How to Make a Personalized T-Shirt

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Hello, My Dear Friend!

It is the first week of the school here in British Columbia, Canada! If you have a younger kid going to the school for the first time, he or she is probably all excited about it! Some kids can feel overwhelmed and even anxious though. They might be asking themselves many questions and some are like “What will the first day of school be like? Will the teacher and other kids in the class like me?” Kids feel very special and probably want to look like nobody else this day. And this is when you can come forward and create something really unique! Something that no one else in the class, or even at school will have. Here I will share with you how to make a personalized t-shirt and also keep it on a budget!

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS meaning that at no cost to you I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase using my link. I thank you for your support! Please read my DISCLOSURE for more info.

Our younger son, Alan, is going to the 4th grade this year! 4th grade! (Where did all these years go?) If you had met him, you would have noticed that he is pretty talkative 🙂 I think he just never stops talking. Ha-ha. Most of his conversations start with “Mom, Dad, guess what?!” And it is like that for the whole day 🙂

My hubby and I call him guesswhat-er sometimes. Seriously, this is just how he is 🙂

Anyway,

I got that idea! To make a t-shirt for him that would have a Guess What writing on! I thought it was brilliant! Very simple, but truly him!

So, how do you make a personalized t-shirt?

Well, there are a few options, and in this post, I will only be talking about the DIY. Yes, there are stores both online and physical, where you can order a whatever-design-your-imagination-comes-up-with. But. If you want to do it all yourself and maybe get your kid help you, there are a few easy ways to do it.

Depending on what you want to see on the t-shirt, you can either use iron-ons or appliques for your project. You can even print a photo you took on this special paper and have it on your T-shirt 😉

We wanted to keep it simple. So, I went to Michaels hoping to find it all there. (As a side note, do you ever end up buying only what you need for your current project there? if you do, you are my hero :)) I got a T-shirt and this letters set first. I was approached by a store employee asking if I needed help.

Because I was not sure if I had all needed letters in one set, I asked her if there was a way finding it out, as it was not specified on the product. She called the store manager and got approval to open the package and to find out.

Of course, there was only one S in the package!

So, here was my dilemma. Do I purchase an additional set to get the letter I need? Or there is a way to go around it with something else?

If you do not deal with the clothes crafts often, it might be very overwhelming to find out that there are soooo many options out there! Just check it out here.

Long story short, I decided to just buy an S-letter with a different design. Keep reading if you want to see how it all worked out.

Process

Please follow the instructions on the package, as it might be different from a set to set. 😉 Below is how we did it as per the instructions on the 2 packages.

1. Pre-wash and dry the T-shirt.

2. Iron the T-shirt and lay out the letters as per your design.

3. Cover the letters with a cotton press cloth (something like a cheese cloth or cotton fabric will work) and apply steady pressure with the heated iron over the cloth covered letters. Once again, please follow the instructions on the package for specific time recommendations.

4. Turn the shirt with the letters side down, and iron the other side (we did it just to make sure the design transfers to the shirt properly).

5. When the shirt cooled down a bit, turn the shirt inside out and iron it again.

6. Wait for the shirt to cool down a bit again (you want it to be a little warm still) and try to carefully remove the plastic covers from the letters.

All done!

Here is Alan demonstrating the shirt on the school morning 🙂 He liked it so much! And as you can tell he likes showing off. Lol.

However!

The letter S which is not part of the bigger package fell off just a few hours after he wore the shirt. So, now we will still need to purchase another full set to get it replaced. I really liked the look of a different style letter in the word, and if you do too, you may want to add a few stitches over that one letter to keep it in place. Because Alan has lost the letter, we will be getting a similar set (may be in a different colour though) to have it fixed.

What do you think?

Did you like it? Do you think this is a kind of a project that you can do? Or maybe you have already done something like this? I would love to hear from you! 🙂

Happy School Year to all students out there!

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