Last year, my boy and I participated in the first (annual!) Boys Can Wear Pink blog tour - you can see that post HERE. Kelly of Handmade Boy has brought us back for more fun (thanks Kelly!), and the kiddo and I had a good time trying to come up with our post for this year.
It was a bit of a challenge for us, I'll admit. Not because it's a stretch for us to let him wear pink (ahem, he takes ballet and still has an undying love for Skye from Paw Patrol) but because he really doesn't like it very much!
He's pretty firmly in blue and green territory these days, and is really starting to share more preferences about what he'd like to wear. I thought if I made him a shirt that had pink in it - as opposed to one that was predominantly pink - he'd like it a bit more. This guy is a big sweetheart and loves mama-made clothes, and will usually wear anything I ask him to. The challenge for me was creating something that he would WANT to wear and select himself.
(Ok, the challenge was also taking indoor pics of Mr. Perpetual Motion. I need a 10 ft x 10 ft backdrop to merely contain his limbs. At least.)
I turned to my old standby, upcycles, and found a cool graphic tee that my husband had put in my pile. It is navy blue and had blue and green screen printed graphics along with an embroidered overlay of hot pink palm trees. This was PERFECT - I love upcycling and my kiddo adores his dad so I knew he'd be thrilled. The Moto Maxx pattern from Love Notions is one of my all-time faves, and it was a great base for this project. Even the back of the original tee had cool elements that could be upcycled. (The pants were sewn previously using heavy weight supplex from Zenith and Quasar Fabrics and had the perfect vibe for these tops.)
I also looked to Euro fabrics and design, since I find that other parts of the world can be less constrained by gender norms than we are here in the US. The robot fabric was part of a remnants box from Jumping June Textiles, and was a perfect fit for this post as well.
I love that it has pink robots and portions of the background are bright purple, but it still has a pretty
masculine feel to me, too. For this one I used the Boardwalk tee from Peekaboo Patterns (another much-used favorite) with a single layer hood, and embellished the colorblocked bodice with silver heat transfer vinyl.
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| This face. <3 |
In a few short hours, my kiddo's wardrobe got a much-needed boost - and some boldness, too. I love that I was able to work the pink and purple into his beloved blue and branch out a bit while still creating clothes that he was excited to wear. Thanks again to Kelly for having us, and please make sure to check out the other stops on the tour. Oh, and don't forget to enter the giveaway, too - awesome prizes up for grabs!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
