a painted bear

I recently stumbled across a free printable bear print from Oana Befort and her darling diy series on making shirts for kiddos. She has graciously shared the art for this bear, as well as a cat, apple, fox, and a bird. SO cute!

Henry has had this little white t-shirt in his closet that's really too small for him. It was the perfect canvas to try out some fabric painting and I'm in love with the results.

The process is really simple. First you just print out the design from Oana's site. Because this is a 2T shirt (on the small side of 2T), I scaled the print by 80%. Then place it under the front of the shirt and lightly sketch the design with a pencil.

After putting a piece of cardboard inside the shirt (to protect it from paint soaking through), I started painting the edges first, then filled in the rest of the design with a paintbrush dipped in my fabric paint.
After letting it dry, Henry put it on and away he went. Now I remember why it's so frustrating to make clothes for him...the child will NOT sit still long enough for me to get a decent picture (and he is prone to spill things which is what happened immediately after these pictures were taken). Oh well. At least he looks cute in this simple diy shirt.