Do It Yourself T-Shirt design

The music teacher, in my school, came to me yesterday, in hopes that I would have an idea on how to get Beethoven's head on a t-shirt. There is special paper for inkjet printers that allows you to iron on an image. That's easy, but it costs about $18.00 for the cheapest package, would mean a trip to the store or waiting for an order to be delivered. Besides, I have a laser color printer, and only found the iron-on sheets for ink-jet printers.

So I decided to paint his head on with black acrylic paint. As I was rummaging through the cupboard for acrylic, however, I came across puffy paint, which does very well on fabrics and was so easy to use, that I had the t-shirt done in 15 minutes, less time than it would take to drive to the closest Staples.





I started by printing an image of Beethoven. Then I traced it onto wax paper with a Sharpie marker, to simplify the dark and light areas. I placed the wax paper inside the t-shirt and traced my tracing with the puffy paint. I used a light box to see, but taping the paper inside the t-shirt and using a widow would work too! In that case, however, I might trace it with disappearing fabric pen or pencil and then use puffy paint on a flat surface so that it wouldn't drip at all.

Viola! It was so easy and fun, that it makes me think about drawing portraits of ancestors on t-shirts for a family reunion or favorite quotes in cool fonts and colors! The sky's the limit.