My Personalized T-Shirt & a Giveaway!

Several years back I had a shirt screen printed for my husband to the tune of $30. Now, you know me...always trying to find a way to do it myself for cheaper. I do love to patronize home-based businesses, but there is something terribly satisfying about making something yourself and saving money while you're at it!

I had seen THIS SHIRT and thought it would be fun to have a shirt with a somewhat obscure word on it that describes me.

(For those of you without a medical dictionary handy, the official ACOG definition of a multipara is a woman who has given birth 2-4 times. A GRAND multipara has given birth 5-9 times and a GREAT GRAND multipara has given birth 10 or more times. The grand multipara term was whispered around me during my ER VISIT last September, which made me giggle since I knew exactly what they were talking about in such hushed and serious tones.)

I wanted to design my own grand multipara shirt, but didn't want to pay for the screen printing of it if I could do it at home. I had heard you could buy printer paper that could be used as iron-on transfer sheets (what will they think of next?), so I searched all around and finally found these at Office Depot. (The price at my local store was MUCH cheaper than on the website!)

(I could have used the dark t-shirt transfers, but I knew my design wouldn't require it. For truer color on a shirt that is somewhere between light and dark, you'll want to use the dark t-shirt transfer sheets.)

Before I move on, I'll give you a quick overview of what you need to make your very own personalized t-shirt:

A T-Shirt

Iron-On Transfer Paper (light or dark)

A word processing program

printer
scissors

iron

pillowcase (to place underneath shirt when ironing)

I bought t-shirts from Hobby Lobby for 50% off their already ridiculously low price. They have this sale quite often, so keep your eyes peeled. (Janelle @ Blessed Nation Ranch let me know that at the CraftsETC site there is a 10% off coupon code: twitter09. You also get FREE SHIPPING if your order is over $25!)

I wanted to dress the shirt up a bit before doing the iron-on. One of the easiest ways to do this with a t-shirt is to lettuce-edge the sleeves and hem-line. You can do this with a regular sewing machine by using a close zig-zag stitch, but it is much easier and nicer looking to use a rolled hem stitch on a serger and stretch the t-shirt as you go.


(thankfully I already had hot pink thread loaded in my machine!)

Here's a closeup of what the sleeve looks like finished.


And the entire shirt finished.


You can add ribbon and buttons and fabric paint for an even fancier shirt. Embellish to your little heart's content!

Next, you create your design on the computer. Use a simple word processing program and totally personalize your t-shirt with colors, fonts, pictures, and/or wordart. I recently did a shirt for my daughter with a picture of her guinea pig on it!

Here's the design I created...

Once you have your design, do a test print on regular paper. Make sure you print in MIRROR IMAGE. This feature is found under PROPERTIES and then ADVANCED in your printer dialogue box:


If you don't print in mirror image, this WILL NOT work! Doing a test print on regular paper is important to make sure you do not waste the transfer paper.

Once you are satisfied with your design, print in mirror image onto your transfer sheets. Cut around your design trying to make the edges a bit rounded (they stay down better if you do this) and cutting as close to your design as possible.



It is important to note here that there are directions in the transfer paper package. Follow these directions PRECISELY! I am giving very rough instructions here based on the paper I purchased. Other transfer sheets may require something a bit different.

Now comes the exciting part! Take your cut out design and place it where you want it on your t-shirt...

iron according to directions, let cool a sufficient amount of time and then...

The moment of truth!





Your very own personalized t-shirt!
(or rather, MY very own personalized t-shirt!)


Now for the GIVEAWAY!!!


I have one already cut out, ready-to-go smaller version of my iron-on transfer that I will give away to a winner chosen at random from my comments section! Just leave me a comment on this post and on

(the date my Emily made me a GRAND MULTIPARA!)

I will let Random.org choose a winner!

(by the way...this is my first ever giveaway and I so excited!!!)