Numbered Grandchildren Shirts

My mother-in-law had an excellent Mother’s Day this year. Her daughter got all of us moms together to make a photo album for Grandma with a two-page spread from each grandchild with his/her picture and what they love about her. The book was amazing, but we also had all the grandchildren numbered in age order on the back of red T-shirts. I added the numbers with heat transfer material to each shirt.

Yes, I ironed on 6″ tall numbers with white glitter heat transfer material to every one of these red shirts. It turned out so well, I’m glad I spent the time on these 14 shirts! I designed them in Silhouette Studio with Sweet Pea font, and cut them out from two rolls of white glitter heat transfer with my Silhouette CAMEO.

I also cut a little “I ♥ Grandma” for a cute accent on the front of each shirt. It started out as my test-cut item to make sure I had my settings correct, but in the end I packed 14 of them in between the numbers to get all the use out of my heat transfer that I possibly could.

When the kids were ready to present Grandma’s book to her, we lined them up in order and they marched up to her door, all wearing their matching shirts. It was excellent!

More technical details:

In case you’re interested in tackling a large project like this, here are a few more details. It took about 54″ of 9″-wide heat transfer material to do these 14 numbers in the Sweet Pea font. The numbers are rotated and tightly nestled together so I could fit as many on as I possibly could. I had originally planned to make them about 4″ tall and that would have fit on a single 36″ roll. These 6″ numbers are huge and bold, which is really impressive.

Here’s a screen shot of my first 36″ roll. I cut the remaining four numbers on a second roll. Note that the numbers are reversed, because that’s how heat transfer must be cut. You can also see the little “I ♥ Grandma” placed multiple times, each within its own rectangle. The rectangle makes it easier to weed each tiny phrase.

I weeded the excess heat transfer material from each rectangle and then pulled the rest off, leaving the numbers (and tiny words) behind on the sticky backing. Then I simply used scissors to cut apart all the pieces so they could be ironed on to their individual shirts.

As far as time, it depends on your skill level. I’ve done enough heat transfer to consider myself adequate. It’s generally a pretty fast process: design, cut, weed, iron. When you multiply that for 14 shirts, that equates into several hours. I designed everything ahead of time, then was able to cut, weed, and apply in one day. (That includes a couple of hiccups along the way.) Total time spent was probably 20+ minutes per shirt.

This was such a fun project. Great for the benefit of grandparents, for family reunions, or for any big family get-together. They will all be wearing their shirts again on the 4th of July this year!