Toddler Hand print Reindeer Shirt

While doing my usual snooping around blog world for a fun Christmas activity idea for my 3yr old, I found some adorable ideas to do with hand prints! I know I'm not the first one to do this idea but I can not for the life of me find the original blog of the person who did this to link for you, so I'll just show you mine.

It's really very simple! I used a sewing machine for mine, but you may decide to use the Fabric Tac stuff or something no-sew. I SHOULD have used something to adhere the hand and foot prints to the shirt but I had to make it difficult by pinning every finger and corner down. 

To do it like I did this is all you need:

~ Shirt of your or your kiddo's choice. Jaiden picked out the white one which is perfect for this project. It's a $5 Circo turtle neck from Target

~ Brown thread and fabric for the reindeer face

~ White buttons for the eyes plus black thread to sew them on

~ Red button for the nose plus red thread to sew it on

~ Themed fabric of your choice to cut out the hand prints and thread to coordinate

~ A willing participant to let you trace a hand and foot! Easy if you hype up the activity idea to a 3yr old ;)

I traced my daughter's right hand and right foot on to paper then cut it out. Pin the paper to the fabric, use a pen or fabric chalk stuff (obviously I don't use it because I don't even know the proper term) to trace around the cut-out. I got my "left" hands because I cut multiple layers of fabric out that was folded up so some layers were right side up while the other layers were wrong side up. You could easily trace a left hand and cut that out but I didn't really think that far ahead, plus anyway the 'antlers' are symmetrical which is easy on my eyes!

Lay out your hand prints on the shirt and then lay the foot print over it and situate them how you want it to look. Once you have that figured out pin the hand prints down or do whatever method you like to use to stick it to the shirt and lay the foot print to the side for later. Begin stitching around the hand print! I used a zig-zag stitch with a neat multi-color green thread. 

Once you have both of the hands sewn on, place your foot print on the shirt and pin it down, then begin stitching it with the brown thread. Once again I used a zig-zag stitch. 

I ironed the shirt out after that and then worked on the placement of the eyes and nose. Like I listed above, I used buttons. I made this a very budget friendly project for myself since I already had everything except the Christmasy fabric and shirt. I would have preferred the plastic googly eyes and red pom-pom for the nose but didn't want to go out and buy it. So anyway, sew on the eyes and nose and you're done!!

So far this shirt has survived two washings... I was really afraid that it wouldn't survive since I only stitched the hands and feet on without any other bonding material. I'm posting because I'm confident in the way I did it in case anybody else is keeping it cheap with limited supplies!

I think it will be so neat to make another one next year and watch how her hands and feet grow!

Enjoy & Be Inspired!

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