Custom T's

My little man is growing like a weed! Last week, we ran out of pajamas that fit him so he had to sleep in a pumpkin costume that was too big at Halloween, so this week, I was on a mission to get him a new sleep and day wardrobe.

I was pretty proud of myself because on Monday, I found an Old Navy coupon* on the web and also got an e-mail that they were having a "stock-up sale," so I printed my coupon for $5 off a $25 purchase, and headed their way. Between the Target and Old Navy clearance racks and sale items, I ended up getting 4 pair of pants, 6 shirts and a onesie for just over fifty bucks ($55 to be exact)!

In the stash were 3 plain T's. A white one and a grey one from Old Navy were $3.49 each, and the blue one came in a 2-pak from Target for $4.90! What deals! Problem is, they are a little plain, and my sweet boy deserves more than that ;)

Transfer paper to the rescue!

I had some of this transfer paper left over from a gift we gave our nieces and nephews at Christmas. We designed and printed special T-shirts for them. It was a fun project and oh so easy! I got this paper at JoAnn's for maybe $11 for a pack of 10. Maybe that was the price. My memory could be failing me.

Anyway, when you buy the pack, it directs you to go online to use their free software to import your images to. I didn't use their software because Will is pretty design savvy, so we have Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign at home. If you are not that savvy, I suggest you use their software because before you print the images onto the special paper, you have to turn them into a mirror image, especially if there are words involved in the design. I'm pretty sure their software makes that step super-easy.

For Wyatt's new T's, I went to my favorite source for vintage graphics online, The Graphics Fairy. Click here to see it for yourself. You will not be sorry. We love western-style images, so I did a search for "gun," "cowboy," "western, " etc. and found two great images to use. I imported them into my design program and, with Will's help, turned the poster image into a mirror of itself. Then I printed it onto the transfer paper using our home ink-jet printer.

Then, following the instructions, I cut around the images, rounding off the corners.

Finally, I ironed them on! You aren't supposed to do it on the ironing board, so I did it on the tile floor of our basement. When the transfer was cooled completely, I peeled back the paper...

Ta-da! Cute custom shirts! I love the way the cowboy turned out. It is less orange than the original image which gives it a vintage look.

As soon a Wyatt wakes up from his nap, I'll put him in one of these shirts right away! He was sooooo grumpy before I put him down. We tried to read "The Grumpy Ladybug" but he was too grumpy to get through it. Poor thing. He had a rough night last night because we decided to do a self-clean on the oven after he had gone to bed. After about an hour, the whole downstairs was filled with nasty-smelling smoke, so we scooped him out of bed and went to a friend's house so he wouldn't have to breathe the nasty fumes. After about an hour and half, I had to wake him up again to take him home. He took it well last night (he's a pretty easy-going kid), but the disruption of his sleep really showed this morning. But I'm sure his new T-shirt will cheer him up!

Oh yeah! I think it did! He's a cute model, but not a very cooperative one...


While this is a quick and easy project for kid's T's, I may make one for myself using a whole sheet of transfer paper and this image I saw on Graphics Fairy when I was looking for stuff for Wyatt. Isn't that the most beautiful tree you've ever seen? It reminds me of the big oak trees in Texas, where I'm from.

Well, have fun making your own shirts and shopping for deals!

*So, I think Old Navy puts out a coupon every couple of weeks that you can print from online. I can't seem to find exactly where I found mine, but it may have been their Facebook page. Poke around with a Google search to find yours. I know it is part of their weekly ad that I found as a pdf. I actually printed 2 in case my total was over $50. When I checked out, they did say that I was allowed to split my transaction and use both coupons if that was the case. Turned out, my subtotal was just under $50 ($47-something). One reason for that was that I had asked the Mgr. about helping me find footed pajamas that I saw online. They didn't have any, but I did see some pants that were $14.50 that were on sale online for $10. I said something to the Mgr. and she checked the price for me, said they weren't on sale in-store, but would give them to me for $10 if I liked them! Obviously, I took her up on that offer. This is what Will calls the "nice person discount." If you ask nicely, really just inquiring, you can usually get a bit of a discount. It pays to be polite!