Shirt Stylz

Top any outfit with a shirt that's all your own! Decorate sleeves, neckline, and the back if you like! Make your one-of-a-kind shirt shout with style.

1. What's important to you? Display your favorite bright colors and unique patterns on a T-shirt you design yourself-and let people know what you're all about!

2. Choose a 100% cotton T-shirt. Decide where you'd like to decorate it. Pick the colors you like best, and a theme if you wish. Sketch your design ideas on paper with Crayola® Erasable Colored Pencils.

3. Cover your art area with newspaper. Put newspaper inside your T-shirt so the colors do not bleed through to the other side. Use Crayola Fabric Markers to draw your designs directly on the shirt. Choose colors that show up well on the shirt. Crayola® Fabric Markers stain clothing and surfaces, CLOSE ADULT SUPERVISION IS REQUIRED.

4. Use stencils or draw your design freehand. Remember, these fabric markers are permanent on clothing. Recap markers as soon as possible and store in a horizontal position.

5. There are two ways to heat set fabric marker colors. Ask an adult to heat set them by placing your shirt in a clothes dryer set on the hottest setting for 30 minutes, or ask an adult to set an iron on cotton. Cover an ironing board with newspaper and a layer of white paper. Iron on the reverse side of your designs, using a back and forth motion, for 4 minutes.

6. To prevent bleeding of fabric marker colors, wash items separately, in cold water, for the first three times. Machine dry.

Adult supervision is required for any arts & crafts project.

Adult Assistance is required for this arts & crafts project.

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Crafts

crayola supplies

• Erasable Colored Pencils
• Fabric Markers

household supplies

• recycled newspaper
• white paper
• iron (optional) (for adult use only!)
• T-shirt

"Our summer day-camp ended with everybody taking home a T- shirt. We all designed them ourselves!"
Jules M., 11-year-old.

"After I wore my T- shirt to school, my math teacher asked me to decorate a tiny T- shirt for his new baby."
Callie S., 12-year-old.

T-shirts became a favorite style in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. During World War I, U.S. soldiers admired the comfortable, lightweight cotton undershirts worn by European soldiers during hot, European, summer days. By the 1920s, T-shirt was added as an official word in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. By 1955, the T-shirt became the symbol for rebellious youth when worn by James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause."

In the 1960s, manufacturers began to tie dye and screen print basic cotton T-shirts. Tank top, scoop neck, V-neck, long sleeve, and 3/4 length sleeve variations soon followed. By the late sixties and seventies, rock and roll bands and sports teams were selling T-shirts licensed to carry their images. It is believed that because the shirt was shaped like a letter T when it was spread out, the name T-shirt was created.