For You

Make Your Own Mixed-Media Lyric T-shirt

Guest post by Somer of A Little Great

Music and t-shirts are two things we have in abundance at our house. I often hear one of my kids complaining to the other, “You can’t sing that, its my song.” So, I decided to collaborate with them to make t-shirts with lyrics from songs they like. We came up with an image and lyric, and then used a combination of freezer paper stencilingapplique, and embroidery to create one-of-a-kind t-shirts.

The stencils can be used for all different songs. The sun and clouds were done with freezer paper stencils. Download and print the sun and clouds template here: sun and clouds template

For the embroidered words, I used a disappearing marker to free-hand the words. Then using an embroidery hoop and two strands of floss, I embroidered the words.

The “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy” is done in a variety of stitches. The “decided to create a dream come true” is kind of like an interlaced running stitch, with the foundation stitch using embroidery floss and the interlaced stitch (a single weave, not going back a second time) out of 1/4 inch ribbon.

The “Fight” t-shirt has appliqued boxing gloves with detailing done in a back stitch with two strands of black floss. The black words were cut from freezer paper with a Cricut machine then stitched on. Download and print the boxing gloves template here: boxing gloves template

We had so much fun dreaming up combinations of our favorite songs and images. Many more t-shirts will be in our future.

Somer of A Little Great is a creative diva, pattern designer, seamstress, walking idea machine, devoted special-needs mom, artist extraordinaire, and mother to four amazing kids.

17 comments

  1. I love this – too cute! I like Christa’s idea of putting some of her oldest daughter’s favorite songs on some shirts. Fun!

    I think we’ll be using this idea quite a bit at our house. Thanks for the inspiration!

  2. And to think I got rid of all our shirts! I could have made super cool ones. I bet this does amazing things to stained items. I LOVE the Sunshine on my shoulder (it’s my youngest daughters’ name!)

    Honey
    http://www.mondorfment.blogger.com
    When Mon(tessori)(Wal)dorf(Attach)ment parenting meet in our home.

  3. I LOVE this- how fun, my oldest daughter would love to have her favorite songs on her shirt. I hope I can figure this out!!

  4. I love the “I can’t fight this feeling anymore” shirt!! I always thought of that song whenever my little ones were crying trying to fight sleep………I’d sing that song in my head and think, why fight it? Just go to sleep already!!!

    So cute!!

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