DIY Holiday Shirts – No Vinyl Cutter Needed

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I love being a twin mom! It is a lot of fun (and a lot of work) so I get really excited when I have friends that find out they are expecting twins. This holiday season I have several friends who are new twin moms, or expecting twins soon. So I am excited to share with you this great gift idea I have for these new moms (or new twin moms) including these easy DIY Holiday Shirts and onesies, plus sharing some Twin Theme ideas.

Now, to start, I have to say, while I love having twins, I am not a huge fan of dressing them the same. Nothing against those who do, it just isn’t my style. I more prefer to dress them in outfits that can be themed together. Like we might put them each in super hero shirts, but different super heroes. Because of this, I decided when I made these cute DIY holiday shirts (and onesies) I wanted to have them be more twin themed then just making two of the exact same shirt.

I decided to make these cute onesies for a friend who just had twins a few months ago. Along with the onesies, I wanted to give her something that will help her out a lot in the future. So I paired this gift with some baby must-haves, like a great monitor.

I wanted to make some cute twin themed onesies for my friend and her babies, but you know I couldn’t help but also make some cute diy holiday shirts for my toddler twins.

My DIY Confession…

Now, here is my little confession- I do not own a vinyl cutter. WHAT? I know. What kind of crafter am I that I do not own one? Honestly, I owned an old Cricut (the kind with the cartridges) before I had the Goof but I never used it so I sold it. My sister has a vinyl cutter so I have used hers when needed, but yeah- I do not own one.

Now that I am doing a lot more crafting, hopefully I can get one soon. But I didn’t want to have to go to my sister’s house in order to make these cute onesies (she lives an hour away). So I went to an old, but favorite method to make them. Freezer paper!

Maybe you haven’t heard about this but Freezer Paper was one of the most popular ways to make custom shirts before vinyl cutters became big. So I went to this tried and true method. I am excited to share how easy this method is with you.

For These DIY Holiday Shirts You Will Need:

• Shirts (or onesies)
• Freezer Paper
• Printed out design
• Pencil
• Scissors or Exacto Knife
• Iron
• Cardboard (an old cereal box will do)
• Fabric Paint
• Sponge Paint Brush

DIY Holiday Shirts and Onesies

First, you will need to decide what you want to put on your onesies or shirts. I thought it would be cute to make a onesie that said Merry and another that said Bright. (Get it? Merry and Bright?) So I printed out the words on paper, sized to fit on the onesies. I chose to use PicMonkey because I knew it had some great fonts but you can do this in Word or another program.

Next, you need some freezer paper. You will take a piece of freezer paper and place it wax side down. Put your print out under the freezer paper and trace it.

Be sure you trace everywhere you need to cut out (including the insides of the letters. One you have done this, you need to cut out the word/design. I used an exacto knife and put an old cereal box under it so I didn’t have to worry about scratching my table. Be sure to cut out all the insides of the letters and keep those pieces because you will need them.

Once you have cut it all out, you will need the stencil and an extra piece of freezer paper. Place the extra piece of freezer paper on the inside of the onesie or shirt waxy side up and then put the stencil on the top of the onesie, waxy side down. Now take a hot iron and iron the freezer paper. This will attach it to the onesie/shirt. Be sure to take the inside pieces from letters like g or a and put them down and iron them on in the proper places.

Now take a piece of cardboard and place it between the front and back of the onesie/shirt. This will keep the paint from soaking through.

Take your fabric paint and a sponge brush and paint in the stencil making sure to cover the area evenly and being careful not to lift up the edges of the stencil, getting paint under it.

Wait 20 minutes then if needed, you can put on a second coat of paint. Once the paint is completely dry, you can remove the freezer paper (don’t forget the insides of the letters). Now you have some adorable onesies.

Now, Merry and Bright was just one idea. She has girls and I thought it was perfect for them. I also wanted to make some shirts for my toddler twin boys. I wanted to do something playing off of naught and nice, but I didn’t want to do anything that specifically said “I’m the naughty twin” or anything like that because I don’t want to call either of them naughty.

I decided to play it where it kind of questioned the naughty or niceness of each twin, but in a different way. So I did one shirt that said “Define Nice” and another that said “Define Naughty.” Looking back, I kind of wish I would have put “Dear Santa” in front of it, but they still turned out super cute.

It kind of worked out perfectly that the twin wearing the “Define Naughty” shirt for these pictures was having an epic meltdown because he wanted to play with my husband’s phone. But they are still adorable!

I am so excited to give my friend these DIY Holiday onesies and the VTech Bear Video Monitor. You can find the VTech Bear Video Monitor exclusively at Babies R Us online or in-store. Be sure to check them out if you are shopping for a new mom this holiday season. They are awesome, and even if that isn’t the perfect monitor for them, VTech offers an assortment of baby monitors to fit every parenting style, from audio only to video to one that plays soothing lullabies – VTech has a monitor to fit their needs.

Let me know what saying you would put on a onesie/shirt to give with a VTech Bear Video Monitor to the new mom on your holiday shopping list in the comments below.