How Cheapskates Make Camp Shirts

The shirt-making crew.

I had a few people ask how we made our camp shirts.  The answer is: with a little money and a LOT of time. 

All I had to buy were the shirts ($4.99 each though a friend's business) and the spray paint ($6 for two cans).

I borrowed another friend's Cricut and cut out a few of each letter of the alphabet as well as the numbers 03 in a simple font on cardstock.  We got rid of the actual cutouts and saved the outline of each letter and number.

Next we laid out letters on the back of a shirt to spell the last name of each young woman in our group.  This is the time consuming part.  (It helps to spray a little spray glue on the back of each letter to help them adhere to the shirt - but not too much or you create a sticky mess.)

Then we masked the area around the letters with some large sheets of cardstock and some fancy paperweights before spraying.

After spraying we carefully removed the letters and stuck them to the table to be reused.

We laid each shirt to dry on the grass

and then repeated the spraying process on each shirt with large numbers.  This was much easier since every shirt had the same numbers on it.

About 5 hours and three sunburned faces later, and VOILA!

We had a box full of 42 shirts, ready for camp.