I {heart} Mom shirt!

Mother's Day is just around the corner! I hope my husband remembers so he can help John plan something fun for that day. {Hi Brad! I know you read my blog!!} So, in honor of Mother's Day, I made a new shirt for the craft show that is THIS WEEKEND! (Live in the Keller area?! Come see me!!)

I started with this:



and ended with this:



This was all done with just a t-shirt, freezer paper, a small piece of scrap material, and a sewing machine. Easy! Here are the steps for those of you who want your precious kiddos to show some love for their mommy. {Please excuse the different color shirts in the pictures. I made two of these at the same time!)

1. Use freezer paper to make an 'I' and 'MOM' stencils. I used a Cricut to cut these out, but you could use an x-acto knife to cut out the stencil. Then iron the paper to your shirt (shiny waxy side down!).



2. Place some sort of protection layer in the shirt. I used an old magazine. This is so the paint doesn't leak through to the back of the shirt. Use fabric paint to paint in the letters. I used about 4 coats of white, waiting for each coat to dry completely before adding the next coat. This does take a little while, so I just did lots of random things around the house in between coats. Obviously, after the paint dries, take off the freezer paper to reveal some super cute lettering.





3. I made the heart using the reverse-applique method. (Is that really a method? Sounds fancy.) Use a coordinating material to prepare the heart. I used my marking pen to draw a heart on the back of the material.



4. Turn the shirt inside out and pin the material in place so that the right side of the heart material is facing the wrong side of the shirt. I pinned both inside and around the heart tracing.



5. Sew along the heart you drew or slightly outside the line.

6. Turn the shirt right side out. Use small, sharp scissors to CAREFULLY cut away the shirt inside the heart. Be sure not to cut the material you just sewed on the inside of the shirt! This will now leave a heart reverse-applique! How fun! (Sorry that I don't have pictures of this step. oops!)

7. I threw the shirt into the dryer for about an hour to heat-set the fabric paint. I did this with a load of John's laundry and it turned out fine. Some people use an iron to heat seat their fabric paint, but I haven't had good luck with that so far.





The blue one I think turned out cute but the red one has a very oddly sized and oddly placed heart. Obviously the red shirt was my first try at sizing the heart. Oh well- I am all about trial and error. My sister suggested adding some ribbon or ric-rac around the heart to make it look better so we will see if I can make that work.

And how cute would this be to make for grandparent's day with I heart Nana or something?