DIY pearl embellished sweater with fabric paint design

I wear sweaters a lot. They’re just so comfortable and great for those days when you just don’t feel like wearing anything form fitting. But that doesn’t mean they have to be boring! Enter, the pearl-embellished sweater. I’ve been seeing these all over Pinterest for a while now and was really intrigued. So I decided to make my own!

And I also added these cute gold stars with fabric paint for a little extra fun!

I found this plain grey sweater at the thrift store and thought it would be perfect to finally bring my pearl embellishing dreams to life!

This tutorial can help you learn how to attach pearls to really any clothing. You’ll also learn how to use fabric paint to add a design to your clothes. So if you’re interested in either of those things, read on!

*This list contains affiliate links to the products I used in this project so that you can get everything you need online! This really helps support my site so I can continue to provide DIY and sewing tutorials and tips for you. 

What you need:

• sweater
• fabric paint (I used Tulip Metallics Dimensional Fabric Paint)
• cardstock
• scissors
• paint brush
• imitation pearls
• thread
• needle

Steps:

1. Make your stencil
2. Paint your design using the stencil
3. Sew on the pearls

Instructions:

Step 1

I decided to start with painting the stars on the sweater. To do this I first made my star stencils. You could also buy a stencil from your local craft store, but it’s not too hard to make one!

To make my stencils, I printed off the star outlines from some clip-art I found online. I wanted two different sizes of stars so I printed the outline in both the sizes I wanted. I then cut loosely around the star, taped it to a piece of cardstock, then cut out the center of the star in the cardstock. After doing this with both sizes of stars I ended up with two stencils. In the photo one of mine has some paint on it already because I tested it on scrap fabric before taking the picture:

Step 2

Next, I practiced using the stencils on some scrap fabric to make sure my technique was working. I would really recommend practicing on some scrap fabric before trying to paint your sweater because it can take a few tries to figure out.

Here’s the method I used to paint the stars on my sweater:

First I put a piece of cardboard from an old cardboard box into the sweater. This makes sure no paint will bleed through to the other side. I’m not sure if it would have bled through, but I didn’t want to risk it!

Then, I placed the stencil where I wanted the star on the sweater and squeezed some paint onto the stencil near the star cutout.

I then held the stencil down as tightly as I could with one hand and spread the paint into the cutout with a paintbrush in my other hand.

Next, I squeezed more paint onto the stencil on the other side of the star and repeated the process from the other side.

Then I removed the stencil carefully and ended up with a beautiful star!

I repeated this process to cover one side of the sweater with stars. After waiting about 24 hours for the paint to dry, I flipped the sweater over and painted stars on the other side.

My final tips for using fabric paint and stencils on clothing:

1. Place cardboard inside the shirt to prevent paint bleed-through onto the other side of the shirt
2. Only spread paint towards the center of the stencil and repeat the process from both sides of the stencil, if you spread it towards the outside, paint may get under the edges of your stencil and ruin the shape
3. Practice before trying to paint your garment so you can perfect your technique
4. You may have to make new stencils at some point during the process if your cardstock isn’t very sturdy and gets mangled by the paint/paintbrush

Step 3

Once all the stars were painted on and had completely dried, I moved on to adding the pearls to the sleeves.

I used these imitation pearl beads from JoAnn (I couldn’t find any link to them online, but you can find them in-store, or I’ve linked a similar product on Amazon in the materials list):

To begin sewing a pearl on, I threaded a needle with a double thickness of thread. To do this, cut a long piece of thread, then thread the needle and pull the tail through until it’s even with the other thread tail.

Next, I tied the pearl on with a square knot. Only instead of wrapping the thread twice around the needle I used three wraps for extra strength.

So to tie a pearl on with a square knot:

First, put the needle through the shirt from the back to the front and pull until the tails are sticking out about 1.5 inches on the inside of the sweater.

Next, thread a pearl onto the thread on the outside of the sweater.

Then push the needle back through to the inside of the sweater and pull it so the pearl is tight against the sweater.

Next, grab your two ends inside the sweater (the end with the needle and the end with the two tails which you’re holding together). Wrap the tail end around the needle three times, starting from the back and wrapping up and around the needle towards the front.

Pull it tight by pulling the tail end and the needle end in opposite directions. This will make a nice flat knot.

Next, wrap the tail end around the needle three times again in the same way as before. Except this time the needle will be on the other side than it was previously.

And pull the ends in opposite directions again to tighten down the knot.

Now just trim the ends and you’re done! I left small (about 1/8 inch) tails on my knots, just so maybe they wouldn’t come loose over time, but we’ll see how it works I guess!

To finish, just repeat this process to tie on your pearls all across the sweater sleeves! Try not to think too much about where you’re putting them if you want it to look random. But if you want a specific design in your pearl placement, go for it!

And that’s all there is to it! I haven’t tried washing the sweater yet, but I think I’ll probably try washing it inside out to reduce the risk of the pearls getting caught up in the washer. I’ll update this post once I find out how the pearls and the paint hold up to washing!

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