Hand and Footprint Reindeer Tshirt

December 8, 2011 by Jessica Christman
Filed under Kid's Arts and Crafts, Winter Crafts

I did this craft a long time ago, when my son was 3 months old, for Christmas cards, but there is no reason why this type of printing needs to be limited to just babies. We have done this on t-shirts for Christmas, so that we don’t have to wear those mass-produced things that everyone else is wearing. Our beautiful shirt is totally unique to the individual person wearing the item. You will never get two footprints or handprints the same, and your children will grow from year to year, making it another fantastic way of creating keepsakes. Just think..something you might do with your baby today, may be worn by theirs 25 years down the track! Its an incredible fun thing to do, and your children will enjoy the messy gooey feel of paint under their feet. So lets begin.

Things you need:
Plain T-Shirt in any light color, that will accommodate the childs footprint
Brown Acrylic Paint
Foam brush
Fabric Medium to mix with the brown paint
Fabric Adhesive
Newspaper
Googly eyes
Red pompom or jingle bell (bells must be sewn on for safety).
Wet towel

Things to do:
1. Firstly, fold newspaper and place inside the t-shirt, so your printing doesn’t come through to the back of the shirt. Its best to keep this in for the entire project.

2. Next, in a container, mix the fabric medium and acrylic paint to the manufacturers specifications, and using your brush or sponge, paint a piece of newspaper, with a thick enough layer of paint to accommodate printing 3 times. Start with the foot, and place it in the paint. Have the child stand with the painted foot, in the middle of the shirt. Pull the foot from the shirt, and put it on the wet towel. This stops the child from sticking to anything with paint, as well as removing the paint.

3. Repaint the swatch of paper, and put both hands palm down in paint. Have the child kneel in front of the t-shirt and place their handprints on either side of the toes area of the footprint. You should have a footprint in the middle, with two handprints facing outwards from the top of the foot.

4. After printing, if your child has a high instep as mine does, touch the brush to the side of the missing instep to even up the footprint a little, but not so much as you erase the edge of the footprint. Babies feet will have a flatter form than older children.

5. When the paint is dry, Heat set with an iron, following the instructions on the fabric medium bottle.
6. Using the Fabric Glue, place on the eye’s and nose of your extremely Unique “Rudolf” the Red Nosed Reindeer. You can also use a jingle bell instead of the pompom, and decorate the “antlers” with other decorations such as smaller glittery pompoms if you like. Imagination is the key.