How to Make an Easy Child's Birthday T-Shirt

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELEANOR!!!  I had an idea for a cool birthday t-shirt for my daughter last year, and decided to try to make it a tradition.  This isn't exactly a t-shirt reconstruction so I'm going to call it a "t-shirt enhancement."  First, find a cute simple t-shirt.  Second, buy felt in the colors you think you'd like to use.  At this point, with the help of my husband, we began sketching some ideas.  Since my daughter is turning 3, the shirt had to have a big 3 on it!  This year we decided on a dragon/dinosaur looking 3 since my daughter is super into dinosaurs right now.  I then used the sketch and cut the character out using the felt and stitched it altogether as best as I could before putting it on the t-shirt (it's a lot easier to sew it this way than working with the whole t-shirt for each individual piece)

Then I pinned it to the t-shirt and zig-zag stitched it all the way around!

Here's the birthday girl in her new t-shirt!  She is so proud to be three!


Below is last year's t-shirt.  On this one I hand-sewed everything using embroidery floss.  You can click on the picture to see the detail.  I love how it looked, but it took a lot longer than I had time for this year.