Happy President's Day!

I'm so excited to share this project!! These president shirts were very easy to make. The idea comes from MADE, a creative, amazing blog with many easy to follow tutorials.


You can find out how to make these here, but this is what I learned from making them:

1. You have to buy freezer paper...not wax paper. I've had freezer paper forever, waiting to do this very project, but I thought it would be too hard. It's not! The shiny side irons on easily and peels right off.

2. My printer would not take the freezer paper. Not a problem. I just printed it on regular paper and put the freezer paper under the printed paper when I cut.

3. It would be much easier to cut out with an exacto knife. I didn't have that either...so I used a regular sharp kitchen knife. It didn't cut through the paper, but made an impression on the freezer paper, which I then cut out with sharp scissors very carefully. (This is not really a craft kids can do.)

4. You could print them right onto a plain t-shirt. We had some old ones I was saving for pillows, so I cut out the plain back, printed the image on that piece, then sewed it onto a shirt (that fits them!) over an image they didn't really like. It's one extra step, but I like the contrasting fabrics.

5. You can make two shirts out of one image. They will just be reversed.

6. So here is what the kids CAN do: pick out the design...you can make these stencils with anything!! I was thinking of doing their own silhouette profile, or even me or their dad...Isabela wants one with a woman, Helen Keller, so I'm still working on that. They can squeeze the fabric paint out for you (that's what Isabela did, I wasn't ready to get it all over the room yet) and they can use the hairdryer to help the paint dry faster. The black fabric paint dried much faster than the white. Probably in five minutes with the hairdryer!



Joaquin's riding around saying, "Comin' through! I'm the President, on my little tricycle."


Notice the messy house in the background. Whenever I do a project, it looks like this. This is only a small fraction of the mess...I had a hard time finding a spot to take pictures for exactly this reason! Oh, well. I do love the shirts, so I'll save the cleaning for another day.