Fabric Painted T shirts, kids craft for Acacia’s birthday party

I’m not mad about party packs for children to take home after a party and like to try to think of alternatives.  Since we always have the children’s birthday parties at home it is good to have something for the children to do other than run around and play on the trampoline.  Having a craft activity at the party provides both an activity and something to take home.  Last Saturday Was Acacia’s birthday party and we did painted T-shirts.  Before the party I asked the parents for the children’s T-shirt sizes and asked that they do not come dressed in clothes which may suffer the consequences of fun with fabric paint.  Some parents brought along old T-shirts for their children to wear over their party clothes.  I also asked the parents if their children had preferences for what they would like to paint, such as butterflies, Ninja turtles or whatever,   I then could print something that they really like.

I bought white T-shirts in the appropriate sizes, paint brushes and Dala Fabric paint.  The first step is to search the internet for simple colouring pictures and print them.  Fjord chose Olaf from Frozen and Acacia chose a mermaid.  The printed picture is then placed under the fabric and the outline traced with a permanent marker.

I asked the parents at the party to trace the pictures for their children.  Before the painting started we inserted a sheet of cardboard inside the T-shirts so that the paint did not seep through to the fabric of the back of the T-shirts.    The paint does not take very long to dry and the shirts were dry and ready to take home at the end of the party.

The party was for Acacia’s 4th birthday,  it may be slightly more suitable for a 5th birthday party but the children all did well and had fun.  Afterwards I thought that for this age group another idea would be to do stamps or handprints with fabric paint instead.