Disney Family Vacation Shirt

Well it’s been about a year since we last visited Disneyland {okay only 10 months} and I must admit I’m going crazy wishing we were there! We have accrued enough sky miles to fly our family somewhere and since our youngest little guy is only 5 months we have been trying to decide what would be the best place for the family. We have done quite a bit of research and have come to the conclusion that our little kids at their ages just love to go and see Mickey. I mean, who doesn’t love Disneyland??? We also have been trying to potty-train our third child and we figured this would be great incentive for him to learn. We are already going to the park, but figured why not let him think that we are going because he is now a “big boy”?!? It’s a win-win for everyone.

Now that we have plane tickets and the the hotel all booked it now is time to start thinking about the important things, family shirts and disney attire. Our very first Disney visit as a family was a little less than two years ago and I made these fun subway art t-shirts. We loved them! They were so much fun designing and creating these shirts for the family to wear. To see a full tutorial on how I created these go HERE. I also painted character hats and made fantastic disney backpacks for the kids, both of which the boys still wear and use to this day. When I started thinking about last years shirts, I realized that I never put them up on the blog. I can’t believe I didn’t share this fun idea with you!

So here I am finally sharing these Disney family vacation shirts with you almost a year later. Here is what you will do . . .

Supplies:

• Shirts (I went to Wal-mart)
• Acrylic paint (Buy on Amazon –Black, Yellow, and White)
• Fabric Medium (Buy on Amazon – Fabric Medium)
• Sponge brush (Buy on Amazon – Sponge Brushes 9pk)
• Stencil of some kind
• Tacky Spray (Buy on Amazon – Krylon Easy Tack)
• Cardboard Box

Step 1 : Prep

Begin by wrapping a cardboard piece in parchment/wax paper and placing in the shirt so that paint doesn’t seep through to the other side. 

I created this Mickey outline with all of our families names, placing a star in between each name. Then I cut the template out of vinyl to use as a stencil. To add your own names, just place this SVG into your cutting software, split/break the image and delete our names. Now you can re-arrange the layout and add your families’ names. Download SVG file below and PDF file here: Disney Family Vacation Shirt 

Step 2: Stencil Placement

Take stencil or vinyl and stick to shirt. Place vinyl, with it’s backing still on, where you want it on the shirt and tape down. Flip up and remove backing. Spray vinyl with a tacky spray. I use Easy Tack by Krylon. Flip vinyl back down on the shirt and press firmly. Remove the transfer tape slowly making sure all the vinyl stuck well to the shirt. I then use my Mini Pizza Roller to ensure everything is well stuck.

{For a step-by-step picture tutorial on how to stick the stencil correctly check out this post.}

Now place the template on the shirts. If using freezer paper, iron it into place. If using vinyl, stick it on using this method with tacky spray. I also have a video here that shows how I do it using another shirt I made.

Step 3: Painting

Take a sponge brush with fabric paint or acrylic paint {mix the fabric medium with your acrylic paint to make the paint flexible to help prevent cracking when washed} and dab paint within stencil/vinyl.

Note: For Tinkerbell’s magic dust, I had my vinyl machine cut tiny holes, but the holes were just too small for the paint to work. So after removing all the vinyl when the paint was dry (24 hours), I hand painted little dots. I began by making an outline of how I wanted to dust to be, and then filled in the outline with dots. It was very easy, but took me about an hour to do all the shirts. View the pictures below to see how I shaped the magic dust on the shirts. . . 

Step 4: Finishing

Once the paint is completely dry {I wait 12-24 hours, just to make sure} remove the vinyl stencil and cardboard from inside the shirt. Then place a piece of scrap fabric over the painted areas and heat set the paint with a hot iron.

Notice one of the names is “baby boy”. This is because I was 22 weeks pregnant and had just found out the gender of our fourth child.