We're gearing up for a fun 4th of July, and looking forward to celebrating our great nation with family and friends. We've decked out the outside of our home to reflect our patriotic spirit, and B had a lot of questions for us about America. Sacha and I were excited that B expressed an interest in learning about our country. He was pretty excited to help me hang the flags, and I thought it would be cool for us to make a patriotic t-shirt that he could wear on the 4th. I came across a lot of neat ideas, but I needed something that would be fun, easy, and quick- as well as age appropriate for a four-year-old. I settled on a Patriotic Paint Dot T-Shirt, because it would be something that B could do with little assistance from me.

To make this t-shirt, the two main things you'll probably need to pick up from a craft store would be a t-shirt (in red, white, or blue), and fabric paint.

We headed to our local Wal-Mart (because no other store in town is open at 7 am), and picked up fabric puff paint in red, white, and blue. The small puff paint bottles were less than $1.00, each. We also picked up a youth t-shirt (blue) for under $3.50, which brought the total cost for this project to about $7.50. I had to buy a larger bottle of red puff paint, because they were sold out of the smaller ones.

Using our arts & crafts tray, I laid the shirt (pre-washed) out on it, outside.

I thought it best to do this project outside. I knew that if B listened, it wouldn't get too messy, but I didn't want to take any chances. We also wore our project aprons to protect our clothing. I laid a thick piece of paper inside of the t-shirt, so the paint wouldn't bleed through.

B drew a star on a thick piece of paper, and we cut it out together, using child's scissors.

I asked B to position the paper star on the front of the t-shirt, where he wanted it. Once he picked a spot, we left the star there, and I instructed him not to move it.

On a paper plate, we squeezed out a little bit of each color of paint.

We used the eraser side of a pencil (you will need one for each paint color) to dip into the paint, and then outline the paper star with dots of paint.

I helped B get started, by making a red dot outline, and then he came back in with the blue paint, and began adding the blue dots.

Next, we added white dots.

Once we had a good mix of red, white, and blue dots outlining the paper star, we went back, and added a lot more dots, making a thicker outline.

Once B decided that the shirt had enough paint dots, we removed the paper star, and were left with this cool design!

B wanted to add some fireworks to the shirt, so we added those to either side of the star.

We were pretty pleased with the way this cute project turned out. We waited for a full 24 hours for the puff paint fireworks to fully dry. If you do this without added puff paint designs to the star, it will dry faster, because the dots are pretty thin. B is so excited to be able to wear this shirt that he pretty much made by himself for the 4th of July! 

B couldn't wait until the 4th of July to wear his cool patriotic t-shirt!

You could certainly do this same type of thing for different holidays, using different colored fabric paints, and it's easy to personalize the shirts with a name or special saying using the puff paint, as well.

We hope you'll give this fun patriotic t-shirt project a try & share your comments & photos with us!

Wishing you a safe & fun-filled 4th of July!