Do It Yourself T Shirt

I've been so busy the last week I have had zero time to make anything new. Last weekend Grizley Adams and I went to Orlando to help some friends from college paint their beautiful new first home! We painted 6 ish rooms in 2 days and it was exhausting, but fun... ish (I always forget how terrible painting is until I have to do it again)!

Grizley Adams actually paints houses professionally so at some point I'll post some tips, tricks, and pointers on painting your house all professional like!

Anyways, I CAN'T believe its already almost halfway into October! My sister's bachelorette party is in November and my cousin (who is a fellow bridesmaid) and I realized we need to get the ball rolling on all the little details for the weekend. We're going to Epcot's food and wine festival at Disney in Orlando so, while we don't need to make decorations and a bunch of food and games, we do need to get together favors and a few other things.

Last night I spent about 3 hours in Hobby Lobby, Joann's, and Target after work, getting ideas and supplies for my crafty weekend.I wanted to have t shirts made for the weekend, but after pricing them out I decided to try and make them myself. There's only 7 girls going (including myself) so its not totally impossible.

I went into the T Shirt making aisle at Hobby Lobby and found this little gem

Which definitely made my life easier! It keeps the paint from bleeding through to the other side, keeps it straight, and gives you an idea of where you want your words/graphics to be located. It was $1.99 and worth every penny! (On a side note all holiday decorations are 40% off right now at Hobby Lobby....don't judge me but I definitely bought some Christmas decorations for my desk at work)

Things you'll need for this project:
-A T-Shirt of your choice (I got mine at target because I wanted cute low cut V necks)
- Puffy Paints in the colors of your choice WITH the tips attached (they sell Tshirt paint that you can squeeze out like regular paint but you don't want that kind)
- Chalk
- Ballpoint pen
- Computer
- Printer
- T Shirt form (optional, but really... splurge on one of these bad boys)

Step 1: Make your design in a program like publisher. Play around with fonts, clipart, whatever curls your toes. Once you have it how you like, print it out in the size that you want. I decided to use a landscape 8.5" X 11" regular piece of paper. Keep in mind you can always cut out the elements and space them how you'd like on the shirt.

Step 2: Cut out your wording and cover the back with chalk. Blow off the excess dust, smear it a little with your finger, really get it allllllll over the wording. The idea is that you want as little as possible to rub off on the T Shirt, so  your outline shows clearly.

Step 3: Take your ball point pen and trace the lettering. Make sure you push down fairly hard but try not to rip through the paper. You also want to avoid moving the paper around as much as possible. Remember, you don't want all your chalk rubbing off on the shirt to the point where you cant see the outline.

Step 4: Carefully lift up your template and put it to the side (you'll want to look at it as you go, especially in places where the outline is too faint to see). Then blow as much of the excess chalk dust away from the shirt as you can.

Step 5: Use your paint to slowly and carefully trace over your outline. Its obviously not going to look EXACTLY like the font you're using but it looks way better than free handing and its still got a nice look to it.

Step 6: Keep going! I know your hand probably hurts but those are just good Diet Coke/HGTV breaks! If your hand starts to get shaky from all that squeezing take a break! Sadly puffy paint on a T Shirt is not as easily fixable as paint on a glass or canvas. It will show up and its not easily scraped off or covered so take your time and watch what you're doing! Don't let your finger smudge a letter and then accidently get it all over the shirt like I did I've heard that sometimes happens. 

Let your shirt dry over night and then repeat on the back if you want something on the back. Keep in mind that the puffy paint will go down a little after it dries so don't be afraid to make it look really bold, if you go too thin it might not look great after it dries. 

Tomorrow I'll do the back (we're going to each have our names on it and the number of years we've known the bride) and update with some pictures.

So look on Pinterest or Etsy for some cute T Shirt ideas and make your very own puffy paint T!