easy christmas shirts

My kids love having holiday themed shirts. In fact, I was able to get Liam out of bed today, with a smile on his face, by reminding him that he gets to wear his Rudolph shirt to school (he takes after his mom and is NOT a morning person!).

I like to keep the shirts simple, white T's with a one graphic image, for two reasons: I like the way it looks and they are EASY.

Liam requested Rudolph. I did a google image search and found a cute silhouette and made a freezer paper stencil. I didn't feel the need to do a tutorial. This idea has been popular for a while but in case you have never tried it need a tut you can find a good one here.

Liam's shirt is a little small. Rather than buying a new white shirt I decided to use his Mime shirt from Halloween not realizing he had grown so much in less than two months! Oops! Too late now.

Michael was the inspiration for Sutton's shirt. It was the night before her class party and I realized I had forgotten to make her a shirt. Michael suggested tying red ribbon into a bow and gluing it to Sutton's shirt. Then I remembered that I had left over fabric from the ribbon candy pillow and thought it would make a super quick and cute candy cane applique. I just stuck the (untied) ribbon under the applique and ironed and sewed the applique on like normal. Tied a bow, did a couple of stitches by hand into the knot to keep it tied and heat sealed the ends of the ribbon.

Ezra's shirt is a hand-me-down. Sutton wore it last Christmas but I actually made it for Liam when he was in preschool back in December 2007. It was probably one of the first freezer paper stencil T's I ever made. I did touch up the paint because it had faded a bit from being washed so much but it's holding up great considering.

So if you have a kid and a white T laying around whip up a Christmas shirt for him/her. It'll take a small amount of time and it will make their day, I promise!

I love this picture! Liam's belly showing, Sutton and Ez looking at each other... it's one that makes me smile and think about how much I love them. A fact that I occasionally need to be reminded of! :)