How to Make Team Sister T-Shirts

Sisters.  Best of friends and worst enemies- almost in the same breath.  Right?

Seriously in our house, our girls are just 18 months apart and they are giggling like crazy one minute and screaming the next.  One of my major goals as a Mom is to remind my girls constantly how lucky they are to have each other.  I pray that they grow up to be best friends and to protect, encourage and support each other through every stage of life.  I haven’t found the secret quite yet to reducing the sibling rivalry but we do try anything and everything we can to be sure there are more giggles than screams and more whispered secrets than tears.   When I had the opportunity to partner with the Dreamworks film, The Boss Baby recently to come up with a creative project that reinforces the plot of the story, I was all in!  Sibling Rivalry?  Check!

I was trying to think of something practical that would remind my girls how lucky they are to be sisters and decided to make some Team Sister t-shirts.  These are super easy to make and I had these finished in about an hour.  They are simple and cute and I think a really fun gift idea for children.  A friend of mine is having twins soon and I will definitely be making a set of these shirts for her babies- after all one minute older is still a big sister or brother right?

Both of my girls are very proud of their position in the family.  My older daughter loves being the big sister.  She loves that her little sister’s friends look up to her, that she gets to do things first and that most of the time she winds up winning the race.   My little girl on the other hand, loves being the little sister.  The baby of the family, the tiny one.  She gets twice the clothes thanks to hand me downs and she has a very strong personality so #LikeABossBaby is pretty much her motto.

Fortunately my girls really got a kick out of these shirts.  I went with a basic raglan style shirt for my big girl that loves sports- softball is her current favorite.  I chose pink sleeves and gold glitter letters for my little girl that loves glitz and anything fancy.  I was trying to find that middle ground between the girls where they might both get a little something that makes them unique yet find a common ground to come together.

And before I get to the simple DIY for these shirts, have you seen the Dreamworks film The Boss Baby?  We saw it in theaters and loved it!  The quick premise of the movie is a young boy living a happy life with his parents when a new baby brother shows up on the doorstep one day (The Boss Baby played by Alec Baldwin).   The boy goes from undivided attention to sharing his parent’s attention with the new baby.  Things go downhill rapidly until The Boss Baby convinces the boy to fight with him against a mutual enemy.  The combined efforts and schemes of the two boys are quite successful, a crisis is averted and the story reinforces the importance of family.

I loved this movie because it was witty and fun and unique but also because it helped illustrate the message we try so hard to send to our children.  Family is everything and instead of arguing over every tiny little thing, take a step back and realize how lucky you are to have each other.  In the film, both Tim (big brother) and Boss Baby (little brother) have that epiphany and it is sweet, funny and might have you reaching for a tissue.

The movie is available on Blu-ray July 25th.  The Blu-ray includes a new mini-adventure narrated by Wizzy (the Wizard alarm clock Tim has in the film)  and is a perfect one to grab for family movie night!  If you plan to do any outdoor movies this summer, The Boss Baby is a crowd pleaser as it will entertain children and adults.  You can click here to preorder a copy  or order a copy here from Target and get a free keychain with 6 hilarious movie quotes.

If you have siblings at home that can use a reminder about how proud they should be to have siblings, here are the quick instructions to make your own Team Sisters or Brothers shirts:

I started with a plain raglan t-shirt- I purchased mine here.

I have a Cricut cutting machine that cuts iron on material to just iron right on to a t-shirt.  If you do not have a cutting machine, you might try Etsy for custom shirts or you can stop into a craft store and look for precut letters and numbers to make your own iron on.  There is usually a fairly decent selection available to choose from.

I designed the Big Sister and Little Sister words in a cursive font and added the year of birth- 07 for one and 09 for the other underneath in the style of a sports jersey.  You will want to lay the shirt out first and measure the width to get the correct size for your words and numbers.  The back of the shirts we purchased were about 12 inches so the Big Sister and Little Sister were sized to fit that space.

Check the box that says Mirror Image so the image is reversed.  This is important or the words will be backwards on your shirt and you definitely don’t want to waste any of the iron on material.  Set the cutting machine to iron on, double check your image is indeed reversed as pictured above.

Now you can choose from a rainbow of colors for the iron on, I used a gold glitter.  I was able to make 2 shirts from one roll of gold glitter iron on as long as you are very careful about cutting perfectly.

And once I peeled away the extra iron on material, I am left with this.  You can see it is the correct direction on the shirt because the iron on material cuts face down on your cutting machine. I used chalk to measure the center point of the shirt and gently stuck the adhesive down.  At this point I like to have the child try on the shirt so I can make sure it really is centered and that the placement is correct.  You want the words or name not too high on the back so hair covers it up but not too low.  If you are happy with the placement go ahead and iron on!

And here is a close up of the finished product!  Just make sure all the edges of the iron on are completely adhered to the shirt and remove that liner backing carefully.  If you are wondering how long this shirt will last— the answer is ages!  I made custom t-shirts for my daughter’s birthday a few years ago with this exact same method and this exact same iron on material.  The shirts are still going strong with countless washing and wearing.  In fact we still get compliments on those shirts when the girls put them on.

Ahhhh!  Now that was easy!  Time to sit back and admire your hard work.

These are going to be perfect for our next family vacation!

And if you decide to make these for your little ones, please come back and let me know how they turn out for you!

Thank you to DreamWorks The Boss Baby for sponsoring this post! As always, all opinions expressed are my own!