Dr. Seuss Thing Maternity Shirt

March 2nd is Dr. Seuss' birthday and elementary schools around the country celebrate by participating in Read Across America Day.  Our school celebrates with a whole reading month which is kicked off by a week of fun dress up days for the students (and staff).  On the last day of the week the dress up theme is dress up like your favorite Dr. Seuss character.  In the past I have been a Thing and a Star-Bellied Sneech.  This year I decided to be a Thing again but I thought it would be fun to include baby in the fun.  This of course was a perfect project for my Silhouette Portrait so I opened up the software and got to work.  

 My medium of choice for this project was heat transfer vinyl.  I started by finding Thing 1 and Thing 2 images on Google and then I just dragged them to the desktop of my MacBook and then dragged them into the Silhouette software.  Then I opened the trace window and selected the image and clicked trace.

 After dragging the original image out of the way, I selected my traced image and selected release compound path from the object menu.  This allowed me to get rid of all the unwanted parts of the image.

I really just wanted the thing word and the number.

I put the shirt on to figure out what sizes to make the circles and then drew them in the Silhouette software.

I then copied the circles and made a smaller circle on the inside to create the border of the circle.  I also resized the "thing 1" and "thing 2" so that they would fit inside the borders.

Then I made sure to mirror the "thing 1" and "thing 2" since I was using heat transfer.  

I cut out the center circles out on white heat transfer vinyl and the rest of the shapes out on black glitter heat transfer.

I also cut out the inner circles on card stock so that I could make sure I got the placement right.  I found this read shirt at Target.  I love their v-neck tees because they are so soft and comfy.  They aren't maternity but I can still fit fine in a size large since I am only about 20 weeks.

I started by ironing on the white circles.  You need to make sure to put a piece of cotton cloth between the iron and the heat transfer.

Then I added the black borders.  I heated the white layer for about 20 seconds (with the cloth in between the iron and the heat transfer of course) before applying the second layer.  

I repeated this step with the "thing 1" and "thing 2" layer.  

It was so fun to wear this shirt at school today.  My favorite comment came out a conversation with some of my 1st grade students.  

1st Grader #1: Why are you Thing 1 and Thing 2?

Me: Well I am Thing 1 but who do you think Thing 2 is?

1st Grader #2: Your belly?

It was so funny!  They finally figured out that it was because I was pregnant which elicited my 2nd favorite comment of the day: Is it a real baby in your belly?  One of the best things about being an elementary music teacher is how entertaining the students are with what they say and do.  

Well I don't know what my next post will be yet but I am guessing it will be nursery related so hopefully it won't be too long before the next post!