Savin' Maven Monday: DIY Nautical Tee

Happy Monday my loves!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

I literally spent my whole weekend with the dude-on Friday we stepped out to a family gathering, on Saturday we were planning to go to an amusement park using the Groupon deal that I found, however, it rained all day so we just ended up lounging around enjoying each other. On Sunday, we picked up a FREE Redbox movie. (Sidenote: I recently did a post on inexpensive date ideas-view it here if you're looking for  cheap and easy ways to enjoy some alone time with your booluv). So yeah, the movie we rented was 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo'. It was phenomenal-one of the best movies I've seen all year-hands down!

Anyhow, on to the post.

I've been in search of nautical items lately. I know it's almost the end of summer but I've really been coveting this whole 'sailboat' theme thing. I was told that I would be able to find sailboat shorts in Old Navy but I didn't necessarily favor the idea of paying $30 for shorts when the season is damn near over.

So I tapped in to my creative self and decided that I could just make my own. Since I couldn't find any solid colored shorts in my closet, I decided to recreate a solid white V-neck tee that I found in the Dollar Tree.

Here's what you will need: 

*plain t-shirt

*acrylic paint-I used the  Craft Smart brand in Deep Yellow, Ocean Breeze, and Christmas Red

*painters tape (not pictured)

*foam brush (not pictured)

*stencil

*cardboard

I was sooo excited when I saw this sailboat stencil!!!! I think I found this stencil sheet at Micheal's a number of years ago. It came in a package of about 10 stencil sheets. 

That's it, you're ready to begin.

STEP 1: Place your piece of cardboard in between your fabric-this keeps the paint from bleeding through.

STEP 2: Use the painters' tape to section off row. I sectioned off 4 rows for mine but you can section off as many or as little as you would like.

STEP 3: Begin stenciling and painting. This is how one of my sailboats looked.

I didn't want my rows to be all the same color so I alternated colors. I found that this was the most time consuming portion of the project. Because I have didn't have enough foam brushes to use a different one for each color, I had to clean the one I was using after each sailboat was stenciled.

Here's how it looked after one row was complete.

I had originally chosen three neon colors but I quickly decided against those because they were way too summery. I then decided to use these colors because I figured that they would be easier to pair with my fall items. 

Continue painting until all of your rows are complete. Like this...

Once the sailboats are dry-takes about an hour-remove the tape.

I already have an outfit in mind for this nautical inspired tee. So stay tuned to see exactly how I style it.

What do you think?

Are you all into all the nautical inspired items that have been in the stores lately? 

Thanks so much for reading.

XOXOXOXOXO