Criss Cross Applesauce: DIY Fancy Tee

First of all. Don't freak out. Don't run away. You're still in the realm of the llama. Yes, we're doing a fashion DIY today.

I originally saw this on a facebook video. (I think one other DIY was thanks to facebook as well!) It was just a minute long video, so I had to watch and rewatch about 50 times before I felt comfortable enough to even try this for the blog! (Emily, #fortheblog). I lucked out last Friday and my step sister wanted to help out, so we totally practiced on one of her shirts before I attempted one of mine. Full disclosure: I did two of my shirts.

What You'll Need:

• A Shirt you won't hate that you totally ruin if you mess up (hey, all honesty, it could happen!) But it also needs to be a shirt you would want to wear more often than not! I suggest a plain, but cute Tee. 
• Sharp scissors
• Needle 
• Thread (preferably to match your shirt, but hey, get adventurous. Why not?)

What To Do:

• Fold your shirt in half in the back ONLY. We're not cutting through the whole shirt here, y'all. Just fold the shirt in half in the BACK. 
• Cut into the back of the shirt. Your incisions will need to be at least half an inch but up to two inches into the shirt. The smaller your cuts, the smaller the width of the "box" on your back will be. 

• The closer the cuts, the smaller the bars you will have across your back. So the distance between your cuts depends on how you want yours to look. I made mine pretty close together. 
• Start About where your shoulder blades would be on the shirt and cut down as far as you will like. (If you don't want to sew much, don't go too far down!) 
• Unfold the shirt. 
• Intertwine your fingers (using both hands) and GENTLY stretch out your cuts to thin out the "bars"

Now here's the tricky part:

1. Take the top "bar" (I don't know what else to call it!) Overlap it with the one immediate next to it. Grab the next "bar". 
2. Sew these together in the middle. Just enough thread to where they don't pull apart. 
3. Do this until you're done! 

Basically, the bar you grab will always overlap the one next to it. You're sewing every other bar together to get the criss cross appearance.

Once you get to the bottom, that's it. You're done! Now you have a really fancy looking tee, that in stores could have cost big bucks!

I want to hear from you! Would you try this shirt? Do you love this look? Tell me in the comments!