Last year I made the button christmas tree shirt above for my son and my nephew. Luckily, I made the shirt for my son a size too big, so it was a bit big on him last year and still works this year. Score! Plus, I got my sister to dig up the onesie my nephew wore last year and I am now using it on my daughter, along with a darling red cardigan and a red flower headband of course.
I get so many compliments on them, and they are so easy to make, so I thought I would share. I don’t have pictures of the process, but it’s a piece of cake. Ready? Here goes nothing:
1. Buy a plain shirt/onesie. I always get my solid t-shirts at Walmart. So cheap! Now get your hands on some green fabric, red buttons, and Ultra Hold No-Sew Heat and Bond.
2. You are essentially using the exact same technique to make these that I used to make my Halloween t-shirts. Measure your shirt and cut a square of fabric and a square of Heath and Bond that are appropriately sized. Now iron the Heat and Bond onto the fabric.
3. It is time to cut the tree. You could free hand it, print a tree template out from the internet and trace it onto your Heat and Bond paper, or you could do what I did and use a die cutting machine. I wanted my trees to be perfect, so I used my fabulous Cricut Expression to cut my trees using this Cricut Gingerbread Seasonal Cartridge (which happens to be on sale right now!).
4. Peel the paper off of your Heat and Bond and iron the tree onto your shirt. You can leave it there, or you can be high maintenance like me and sew around the edges (or even applique!) in order to keep the tree firmly in place.
5. Button time! I sewed the buttons in place because, as we mentioned, I am high maintenance. I just turned on a tv show and stitched away. But you could use fabric glue (or hot glue if you want to really throw caution to the wind!) to glue them on. You could also use rhinestones. I think I will make a similar shirt with rhinestones next year for my daughter.
Done! Wasn’t that easy? And so cute! Everyone asks me where I found them and always assume it was at some boutique. So throw them together and enjoy your holiday pics this weekend!
Yes, that is the best picture that I could get of them with Santa. And I did indeed pay for it. I just love those silly kids!
(You can find the tutorial for my daughter’s dress and headband here.)
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