two-headed monster and a firefly

Several weeks ago when I was cleaning out Liam's closet, I started making a small pile of t-shirts that were stained beyond my ability to clean them. One was a soft, deep blue shirt that looks so good on Liam and I hated to toss it or donate it, but the stain smack in the center just wouldn't budge. As it lay next to a chartruse tank, also permanently dirtied, I had an idea. Inspired by both my friend Liita, The Picky Peasant, who has recently started a side business re-fabricating castoffs and thrift store finds, and a cute t-shirt applique idea on found on the blog what's that gonna be, I thought of a way that Liam and I could recycle his t-shirts together.

First, I had Liam come up with an idea for the t-shirt design. This is the drawing he presented to me, the two-headed monster.


Next we ironed the chartruse tank and traced the drawing onto a sheet of double-stick lite fusible web. After sticking the traced drawing onto the wrong side of the tank fabric, I cut it out and then positioned the pieces onto the blue t-shirt (hiding the obnoxious stain) and ironed. I let Liam have at it with the fabric paints, filling in the details on his monster and then guided his hand as we traced the outline. As a final touch, he picked out "eyes" for me to sew on. And, voila!



Creating the shirt was such a blast, we designed another one today for his friend Eden who will be celebrating her birthday tomorrow. For inspiration, we drew from the cover of the Eric Carle book The Very Lonely Firefly.


This time we purchased a clean, stain-free shirt, but we cut the dragonfly out of an old tie-dye t-shirt I found at a rummage sale this spring. (I plan to spend a lot more time at resale store and garage sales searching for plain kids' t-shirts because it feels so good to recycle!)


Being that this one is a gift, I did a little more guiding on the outlines, but Liam still feels very proud of having "made" Eden's shirt. I think both shirts are pretty adorable!