Introduction: Buttoned Up Tshirt

You can take a boring plain tshirt and give it zest and interest. This very plain tshirt takes on the look of double breasted tailoring.

Step 1: Step 1: You Need Very Little in Way of Supplies

So here you have what you need.

1 tshirt preferably without a design.

Regarding the design: you could deliberately choose a tshirt with a design that you like and incorporate it into the button layout.

A handful of coin or buttons

They can be all of the same size or of different sizes.

and a handful of tiny elastics

Step 2: Step 2: the Way You Achieve the Look

You can either do the design randomly without planning or you can plan the pattern. I planned the pattern and made light marks with chalk that could be bushed off, marking where I wanted the coin buttons. I used all of the same size using nickles but you can use different sizes and have the coin buttons get larger as they go up or down or the reverse. If you don't like your design you can undo the elastics and do a completely different design.

To start you take a nickle (or actual button) and place it under your chalk mark and gather the fabric under the coin as shown in the first picture above. The second picture above shows you the underside of the tshirt where the coins are. You can see a tiny opening where you can see the coin. That is about the maximum that you should allow. You then wrap an elastic around the coin under the fabric. If the elastics are very small, once around under the coin would be enough but if the coin is not held firmly in place, wrap the elastic around as many times as is necessary to hold the coin firmly. Continue placing the coin under the tshirt, pushing it up, gathering the fabric under the coin and then wrapping an elastic around under the coin until you are satisfied with the design.

Step 3: Step 3: Two Different Treatment of the Sleeves

I positioned the coin buttons differently on each sleeve to show you how a different placement can make the design look different. In the first tshirt I placed the coin buttons in the centre front of the sleeve and in the second I put the coin buttons along the upper edge of the tshirt sleeve.