My kids look festive during the month of October. To say the least. I have problems. When my sister saw my kids in their fourth Halloween shirts of the month (I wish I were joking!) she mentioned that it was sad that her son only had one Halloween shirt and that I had bought it for him. I agreed, and I decided to remedy that situation right away by making him some die cut t-shirts with my favorite Cricut cartridge.
So off I went to Walmart, which is where I always go first if I want to make a cute t-shirt for kids. They almost always have solid colored shirts for both genders of kids that only cost $3.88 each! What a steal! I decided to make my nephew two shirts. And my best friend’s son one shirt. And my own son three more shirts. Yeah, I told you . . . I have problems!
Luckily, those shirts rang in at under $5 each total, because I was able to use the No Sew Heat and Bond with my Halloween scrap fabrics and my beloved Cricut Pumpkin Carvings cartridge to hammer these spooky bad boys out with my Cricut Expression. They were super fast and simple, and they turned out so fun! So if you want your kiddo to have a festive shirt or two to wear to school between now and Halloween then you can use this simple technique. It can also be adapted to any type of shirt all year around, obviously. Let’s get started!
1. Gather up your supplies. You will need shirts, the strongest No Sew Heat and Bond, an iron and ironing board, scrap fabric, and something with which to cut out your shapes. You could use a die cutting machine, create your own shape, or trace a shape onto the Heat and Bond and cut it out with scissors.
2. Measure the chest width of your shirt and decide how large you want your shape. Cut out an appropriately sized square of fabric AND Heat and Bond.
3. Iron the Heat and Bond to the fabric with a very hot iron. (Bumpy side of the Heat and Bond facing down, on top of the back of the fabric. Just in case you didn’t know. There was a point in time when I didn’t know that, after all!)
4. Now cut out your shape using the method of your choice (ideas listed in #1 above).
5. Final step—are you ready?! Peel the paper off of the Heat and Bond, carefully place it exactly where you want it, and iron it onto the shirt with a very hot iron.
Voila! It is ready to wear! Can you believe how EASY that was?! Now you may just have to take a page out of my book and make 5 or 6 more. Ha!
I would like to add that I rarely trust things like Heat and Bond. I prefer to use Light Hold Heat and Bond first and then sew along the shapes second to ensure that my projects stay rock solid. But with complicated cutouts like this that will only be worn for a month tops it is just not worth the time! One of my son’s shirts came a bit loose in a few spots, but the others have held up beautifully. I must not have ironed that last shirt enough.
Once you are done you can try to do a photo shoot of your kiddo in their festive shirt. Maybe if you’re lucky it won’t take you 100 shots like this…..
To get one like this.
Ah, the joy of three year olds! Now go and create some festive clothes for your kiddos! Happy shirt making!
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[…] 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 […]