Valentines Custom Stencilled T Shirts for Kids

My sister told me a story about my niece’s school at Valentine’s Day last year, which saw parents sending their kids to school with bouquets of red roses, teddy bears and chocolates for their best boy or girlfriends. While it’s nice to give the kids something to celebrate, there are plenty of Valentine’s day ideas for kids that don’t need you to turn them into mini-adults. I’m doubly interested to find quick Valentine’s crafts for kids – especially those that are suitable for pre-schoolers and toddlers – because we celebrate St Dwynen’s Day, the Welsh Valentine’s Day at the end of January, as well as the normal global love fest in February.

This year, when racking my brains for Valentine’s Day Ideas for kids that my five year old and two year old would be able to do together, and that I already had the things, I came up with the idea of making these cute stencilled custom kids t-shirs. With only a little set up from me, both of my daughters were able to get stuck in to this quick Valentine’s craft activity, which left them feeling really proud of the t-shirts that we had to show off in messages to all the family.

That’s the beauty of a quick kids craft that turns out well, it gives the children such a boost at their own accomplishment. Everyone needs their little wins at the moment, and craft therapy is such a key way for us to do this in my house at the moment!

While this was thought up as a Valentine’s day custom tshirt craft for kids, the technique could easily be adapted to customise all sorts of kids things, and grown up things too!

To make your custom kids love heart tshirt you will need:

A clean dry t shirt (old ones are fine and this is a great way to cover a stain)

Sticky back plastic

Washi tape

A pencil or pen

A craft knife

Fabric paint (this is an initial investment but we’ve used our set for loads of things)

Paper

How to stencil your kids t shirt with a custom design:1. Make sure that the t shirt is clean, dry and ironed

1. Cut a piece of sticky back plastic to the area of the t shirt you want to cover with your design. If you’re doing this with really young children, it’s a good idea to cut the sticky back plastic on the large side and mark where the front of the t shirt will be to prevent spillages over the edge of the plastic (yes, I did learn that the hard way!)

The washi tape keeps the sticky back plastic flat and steady while you use the craft knife to cut out your design

2. If your sticky back plastic has come from a roll, use the washi tape to stick it flat on a cutting board (thick newspapers will do if you don’t have one, just make sure your craft knife won’t damage the surface beneath) and draw out the design for your stencil. When you’re happy with this, cut it out using your craft knife.

3. Remove the sticky back plastic stencil you have made from the cutting mat and peel off the backing paper before sticking this on to your tshirt. I find it easiest to stick down an edge and work across to stop the stencil sticking to itself. My five year old helped with this step, but my two year old had to make do with watching.

Check the position of your stencil on your t shirt before removing the backing, make sure you’re happy with this as it will control the print of your design

4. Put a piece of paper inside the t shirt in case any of the fabric paint goes through the top layer of fabric to the back. I also folded the arms out of the way and stuck them back with washi tape to stop them getting paint spattered as my children created!

The fabric paint can stain so it’s best to do this craft in old clothes on easy clean surfaces

5. Using a paint palette or some other suitable container, squirt your selected colours out to allow your children to choose from them. I gave my children a cork to stamp the fabric paint with, but you could use anything really. My fabric paint has the texture of thin PVA glue so I didn’t want to damage a paintbrush.

With a little adaptation this is a quick and easy craft that toddlers can join in with too, and they’ll feel very grown up making their own Valentine’s Design t shirt

6. When the children have filled out their stencil, put the t shirts aside to dry according to the timings on your fabric paint before carefully peeling the sticky back plastic stencil away from the t shirt to reveal their printed designs – my kids loved this reveal so much it reminded me of the makeover programmes I used to watch in the 90s!

This quick craft was great from making custom kids t shirts, and I’m looking forward to trying the technique out with them again to make other things. I think this would be a really nice Valentine’s day craft to make presents for cousins or relatives.