I really like it when I am able to spend time on a present for a child instead of money. Many of the gifts my mom and grandma made me as a child are still treasured in our house today (as opposed to a lot of the store-bought presents which ended up in garage sales along the way).
Homemade gifts like these
outer space bean bags from Pink and Green Mama or these
fleece flower petal pillows from Come Together Kids don’t take a lot of time to make, but they’re personal and communicate care.
If your kids enjoy coloring as my girls do these days, you might think about making a coloring page t-shirt the next time you want to give them a present. It’s a simple process, and they can color it over and over again. Plus- you probably have everything you need to make it already in your house!
Materials:
- markers (for your children to color with)
Instructions
1. Find a coloring page that you think your child would enjoy coloring over and over. You’ll probably want to pick something without too much detail so it doesn’t take too long to trace.
2. Cover the back of the coloring page with pencil rubbing. Don’t leave any empty spaces. (If you want to skip this part, you can attach a piece of carbon paper to the back of the coloring page, but if you make a mistake it is less forgiving than the pencil marks).
3. Tape the coloring page onto the center of a t-shirt with the pencil rubbing facing down. Using a ball-point pen and pressing down firmly, trace the lines of the picture. Remove the taped page. You should have a faint pencil copy of the picture on your shirt.
4. Retrace the lines of the picture with a black sharpie (or a fabric marker).
Now your coloring page t-shirt is ready to go. If your child colors it with watercolor markers, every time the t-shirt goes in the wash, it will come out clean and ready to color again!
Coloring is a great activity for kids. It is creative but also builds fine motor skills for writing. Here are some other great coloring activities for kids:
T-shirt coloring is so much fun!
This is so clever and wonderful!! 🙂 I remember the pencil rubbing trick from my childhood, though I never thought of applying it to fabric! I have a light-box at home for drafting so I’m going to see if I can skip that step.
I like that every time you wash the shirt, you get to color it all over again!
Me too! My girls like to take turns coloring it every time it is washed.
A cool idea. I think, I will do this on a white shirt by myself. Love the pencil rubbing idea. I never thought of it.
It really works well for all kinds of tracing- on fabric or paper!
This is such an amazing idea!