The Christmas spirit is in full swing at my house and I have been crafting up a storm! I love gift giving, but I hate spending money (total scrooge) so I usually have a mix of bought and handmade gifts each year. I am loving felt right now so I decided to make a few adorable felt applique gifts for my kids, and if you read on you can learn how to make them too! This ridiculously easy project is for a camera applique t-shirt, but you can easily customize it to fit your needs. Oh yeah, and you won’t even need a sewing machine!
This is a great gift for babies and toddlers and will cost you around $5 per completed project depending on the price of your shirt. Considering that you can find these on Etsy anywhere from $20-$40 I’d say it is a steal! You can also stitch this onto a onesie for the new mom in your life.
DIY Felt Camera Shirt
For this project you will need:
- t-shirt
- multiple colors of felt
- a thick sewing needle
- two colors of string (I would suggest not using regular sewing thread as it is fragile)
- camera pattern (I’ve made one for you – just print it out!)
- iron on interfacing (for the inside – available at most craft stores)
- scissors
Here is your pattern:
To print it out:
1- Click on the image for a full page display.
2- Right click “save image”.
3- Open the file from your computer and print it at a 5×7 (half sheet) size.
Once you have your shapes cut out, trace them onto your felt and cut them out. I used pink and purple felt, but use whatever colors you like! *For the hexagon shape, cut it in half to get two equal pieces and then make one small enough to fit in the other.*
Place your felt shapes on whatever fabric you have chosen so you can get your position right and pin the large rectangle in place. You can go ahead and put the rest of the shapes to the side.
Next, thread your needle with about three feet of string. Starting from the under side, stitch your camera on using small and even spacing like this:
Do that the entire way around the rectangle and tie off at the end. Make sure you end up with the knot on the inside of the shirt! Once you are finished with your rectangle, stitch on your circles. You *can* stitch each circle directly onto your rectangle like I did, but it is a lot easier to stitch your smaller circle onto your big one first. Here are some progress shots:
Do the same thing with the rest of your shapes, and for the small shutter box I like to do larger stitches just because it is easier.
When your camera is complete, turn the shirt inside out and iron on a small square of fusible interfacing so that your string doesn’t irritate the skin. Check out the finished project:
Talk about adorable! Kaia is going to be the most stylish kid on the block! When that was done I didn’t want to leave Judah out so I decided to make him a sleeve for his tablet.
To make the sleeve I folded a full sheet of felt in half, stitched around two sides of it and then turned it inside out. Next I cut out a dinosaur shape from one of Judah’s coloring books, stitched on an eye and a cute little yellow patch and stitched the whole thing onto the sleeve. Easy peasy, huh?!
