Big Bro/Sis Tshirts

When you have other children, it seems now days that it's a must to have "Big Bro" and "Big Sis" shirts.  My favorite are the cute craft ones on Etsy, but I didn't want to pay $20-$40 PER tshirt.  That just seemed ridiculous.  I decided I'd make some myself (and I also decided that because I hadn't seen any that matched at the local stores)

While my sister was home, we went to JoAnns and started looking for fabric.  After finding several cute choices, she suggested we pick out the tshirts before picking out material - definitely makes more sense, but I hadn't thought about that.  So we walked a few isles over and the only color options, in both of their sizes, were white and black.  We agreed the black would look better than the white, so we were on a hunt for material to match.  We found several cute options for Allie, but it was hard finding something boy-ish for Hayden.  Whit suggested looking for Hayden's first, which again made more sense (have I mentioned I'm glad she went with me?).  After deciding on Haydens, we quickly found cute coordinating material for Allies. 

I used a ruler, measuring cup, and button to make my letters. 

Letters ironed on.  Only about half of them stuck.

When I got home I drew some letters on paper, cut them out, prepped my material (with Wonder Under, which allows you to iron the fabric on to the tshirt... didn't have the best results with it, but I'm not giving up on it), traced and cut out the letters, ironed them on the shirts, then was ready to put a stitch in them.  I just assumed I could use my sewing machine, but after 3 attempts with different settings and stitches, I realized it wasn't going to work.  I felt defeated and went to bed for the night.

The next morning I had decided to hand sew each letter and my sis helped me (once again) figure out the perfect stitch.  Within a day I had finished the shirts, and the project cost about $15. 

Ta-da!  I'm happy with how they turned out.

Side note... we did this shopping/material picking out Thursday morning.  Hayden's big brother class was Thursday evening and that's when we learned the 3 colors babies can see at birth (black, red, white).  I was thrilled those just happen to be the colors we picked out for the shirts!