The Ballard Family: Make your own Birthday shirt!

The first thing I ever sewed was Jackson's first birthday shirt. One of my best friends Jessi taught me how to sew and this was the first thing I learned how to do and the rest is history :) It is by far the easiest thing to sew and believe me when I say, I had NEVER used a sewing machine in my life and made Jackson's first birthday shirt and it is very easy to do. So I thought I would share how to make one in case you want to make one for your little one!

I took this picture for you to see how thick the "backing" is that I used. Backing is just fabric that you buy at a fabric store and you iron it on to the back of fabric to make your fabric stand up higher on the shirt. You can buy it in many different thicknesses. You can even by it so thin you would never know you used it. The one I use is pretty thick (at least for these projects).

Here is a picture of the things you will need to make the actual number. First is the backing, then the fabric of your choice, and then a number cut out from a piece of paper (I just free handed the 1, but on Jackson's 2nd and 3rd shirt or if I do letters I use a Word Doc and make one giant number in the font I like).

1. You first iron on a square of your fabric to your backing. Be sure it's plenty big enough to fit your number/letter/or shape.

2. You then pin your number onto the fabric and backing, which have now been bonded together. Be sure to pin it at least 3 times so that your number doesnt move when you go to cut it out.

3. Cut out the shape you have chosen and then it will look like it does below.

4. The final step is to pin it onto your shirt (again, pin it really good...especially if your using t-shirt material that stretches and/or if your a beginner) and sew it on! You can see how close I stich to the edge. This has been washed too, so you can see it doesnt really frey much at all.

Be creative. For Jackson's 3rd birthday shirt I had forgotten to get fabric at the store, so I just bought these $3 shorts from Walmart and cut out his #3 from them :) I still have plenty of left over fabric to make another one!

I did actually make Bailey's shirt too. It is a little more difficult (but still not too hard!) and here is the link for that...http://madebypetchy.blogspot.com/2008/06/free-pattern-baby-dresstunic.html . You can always just put it on a t-shirt you find at target or anywhere! That is typically where I get Jackson's shirts! I also use this idea to make letters for their shirts or I made the flower above to cover up a name on the potterybarn chair we got of craigslist (it only took me 3 years to figure out what I wanted to do! LOL).