Christmas Shirt Instructions

One of our very favorite things to do in the Clinton house is to make Christmas Shirts. We started on Kaylee's 2nd Christmas (she was only a month old for her 1st Christmas....not enough time to come up with these great ideas!!) and we have not missed a year since. This year we sent Christmas Shirt kits to the three babies in our family, my niece, Jim's nephew and my great-niece. I hope they all have as much fun making them as we do!!

So, the instructions...

Put a plastic bag in the middle of the shirt. You don't want the paint to bleed through and end up on the back of the shirt too.

Use brown fabric paint. Pick a foot and paint the bottom of it. Make a footprint sort of in the middle of the shirt. Wash foot. (Really good idea to do this at bath time.)

Now it's time to paint the hands. Do one at a time...too messy with two painted hands!! Do the left hand and place it down for the right ear. Right hand becomes left ear.

If the child is old enough then they can trace the outline with the brown paint themselves (straight from the bottle, not with a brush, so that the line is slightly bubbled). If not, then mom or dad can do it for them. Use red paint to draw on Rudolph's nose (we've also used small red pompoms for older children) and use black paint to do the eyes (we've used googly eyes also but again, not safe for babies or toddlers).

Then you can use red, green and/or yellow to put any other decorations on. I always put the year somewhere on the shirt. Sometimes on the line of the reindeer, sometimes on the neck. I also did it once on the back of the shirt up at the top. You may want to put initials somewhere if you have more than one child or plan on having more than one child. Even though they may be different sizes now, in 5 years you won't be able to tell whose is whose anymore.

Here is Jagger's shirt from last year for an example:

Our kids always wear their spiffy shirts to Christmas parties at school and to get their pictures taken with Santa. Kaylee is 10 now and she is refusing to wear it to school but still enjoys the fun of making the shirt...especially now that she can do it all by herself!

Have tons of fun!