Happy 100th!

My son is in his first year of school (pre-K), and he absolutely loves it! And this last week they celebrated the 100th day of school. He was sooooo excited for it. And as part of the celebration, each student created a 100 shirt. When I set out to do this, I wanted it to be really cool but really easy at the same time. He was pretty happy with it.

I just used an undershirt I had (I had bought a pack for his pirate costume). I'm glad I had white because then we could use any colors we wanted, but it was a little thin. So maybe next time I would buy a plain shirt from the craft store.

He loves writing, so I wanted it to actually have the number 100 on there. I started by printing out the one and the zero in Freshman font from my computer. Then I cut them out and used them as templates for my blue felt.

I fiddled with these a lot, getting them placed just right and pinned down where I wanted them...

Then I opened the shirt from the bottom and slid the shirt under my machine's presser foot and needle. It was much easier working with the opening on the bottom because it's bigger. Even so, the last zero ended up a little crooked. I was having some trouble with the inside stitching on the middle zero (just me getting used to my new machine), and I think when I was trying to fix my machine, I pulled on the shirt too much and moved it. Oh well, my son still loved it...

I had several ideas for how to put 100 things on this shirt. I wanted to do baseballs, but the idea I came up with for that would have involved drawing the red stitching on 100 buttons and sewing them on. Yech... Even hot gluing them seemed like too much work, and then I'd worry about washing it.

When wandering the aisles at the craft store, I found some ink that said it was permanent and worked well on fabric. It also happened to be right next to the foam stamps (NOT in the scrapbooking department). They had some sports stamps. That screamed easy and boyish to me...

So last Saturday, I put down a bit of vinyl to protect my table and we grabbed the ink and the stamps. In reality, my son didn't get to help as much as I had hoped. I handed him a stamp and showed him how to ink it, but he got the (permanent) ink all over his hands. So I ended up inking it and he told me where to put it, then we pushed on it together. So just watch out with this project! He did enjoy making it though. He got 25 footballs, 25 soccer balls, 25 baseballs and 25 stars.

**Okay, sad note: Somehow this got in with the wash (I am glad my little man is learning to put his dirty clothes in the hamper), but so much for their permanent, fabric ink. Washed right off! So now it just says 100. So just know if you use stamps, don't wash it!

Even sister was pretty impressed with his shirt...

My son is 4, and as I said, we had a bit of a mess with the ink. But if your child is a little older/more inclined toward arts and crafts, this would be the perfect indoor project. And he loves this shirt because he helped make it.

He wore it to school and proudly showed it off to his friends. As part of the celebration, they also made necklaces with 100 beads, got a 100 celebration rub-on tattoo and made hats. He loved it!

So maybe if you have a special occassion or trip coming up, this is a fun, little idea to help them get excited about it. It would also be a fun Valentine's craft -- make a felt heart and sew it on then let your little one add their own embellishments. You could also do this with an apron, a super hero cape, etc. Actually, I'll share a similar project (hopefully next week) of something I'm making for the little sister for Valentine's Day. :)

A little twist on a favorite classic...

I'm not a big wreath person; somehow they always turn out too traditional and, well, boring to me. But I found some wreaths on etsy that just blew me away and I had to try and make one...

I love argyle prints, so I fell in love with it on a wreath, and the fact that the wreath was wrapped with yarn? Sold...

I decided to make a team one as a Christmas gift (eh? eh? great gift idea right here)... And as hard as it looks, it really didn't take me forever like I thought it would.

I actually did this kinda on my own, but later found a good tutorial on it here. I used a 12" styrofoam wreath, and it was really easy to wrap. And just a tip -- leave the yarn on the skein. It's much easier to throw a ball of a yarn through the wreath than trying to pull a really long string through over and over and over...

Then I made the little diamonds. For a 12" wreath, my diamonds were 1.75 inches tall and about 2.58" wide. They lined up almost perfectly. Then I used the black yarn to wrap around one direction, coming up and across my diamond, then wrapped it back the other way to make the argyle pattern.

I used hot glue to tack down all my yarn ends and my felt.

I printed an O and a U off on my computer in Freshman font, then used them to make my letters. I hot glued those onto the crimson and cut it out. I put some plastic mesh (found in the embroidery aisle at the craft store) onto the back of that to give it some structure, then added a second layer of crimson felt so you wouldn't see it. With that all sandwiched together, I just hot glued it to the wreath.

Then I made some felt flowers, following this tutorial again as well as a combination of this one and this one.

I used lots of hot glue on those babies as well, and that's it. Well, I did also include something to hang this with (although my clear over-the-door one fit perfectly, but it's not for me...). I just took nine strands of yarn and braided them together; I wanted it to be thin enough not to detract from the wreath, but I wanted it to be interesting at the same time. I really love it! Fun way to show some team pride...