disney family shirts

Because I am about 16 kinds of crazy, I decided that we needed cute matching t shirts for our Disney World vacation in March. But of course I was too cheap to buy them, so I made them! As usual, I had the idea in my head of what I wanted and wasn’t quite sure how to translate that into reality. I decided I needed to stencil shirts, but how?

I collected white t-shirts at the salvation army 1/2 off (Wednesday for locals! Go early, it gets crazy.) for 50 cents to $2 each. Since I needed 11 shirts, in a wide range of sizes, it seemed like the best option.

I talked to my friend about cutting some vinyl for me, since I am silhouette less (crazy for a craft hoarder to NOT have one, I know). I drew her a picture of what I had in my head, and she made it! Scaled to three different sizes for the different sized people, no less! She cut them out and weeded the letters out so I could use it as a stencil All of this just two days before we left. Love you Emma!

I was worried if it would work or not, so I got out my painting supplies to do a test.

Painting fabric is just as bad as cutting it for me. I know it’s irrational to fear ruining something like that, but I still have it every time. What is my big hang up anyway? Anyone else besides me (and Elizabeth) have that problem?

Success! I love it when a plan comes together. So I gathered all my supplies, packed them and drove to my mom’s house…

…where we whipped out the rest of them in a marathon painting session.

Here they are drying. You can see the ribbon for the Minnie bows for the girlie shirts in the ziploc bag. I sewed them on as we drove to Florida the next day, with grandparents in tow. We were SOOOO glad to have the extra hands. 🙂

Ironing the shirts to set the paint (since they needed to dry 24 hours before they were heat set) at the hotel the night we got there.

Here they are in action. We wore them twice, since we had a washer and dryer (yeah!) The paint set great and became soft after it was washed. It did fade a little, but not enough that it really bothered me. The kids loved them (*score*) and we even had people come up and ask us where we got our shirts made 😉