DIY: personalized shirt tutorial less than $5

Backstory:
So I seen a picture on Pinterest of a sweatshirt. It doesn't have a link to where to find it or buy it or even who made it so i would not have a clue who or where to credit it to. However I really liked the shirt & wanted one. All it showed was the back of the sweatshirt & it said "Because Hogwarts didn't accept FAFSA" which i thought was hilarious. However while making it I had to explain the point of it to a few people because no one seemed to understand what it meant. Guess I'm the nerdiest person in my family. Of course as most people know Hogwarts is the school in all the Harry Potter movies & books. & a FAFSA is the financial aid application you fill out to get financial aid for college. I am not ashamed to admit I go to school on financial aid. Anyways, I wanted a shirt that said this but had no clue where to find it, so i decided to get crafty & make my own. I've used iron on letters & they worked alright but fell off after a few washes so I decided to try something a little different. Also I wanted  Harry Potterish fonts & I knew that I couldnt find an iron on to look the way I wanted. So I decided I have some fabric markers that are supposed to be washable, which would be perfect.

p.s. All pics are not the best quality because they were taken with my cell phone.

Supplies Needed:

• T-shirt (in any color you want). I bought mine from the dollar tree for $1. It was a kids shirt but sadly I'll admit I can wear kids shirts & it was cheap, if you cant fit into a kids size though Walmart sells plain solid shirts in the mens section or in the craft section in all different colors.
• Fabric Markers (I bought a pack of like 5 for less than $5 but then I found another pack Sharpie brand for less than $5 & came with more in them, but I had already bought my other ones. Both of those can be found at Walmart)
• Printer (OPTIONAL) I did not use a printer, I done it the longer way that has more work because I'm too cheap to waste my ink when i don't have to. However it would be ALOT easier to print but I didn't mind the extra work.
• Paper. (I used lined paper because again on the cheap, printer paper is more expensive to waste rather than using lined notebook paper.)
• Xacto Knife. (This is an important tool to make the stencil for the shirt.)
• Cutting Board (So you don't cut up your table)
• Pen (OPTIONAL) this depends on if you draw your stencil like I did or print it.

Tutorial

1. Decide your size & Font. I used a piece of the paper I was going to use to put the words on and measure how big I want the words on the shirt by comparing the paper to the shirt and how big I could imagine it. Then I decided what kind of font I wanted the words to be in, I ended up using 3 different fonts.

2. Make Stencils. I used Microsoft word and typed what I wanted it to say and then drew it on paper or you could put the paper to your screen & trace. *TO MAKE THIS EASIER YOU COULD JUST PRINT IT BUT I'M TOO CHEAP TO WASTE INK* (FONTS USED: Candy Round (front), and I googled free harry potter fonts & picked 2 random ones for the words on the back)

3. Cut out Stencil. I used an Xacto Knife and carefully cut out all the words. This is the most tedious part of this shirt, it will make your hand hurt so taking breaks is the best thing u can do lol. MAKE SURE YOU USE A CUTTING BOARD UNDER IT SO YOU DON'T CUT UP YOUR TABLE.

4. Protect back of shirt. This is up to you, I just done this to be safe, but put some kind of cardboard or something inside the shirt just in case the marker leaks through the shirt and gets on the back of the shirt, which would be bad. I used a sketch book because it was relatively flat & wouldn't mess up me writing on the shirt.

5. Place stencil in desired position on the shirt. Just move it around and adjust it how you like. only do one side for now since you can only work on one side at a time. 

6.  Start to fill in the stencil with marker. Use your fabric marker & just start tracing with the stencil. Be very careful not to move the stencil around or getting underneath the paper which will screw you up.

7. Slowly Peel stencil off & start on a different section. try not to touch the parts you already colored because it can get on your fingers & you don't want black fingerprints all over your shirt. Do each line one at a time until you finish. 

8. Touch up & Fix any problems. So not all my lines and letters were perfect so afterwards I touched up some letters & straightened some lines & such.

9. Let Dry. I done the front one day & the back the next day because the marker says "Let Dry Flat Overnight" So I left it flat to let the front dry overnight, then the next day I done the back & let it lay flat overnight to dry. 

& YOUR DONE.

                         (its hard to take a picture of your back when your by yourself with a cell phone)

I loved how it turned out! Can't wait to wear it.

I have not washed it yet so I haven't figured out how the marker will work yet but it says that is machine washable safe so we will see. I hope so after all this work.

Now the point of this was not to say to make this exact shirt, It was to show you how you can make your own shirt for like less than $5 or $6 dollars. $1 for the shirt & less than $5 for the markers.

So you can make your own shirt in whatever color you want and draw or have it say whatever you want. The possibilities are endless... So enjoy.

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