DIY Doggie Dress Shirt Collar

DIY Dog Collar Upcycled Dress Shirt - No Sew | The Cheerful Times

Last month my sister Rochelle adopted a new dog to live with her in her new Brooklyn studio apartment. His name is Henry and he’s a terrier mix!

Hi, Henry! Isn't he cute?
Hi, Henry! Isn’t he cute?

I had already given Rochelle an apartment-warming gift, and I obviously had to give Henry a dog-warming gift. I knew I wanted to craft him something, but there was one problem: my sister is basically the most crafty person in the world. Anything I made him, she would be able to make for him ten times better and faster.

For this reason I knew I had to keep it simple and effective.

In my internet travels I stumbled across this adorable and incredibly easy craft: “Easiest Upcycled Dog Collar Ever!” from the Sew Doggy Style blog. It was the perfect gift! My sister loves throwing parties and Henry would be such a dapper doggie host in a little collared dress shirt accessory. Plus, Rochelle is the shop owner/seamstress behind Etsy’s Brooklyn Bowtied, so he would look like such a cute little fancy man wearing a collar/bow tie combo.

DIY upcycled collared dress shirt dog collar craft | The Cheerful Times

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Collared dress shirt(s)
  • Measuring tape
  • Scissors
  • That’s literally it

I decided I wanted to make three different collars for Henry, so I rallied my beloved crafty companion Athena and went to the thrift store. Rochelle told me that Henry’s neck size is 13 inches. Because Athena’s dog is also teeny, we took a trip to the little boys’ section. Some little boy dress shirts are labeled S/M/L instead of by neck measurements, so I brought my measuring tape to double check sizes just in case.

Here are the shirts we picked out!

Athena is a wonderful model.
Athena is a wonderful model.
So exciting!
So exciting!

You have to make sure of two things when picking out shirts for this project: Continue reading “DIY Doggie Dress Shirt Collar”

How To Be Happy: Forge a Feel-Good Playlist

No one can deny the powerful influence music has on the way you feel. One moment you can be on top of the world, and then Evanescence’s My Immortal comes on and you can forget about ever feeling happy again.

To avoid having such emotions sprung on you without warning, crafting playlists for specific moods and situations can be a very handy tool. Whether you’re trying to keep a feeling going strong or influence yourself into a productive mood change, creating collections of songs that embody your desired results can be the quickest and easiest way to success.

My sister rockin' out to being an only child 24ish years ago
My sister rockin’ out to being an only child 24ish years ago.

Since this is the How to Be Happy series, obviously it’s time to discuss making your very own happy playlist! My personal happy playlist makes me feel like I just received the greatest news over and over again, every time I listen to it. Each song is so catchy, so dance-y, and so filled with feel-good energy that I can’t help but boogie my way to cheerfulness.

So, how should you go about starting your own happy playlist?  Continue reading “How To Be Happy: Forge a Feel-Good Playlist”

How to Be Happy: Throw Out the Bad Apples

Throw Out the Bad Apples | The Cheerful Times

In my last post I introduced The Cheerful Times‘ new feature, the How to Be Happy series. I would like to kick off this new addition with a somewhat heavier first tip that holds a lot of importance to me personally: throw out the bad apples.

We meet a lot of people in life. Some of them are insanely wonderful, some of them are downright unpleasant. Some of them start out being insanely wonderful and then turn out to be downright unpleasant. And some, of course, just straight out suck. With all the good people we have in our lives, why is it that we continue to hold on to (and often give priority to) those who make us feel a certain incompleteness?

I struggled with this for a long time. Throughout high school and a few years after, I put so much energy into Continue reading “How to Be Happy: Throw Out the Bad Apples”

Introducing: The “How to Be Happy” Series

Today was a beautiful day! It’s the beginning of March and my college campus was already blessed with a 60 degree preview to spring. One of the things I love most about randomly gorgeous days is the renewed motivation they instill in people. Suddenly everyone forgot about the winter blahs and being trapped in their poorly-lit dorm rooms by the outside wind chill, and instead played Frisbee on the field, watched the baseball game from the top of the hill with their friends and families, and even gave suntanning an early try.

The feeling today’s weather gave me inspiration for a new blog series: How to Be Happy”. There may not be an overwhelming amount of tips highlighted in the series that are positively groundbreaking, but that’s not the point! It’s all about taking things that mean a lot to me personally and sharing my perspective. It’s nice to be reminded of ways to make us breath a little easier, things we often forget about when trapped in the depths of our busy, stressful lives.

The first post of the series will premiere sometime this week. In the meantime, please enjoy this picture of a happy pug in a turtle costume… it certainly cheered me up!

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I hope your days have been just as beautiful as mine!

Kelsey