How to make a DIY Patriotic T-shirt
Are you gearing up for Memorial Day and the 4th of July? If so take a look at this awesome DIY Patriotic T-Shirt. I love making homemade t-shirts with the kids and think they are even better if they include handprints or footprints. I found my inspiration from a few different websites – I found the handprint eagles on Babble and the footprint flags on Crafty Morning.
Materials Needed
- White t-shirt
- Red, white, blue, black, brown and yellow acrylic paint
- White 3-d puffy paint
- 4 paintbrushes (1 for each color paint)
- A Q-tip
- Newspaper
Instructions
- Gather all materials – put the newspaper inside the t-shirt to keep the paint from seeping through.
- Get red and blue paint ready and call your child to the table.
- Paint one foot -start by painting the two biggest toes and a small part of the foot directly below blue. Quickly paint red stripes on the rest of the foot.
- Place the foot down flat and have your child stand and put all of their weight down – gently pull their foot up while holding the t-shirt down.
- I touched up the blue and red paint with a paint brush and added a few lines.
- With black paint use a brush to paint on a flag pole.
- Make sure you have a wash cloth or diaper wipes ready to clean your child’s foot.
- Use brown paint to paint your child’s hand – place the hand with thumb down and press down hard. Gently pull up their hand while holding the t-shirt down.
- Repeat with the other hand and overlap the hands and thumbs to form a tail.
- Clean your child’s hand.
- Have your child form a fist – paint the base of your child’s fist (their curled pinkie and side of their hand) white and press down to form the eagles head. Gently pull up their fist while holding the t-shirt down.
- Clean your child’s hand.
- Have your child dip their pinkie in yellow paint and make a fingerprint to form the eagles beak on the end of the head.
- Clean their hand again.
- After the kids finished their part – I used the white 3-d puffy paint to outline the head of the eagle and make stars on the blue part of the flag.
Both kids made their own shirts. They turned out great and are very unique. I had the kids pick whichfoot they wanted to paint and which side of the shirt they wanted the flag to be on. They were very proud of their completed shirts when they saw them the next morning (after they had time to dry completely) and can’t wait to wear them on Memorial Day.
Take a look at some more great ideas in our Memorial Day Free Unit Study below.
Memorial Day Preschool Cutting Practice from 3 Boys and a Dog
Ripped Paper Star Wreath Craft For Kids from Play Dough & Popsicles
10 Cool Family Tents for Camping from FrogMom
Memorial Day Books for Children from The Jenny Evolution
Memorial Day – A Day to Remember from Tales of Education at Home
Red, White and Blue Craft for Kids from CraftCreateCalm
F is for Flag Handwriting Letter Mazes from Simple Fun for Kids
Memorial Day Penmanship Worksheet from Schooling a Monkey
Memorial Day Word Search from Something 2 Offer
