How To | Painted and Embellished Kid T-shirts

By Alanna George, on August 3rd, 2011

See these two silly kiddles? They think they are so funny, acting all goofy while I try to coerce them to take a nice picture wearing their newly painted t-shirts. After this things really got goofy and they laughed so hard Lorelei’s eyes were watering. So fun to see siblings bonding and laughing together.

We finally found time to make painted t-shirts. Lorelei insisted she paint Jem (from the Hub cartoon Jem and the Holograms, hell0 circa 1980′s) and Allan of course wanted a dinosaur on his shirt. They are getting so grown up. They can paint on their own, all I do is run back and forth to the sink to wash off their paint brushes before they use a new color.

When their shirts were all done being painted, I sewed on the embellishments. For the dinosaur I cut out the brontosaurus from an old sweatshirt and sewed it over the painted prehistoric background. On the Jem shirt I used pieces of felt to make the star-shaped earrings. I glued the felt earrings on first, let them dry, then sewed over them. I then sewed lace trim along the top edge of the shirt and added some tiny bows. The kids loved that their shirts have dimension to them!

How To | Painted and Embellished Kid T-shirts

Supplies:

T-shirt
Fabric Paint
Paint Brush
Super Permanent Sharpie Marker
Smock (to protect clothing)
Paper Plate
Pen or Fabric Pencil
Embellishments
Sewing Machine or Fabric Glue

How To:

Pre-wash shirts.
Use a pen or fabric pencil and draw a rough sketch of what you want to paint on your shirt.
Use the paper plate as a paint palette. Paint your shirt one color at a time. Wash your brush off in between colors.
Let shirt dry and heat setting according to manufacturer’s instructions.
Use a Sharpie marker to define and outline your painted artwork.
Add embellishments using fabric glue and a sewing machine.
Wear your shirt and show off your hard work!