Christmas T_Shirt Tutorial

While up at the Cabin I spotted a sign for pictures with Santa. They had set up a really nice little tableau for kids to sit with Santa for a photo and get this, they were charging a whopping 5 dollars for the opportunity. My original plan was to take them back to the Santa we met last year at the local large cool shopping plaza, but for a single picture they charge around 18, so we decided to see how it went here.

The only problem was I had no ‘holiday’ outfit for them and you know how I really hate not having something homemade for the boys. We had to put the boys down for nap and our plan was to see the Big Man in the afternoon. Back at the ranch I had a few things that I was working on for holiday ornaments.

Some simple felt, floss and sequins were all lined up to become puffy homemade ornaments. Then I realized I had two plain white shirts in their stuff, and wah-la! We had a quick and easy Christmas shirt.


Here is what I did:
- First cut some green felt with pinking shears into a nice little tree shape. Then sew a sequin with a pretty shiny bead at the center all about the tree to make it truly festive.

- Take your t-shirt and place the front in an embroidery hoop and pin the little tree in the center (you could use stabilizer to set it but I had none on hand and the straight pins worked fine).

- Use cheery red floss (three strands) and a running stitch to sew the felt to the shirt. I started at the bottom right, worked up and made a three wrap French knot at the top. Important : leave the bottom open.

- Gather some yarn or tiny fabric scraps and stuff the tree to create a bit of a puffy effect. Finish by sewing the bottom closed.

- Add a brown fabric trunk if you like, I did not have any brown to work with so I left our little tree(s) trunk less.

Holiday shirt Ta-da!


So fast and quite fun. Too bad the babies did not have much fun while wearing them. This year Santa was a very scary man indeed and we had a bit of a struggle getting them to stay in a one foot vicinity. After bribing with a tiny candy cane, we got a few good shots including the one I posted a few days ago. Here are a few more.


Notice the considerable distance from Santa? Any closer elicited screaming. And Santa loved them so much and just wanted to hold them. Oh, well, next year.

And yes, they got candy cane all over the pristine white shirt and Mama will be working with some oxiclean to get out the stains.

I do not think this shirt will survive a washer, let’s face it, the shirt did not even survive the pictures. But it is super fun. Try it if you like. Take some holiday photos and let me know how it goes!


Happy Holiday crafting, friends. I say, let us take Christmas from consumer corporate to heartfelt and handmade.