Doodle- Love Valentine's Craft

A pile of t-shirts, a black sharpie, and a large table top. On Wednesday, between cleaning the house up and a play date, I had the unexpected pleasure of sitting and sketching. My 5 year old's preschool Valentine's Day party was the next day and I'd promised to provide the craft. When I asked my son what he thought we should do, his idea was to have everyone sew hearts to fabric and then hang them on the wall. Super cute idea but I explained that it had to be something that wouldn't require one on one attention from an adult- or band aids. Instead we decided to do t-shirts and instead of sewing the kids would color the hearts.

Except I couldn't stop with just hearts. I had to design owl's with hearts for the girls and then robots holding hearts for the boys. The owl shirts say "Who heart's you?" and the boy's say http:/love/you/: My techie husband thought that was only kind of clever as it wasn't actual computer lingo- I still think it's cute though.

To make the shirts I did freehand sketches directly on the t-shirts with a sharpie (probably should have used a fabric marker for this). Then the kids colored them in with fabric markers. To make it easier for the kids we had pieces of cardboard that slipped in the shirts and stretched them out quite a lot. I also showed the kids that it was easier to color on fabric if they made marks in one direction and didn't try to scribble back and forth. They did an excellent job. I thought they might get frustrated, but no one seemed to and they all loved the idea that they got to take them home and wear them.

Cost? The t-shirts were a little over a $1 each (Hane's, Target), and I purchased 24 of them. I bought the fabric markers at Michael's and probably spent $28 on those. I bought two of several colors though, anticipating demand for those. So not a super cheap craft (I donated all the supplies) but I think it had a great value and the kids not only enjoyed making them but are excited to wear them as well. The bonus was that I had a great time drawing the designs AND watching the kids as they enjoyed coloring them. They did a great job!