$2 T-shirts

Yesterday we came down from the high of my awesome birthday with a giant thud. There was the dog’s mud bath in the morning, a temper tantrum that resulted in a door falling off the hinges, a door-to-door salesman ringing the doorbell repeatedly and waking up the kids at 8:30 at night (!?) and a few other unpleasantries that made for a pretty bad day all around.

But, I did manage to get this project done, which just goes to show you that it really isn’t hard.

As I think I mentioned, Nicholas started preschool last week. (and mommy is jumping for joy!!!) He only goes twice a week for 2 and a half hours, but they do lots of fun-and messy-activities and I’m trilled that he likes participating in them because when I try hands-on projects at home he is not a huge fan of them.

Now, of course I want him to look cute and get some new clothes and be decked-out in back-to-school adorableness, but preschool is a messy place. For example, yesterday their activity was finger-stamping with ink pads. As a teacher I know how annoying it is when kids are hesitant to participate in those kinds of activities because they don’t want to get their nice new clothes dirty.

So the goal was a few clothes that were cute enough for preschool but could get messy and we wouldn’t care.

I looked at the new consignment shop first, but I am not a huge fan of kid’s consignment shops for clothes (strollers are another story) because the clothes look worn and they are not really much less expensive than buying brand new stuff on sale. (Not to mention that used clothes creep me out) They were charging $5 or $6 each for Old Navy t-shirts. I’m not buying a used shirt for that much when I can get them for just a few cents more than that brand new at the store.

So new it was. But cheaper. I went to Target and bought a 5 pack of boy’s white cotton t-shirts for $6, so they were $1.20 each. Then I went to the craft store and got sheets of felt for $0.29 a piece. This shirt took two pieces of felt. I already had embroidery thread, so the grand total was $1.78 per shirt. And they are new, which is a nice bonus.

To make these shirts you need:
-a pack of cotton shirts
-felt (although you could use fabric scraps and save even more $)
-embroidery thread
-a needle with a large eye
-scissors
-a pen
-paper

The paper is for sketching out your design using really basic shapes. I chose a helicopter.

Use your drawing as a guide to cut simple shapes out of the felt and stitch them into place with the embroidery thread.

This would be a great project for teaching older kids to sew!

Then stitch around the seams on the bottom and the sleeves with the embroidery thread. I’ve seen Cheri at I am Momma Hear Me Roar do this detail a few times and I thought it was adorable. (If you have boys you MUST check out her blog, she makes the coolest boy stuff ever!!) I went around the seams twice with a different color each time.

And you’re done. Although I think I still want to embroider the words “fly guy” on the back. My reluctant model:

Sorry for the horrible picture quality, I promise this shirt is totally cute in person, but he would only stand still for one picture. That’s how three-year-old boys are, and that’s why we need to put them in shirts that only cost $1.78.

**I’m not sure how the felt will launder yet, but at less than $2 a shirt I’m willing to take the risk.