Annual "Class of" Shirt

One of the reasons we chose to build on our particular street is that it is positively teeming with kids our son's age. We aren't able to give him a sibling, or even a dog due to his allergies, so we gave him the next best thing, a street full of adopted brothers and sisters. Our street is pretty amazing, actually, with parents and kids out nearly every night playing together and socializing. Two of the kids on the street started kindergarten this year and D and I had a lot of fun watching A and O board the bus on that first exciting morning. 

All our summer talk of our kids starting their school careers got me thinking about school traditions. When I first bought my Silhouette Cameo (<--Amazon affiliate link), I searched Pinterest for ideas. I feel in love with this "class of" annual shirt tradition. 

The original source of this pin is an online message board that I can't view. 

Alas, I'm still having trouble getting the hang of my Silhouette, and since the school year was starting, I took an iron-on short cut.

Supplies needed:

• a t-shirt in a size that your child may wear when he or she is a high school senior. Our son is very tall, so I bought an XL.
• iron-on letters
• iron and ironing board
• cotton cloth. I used a fabric remnant, but a pillowcase would work as well.

I bought the shirt for $3.99 (before a coupon!) at Hobby Lobby. To give you an idea of how long I've been thinking of doing this, I bought this shirt in Florida when I first met Lauren from The Thinking Closet. 

Clearly, it needed a little ironing after all this time. I was excited to try out my new magnetic ironing mat (<--Amazon affiliate link). We have a cool ironing board drawer in our laundry room, but I wanted a large flat surface for ironing fabric for my quilts.

I bought my iron-ons from Walmart. I chose two styles from Next Style for the letters and numbers. 

First I cut out the letters I needed. I trimmed them pretty close to the edge and took care for the bottom to be straight so I could line them up well. 

I used my ruler to line up the letters and numbers.

I used a fabric scrap to protect the iron-ons. 

I ironed for about a minute before turning the shirt inside out and ironing again for another minute. 

After ironing the top side again, I slowly peeled the plastic away. 

I found that the flocked letters secured more easily than the vinyl numbers. I had to iron the latter for an extra minute or so. 

All ready for the first photo shoot!

So, I'm really happy with how it it turned out. With one exception. Here's a hint: When I was cutting out the numbers, I looked at the growing up gallery. 

Can you figure out my mistake?

The growing up gallery has fall photos in it. D will graduate in the spring. So, instead of 2026, I just have put 2027. So, it's a good thing I made this tutorial because it looks like I will be making another shirt!

Updated:

I made a second shirt with the correct year. I bought another shirt at Hobby Lobby, this time I went with a size large. I also bought individual iron on letters and numbers for $.69 (small) and $.99 (large) each.

I'm thinking that on the back, I'll print his class picture onto fabric and iron it on. He'll end up of with his own mini-growing up gallery.

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