I like this color,
and it's really, really really soft,
I love this fabric.
I got it in a two x, which you can see
the women's two x compared to
the men's two x, is much smaller.
So this is not at all long
enough to be a dress on me.
It literally stops before my pants.
I don't know, I'm not
sure if it's big enough
but I still wanna try
and make some sort of
two-piece set or something out of it.
I don't know.
This might not be big enough
to really do what I wanna do,
but, we'll see.
(upbeat music)
Okay, so let's start with one
that's gonna be really easy.
I mean, all of these are
gonna be really easy.
I'm gonna try and go
through it really fast
to kinda show you the basic
idea of how I'm gonna do this.
This is not going to be a how to sew
or how to use a sewing machine video.
If you guys don't know how to sew,
don't know how to use a sewing machine,
I am gonna be using a sewing
machine on all of these things.
So if you don't know
how, look up a tutorial.
I'm sure there's tons of
very helpful tutorials
already on YouTube for how to sew,
but this video is really just gonna be
for people who kind of
already know how to sew
but it is gonna be beginner friendly.
So as long as you know how to use
a sewing machine, you're good.
So like I said, with these two tank tops,
I got one in size small, so
I'm gonna put that one on.
I think, literally all
I'm gonna do for this one
is just cut it to make a crop top.
And that's obviously one of
the easiest transformations
you can do for anything,
whether you get something
from a thrift store, Walmart, wherever.
If you have somethin' that's cute up top,
but you just don't like it or whatever,
you can just make it into a crop top.
So I like to just fold it
under first when I try it on,
just to see how it's gonna look.
Like, how short do I wanna crop it?
Do I just want it like this?
Or do I want it really short,
like a bralette, like this?
But for this skirt, I'm literally
just gonna take this large tank top
and just step into it and
just see how it fits my hips.
So it actually fits really good.
Literally, all I'm really gonna do is,
the part where the straps are right here,
I'm gonna cut that part off
so just to show you guys
I'm just gonna fold it under for now.
So yeah this is basically the main idea.
Take two tanks tops, make one a crop top,
make one a little mini skirt.
So first things first
with the smaller tank top
that I'm gonna use for my actual top
I'm just gonna go ahead
and crop it I like I said.
If you wanna make this look
nicer along the cut edge,
you can just fold it under and sew it.
Now it actually left me
with this whole bottom part
that if you wanted to you could
make this into a tube top.
So I'm just gonna set the crop top aside
and then for the bigger tank top
that I'm making the skirt out of
I'm just going to cut off the top part
and then honestly you can keep
this as a little bra top too.
For me it's gonna be a
little too big I think.
I don't know I might still be able
to do something with this.
Sometimes you are able to do this
with just one tank top
but for me since I'm tall,
it's kinda hard because I need
something small for my top
but I need a lot of fabric
to make my skirt long enough.
This part that I cut off of here
is not long enough to be a skirt on me
so that's why I needed a whole other shirt
but depending on your size
you might be able to just cut the top off,
use that for your top, and
then have the rest of it
be for your skirt.
So these are how our two
shirts look right now.
So I'm gonna use a piece of this one,
to make a waistband for here.
So now I'm left with an
even shorter tube top
that I can still use,
but now I have this strip
which is gonna be for my skirt.
So essentially if you guys
know how to sew a waistband,
this helps to just cinch in the waist.
So you fold it over like this
and you would sew these
two pieces together
and it would give you
a nice finished edge.
Oh it actually fits perfectly.
So this piece fits tight around my waist
'cause it's from the smaller shirt.
I'm really really bad at explaining things
so I'm just going to link
another persons tutorial
down below for how to
attach a simple waistband.
Hopefully if you guys have
never done a waistband
before you guys can look
in the description box
and watch that video and it'll help you
to learn how to do a waistband.
Remember YouTube is your friend
so whatever you can't learn from my video
you can probably learn
from somebody else's video.
So right now I've got my waistband
and my skirt pinned together
and I'm just going to
attach the waistband piece to the skirt.
(Sewing machine)
Boom, so that's just one
stitch all the way around.
Okay so this is what the
finished product looks like.
This is the top edge of the skirt
and now I have my waistband
sewn on right here
and it's actually pretty easy to do
once you understand the concept of it.
It literally just takes one
stitch all the way around.
This is what the skirt looks like now.
Overall for me I would say it
still is a little bit loose.
I probably could have
made it a little smaller
but I know that with these Walmart items
they tend to shrink a
lot after you wash them
so I'm expecting this to shrink
quite a bit so it's okay if
it's a little big right now.
But yeah that is a
finished little mini skirt
out of a $2 tank top.
Then with the rest of the shirt that I cut
like I said it could
be a little bandeau top
and I could fold this over
and sew it just to give it
a clean edge where I cut it.
So just always look at
when you're cutting stuff
or making crop tops or whatever,
always look at your scrap pieces
and see if there's anything
else you could use it for
'cause lots of times it's like you know
you could make a whole other
top out of it or something.
I now have a mid length crop top,
a bandeau, and a short bra top.
So to quickly recap, I took
one $2 tank top from Walmart
and I just cut the bottom off
to make a crop top, that's it.
Then I took another larger
size tank top from Walmart
and I cut the top off to make a skirt,
and I took an extra piece from this shirt
to make a waistband for the skirt.
So this is my $4 outfit that I created.
(upbeat music)
All right, now I want to
show you how to make a dress
from a giant baggy t-shirt.
So like I said this is a three XL.
That is how big I have to get it
just so it's long enough
on me 'cause I'm tall.
If you're shorter you can
probably just get an XL
or a two XL or whatever
is just long enough.
So just try it on, make
sure that it's long enough
to be a dress on you and then take it off
and lay it on the floor.
So just make sure you line everything up
so that it's perfectly laid out.
That parts really important.
It has to be perfectly laid out.
Then you're gonna wanna take
a dress out of your closet,
a tight short dress.
So basically whatever type of dress
or at least similar type of dress
that you're tryna make from your shirt,
you're gonna wanna take a preexisting one
out of your closet.
Most people have some
sort of simple, tight,
short dress in their closet.
If you don't, I don't
know what to tell you.
I'm just taking this white short
tight spaghetti strap dress
and I'm gonna use this as my template.
Look it fits perfectly within
the length of this shirt.
Ignore my carpet stains, but
I'm just laying the dress
right in the center of the shirt
to where it all kind of like lines up
and it's nicely centered.
For this dress it has a straight neckline
as you can see right here,
and then it has spaghetti straps.
You can see with the way that
this actual dress is made,
obviously the spaghetti
straps are a separate piece,
so I'm gonna do the same
thing for what I'm making.
I'm just gonna cut across here
and basically just make
a tube dress first,
which you can also just do that.
You can make a tube dress,
you can make a spaghetti strap dress,
you can make a tank top top dress,
you can make a short sleeve dress,
you can make a lot of
different types of tops to it,
but I'm just gonna start by cutting out
and basically just tracing
the tube dress shape
and then I'm gonna make separate pieces
to make the spaghetti straps.
I'm not even gonna mark it first
because I've done this before
and I just don't need to.
If it makes you feel more comfortable
you can take a pencil
or a marker or something
and literally trace it right
here and draw your line,
but I'm just gonna start cutting.
I'm just gonna leave a
centimeter of space on the sides.
So I'm not gonna cut it exact,
like right on the edge of the dress,
I'm gonna leave a centimeter of space,
and that's going to serve
as our seam allowance.
So I'm just leaving a little bit of space
and just following the shape of the dress
and I'm cutting through
both layers of the shirt.
You can basically do this
with any little small dress
as long as your dress
fits within the shirt,
you can basically use any
dress to trace the shape.
Then like I said for the top
I've got these separate pieces,
so I'm just gonna ignore the
spaghetti straps for now,
I'm gonna move those out the way,
and I'm just gonna cut
this straight across.
Again leaving a little bit of extra space.
All I really have to
do is sew up the sides,
so it's just like one
stitch going along here,
obviously you're gonna wanna
turn it right sides together
and sew it properly, but
you're just gonna sew it up
on either side and then you
can do a nice finished edge
going along the top as well.
Then you can leave it as a tube dress
if you want to do that or you can go ahead
and add spaghetti straps.
So since I have all this
excess fabric left over
from the sides of the shirt
I can easily use that to
make spaghetti straps.
So I'm just gonna cut from
the sides of the shirt,
a strip to make my spaghetti straps.
So boom, two little strips for my straps.
So with t-shirt material if
you cut a strip like this,
if you stretch it, just stretch it out
and pull it really tight
it rolls up on itself
and it creates a nice little,
I don't know a little tube by itself.
So that's actually an easier
way to make spaghetti straps.
Just stretch it out and let it roll up.
(sewing machine)
So now I've got a tube dress,
the sides are sewn together.
I'm gonna take the top
edge and fold it under
and just sew along the top edge
just to give it a nice clean finish.
(sewing machine)
Just sew it all the way around, and boom.
So here is the simple tube dress now.
So the bottom edge of it looks nice
'cause it has the actual edge
that was already on the t-shirt,
and the top edge looks nice
now because I folded it over
and I sewed across it.
So pretty simple to make
a little tube dress,
but now I'm just going to
attach the spaghetti straps.
So I have my two little pieces
that I cut and stretched
from the sides of the t-shirt,
and basically all I have
to do is just try it on
to see how long I need the straps to be.
It looks like these pieces
are actually just perfect.
Then all I have to do is just
do a little small stitch right here
to connect them and obviously
connect them in the back.
It helps to you know
use preexisting items.
Since I have this bra on underneath
it's kind of already showing
me where the straps should be
and where they should be connected.
So I could just take a little sewing pin
and just pin it on just
so I know where to put it.
So I'm just gonna take this back off
and sew a little stitch to
connect the spaghetti straps
and then I'll be done.
Voila, all I did was attach
the little spaghetti straps.
I just made sure to go
over it multiple times.
I didn't just want to
put two little stitches
'cause then this could
pop off really easily,
so I just went back and
forth back and forth over it
to create a nice strong
little stitch right there,
if you can see that
I didn't even have to
sew the actual straps
because like I said with
the way that the shirt
just kind of rolled over on itself
this is what the underneath looks like.
So this is one dress style.
Now I'm gonna show you
a different variation
on how you can make the
top part of the dress.
(upbeat music)
So this time I'm gonna take my MTV shirt
that I got from Walmart,
and hopefully this fits on
me because this is a two x
and normally I would do it with a three x
but hopefully this works 'cause
they didn't have a three x.
Same thing, big baggy t-shirt,
just barely long enough
to even be a dress on me,
hopefully it's long enough.
Same thing I'm just gonna
lay it out really really flat
on the floor and I'm gonna
trace one of my dresses
from my closet.
This time I'm gonna take this black dress
that is more of just a tank dress.
You can see this dress is a little longer
than the actual shirt but that's okay.
This dress is all one piece,
it doesn't have separate spaghetti straps,
so it's gonna be actually
a little bit easier.
You wanna make sure that
this is lined up right here
perfectly, you don't want
this sticking over the top
because then it's not
gonna be the right size.
Make sure you've got it centered,
so you want everything to be equal.
Yeah you can see this dress
is just a simple tank dress
so we won't have to make
separate spaghetti straps this time.
This is just a rough guide,
so when I'm cutting my actual shirt
if I want to make the
straps a little bit thicker
I can do that by just
leaving space when I cut it,
or if I want to make the
neckline a little bit higher
'cause I don't want to cut off
the graphic, I can do that.
I'm basically just using this black dress
as a basic starting point,
and even if you're doing this
and you have a maxi dress,
you could use a maxi dress too.
It doesn't matter how
much of the bottom part
is hanging off, as long as you just have
the top part lined up correctly,
you don't have to use the bottom part.
You're just obviously you know
you're gonna cut it wherever
the shirt ends so its really just
the top part that matters.
You could honestly even use a tank top
or a shirt and then just
continue the line down.
So let's say it was just
a tank top like this
and it was short.
I could still use that
but then when I'm cutting
the white shirt I just
continue the line down
when I'm cutting to make it into a dress.
So I'm gonna go ahead and cut around this,
just tracing around with my scissors.
Same thing like the first time,
leaving about a centimeter
of extra space on the edge.
I'm gonna make my straps
a little bit thicker
than how this black dress is
just because I just want it
to be a little bit thicker
so I'm gonna leave some extra space
and just cut it how I want it to be.
Then actually for the neckline
I could go in and cut it
to match how the dress is,
or you could actually leave it like this
and just leave the
neckline of the t-shirt.
So to make it easier on myself
I'm just gonna leave it like that,
and then all I have to do
really in terms of sewing it,
is flip it right sides together,
and then I'm just gonna
sew the sides of the dress.
Obviously don't sew up your arm holes
because these are meant
to be holes for your arms
so you don't wanna close that up.
Just leave these open, leave
everything up here alone,
but just from this armpit
edge all the way down
you're gonna sew that together
just to sew your sides back together.
Line up my edges right sides together.
(sewing machine)
Didn't have to do anything
to the arm holes or straps
or anything 'cause that was
kind of already built right in.
All right so I'm not gonna lie
this one was a little hard to put on
because it is pretty tight.
This shirt isn't as stretchy
as the other shirt that I used,
so it wasn't able to stretch as much
when I was tryna put it on.
As you can see it's a really tight fit.
So make sure you're working with shirts
that have a little bit of stretch
if you're making stuff
that's really tight.
You also don't have to
make your dress this tight.
You can make it as tight or as loose
as you want it depending
on how tight the dress
is that you're tracing,
or how much extra space you
give yourself on the sides.
So I probably could have give myself
maybe an extra couple of
centimeters on each side
and it would have helped
it not be so tight.
Yeah this is how the top looks,
it's just a regular top from the t-shirt,
the arm holes that I cut out,
you see how I made the
straps kinda thicker.
Yeah if you guys remember back in the day
when I used to do these
type of DIY's all the time
and I actually had my own store
where I sold the stuff that
I made called Custom Thrift,
this is one the first types of things
that I discovered that I could make.
It's still a cute
concept, six years later.
So yeah I think that this is the last one
that I'm going to show for this video.
I do still have all this other stuff
that I got from Walmart
so I could probably make
at least three or four
different outfits and different styles
of these dresses 'cause
there's a couple of other
little different things you could do
with the sleeves and stuff like that.
I also wanted to show how you
could make a pair of shorts,
but I think it's too much for this video
so if you guys wanna see
how to make other styles
of this dress and also how
to make a two piece set
with shorts instead of a skirt,
then let me know down below.
Let me know if I should do
a part two to this video.
I would love to see you
guys recreate this stuff
so go to Walmart, buy a cheap shirt,
and make a dress or make a little outfit
out of the camis and if you make it
definitely post it on Instagram or Twitter
and tag me so I can see it.
I'll be reposting you
guys to my story and stuff
and I might even feature your photos
in my next video if I do make
a part two to this video.
Let me know what you thought
about the three things
that I made today, and
which one was your favorite.
Give this video a thumbs
up if you enjoyed it
and if you are excited about
me possibly bringing back
some DIY content to my channel.
Subscribe if you haven't already
so you don't miss out on
part two of this video
if I do make a part two,
if you guys want it,
and I'll see you guys in my next one, bye.
