Painted T-Shirts

It’s a blast painting with kids, but they sure can get messy!  We took initiative and painted a T-shirt to wear during all our future messy projects.  My son looks forward to putting it on before each project, and I don’t have to worry about him getting paint on his shirt!

You will need:

• T-shirt
• Acrylic paints
• Paper bag
• Sponge shapes
• Styrofoam meat trays

Good to have:

• Paper towels
• Paintbrushes

The Project:

Before you begin, flatten the paper bag (or a piece of cardboard) and put it inside the shirt so that the paint will not bleed through two sides at once.  It also keeps the shirt nice and stiff while you paint.   Put a little paint on each styrofoam meat tray (as you are ready to use the color), and let the kids stamp the shirt with shapes cut from sponges.  Let one side dry before flipping the shirt over to paint the other side.  When both sides are completely dry, simply run the shirt through the drier until the paint gets softer and then wash and wear as you would with any other shirt! 

Tips:

• I bought these T-shirts on sale at Hobby Lobby for $1.50 each!  Check out local Dollar Stores, too, or consider buying a pack of small adult sized under shirts.
• My friends and I did this as a playgroup project one week, and we let the kids decorate the front of the shirts, and saved the back for ourselves.  We had them each make a set of handprints on the back and then painted their names above the handprints.
• I had my son help me trace and cut sponge shapes one night.  He picked the cookie cutters for me to trace, then I cut out the shapes as he cut up my scraps.  That was a fun project in itself!
• Handprints, footprints, freestyle paintings… encourage the kids to get creative!
• I used some clothes pins (see “Fun Clips”) to hang the shirts upside down to dry with the paper bag still inside the shirt.  The bag kept the shirt nice and stiff while the shirt dried and none of the paint ended up where we didn’t intend for it to.
• The more watery the paint you use, the more flexable the paint will be after the first trip through the drier.  On the flip side, though, it will also bleed and run as you are painting if you make it too watery.  It’s best to moisten the paints a little with water, but not to make it too runny. 
• The acrylic paint becomes permanent when heat set in the drier, but is permanent even without being heat set, so be careful.