Preschool Valentines Day Heart Shirt

Remember when we were kids and Valentine’s Day was a big deal in school? A day for making our Valentine’s Day boxes and another day for passing out our cards and having treats! The smell of conversation hearts is still fresh in my mind. Despite schools making less fuss over the holiday, we’re still giving it our all with home made decorations and clothes! We made a simple preschool Valentines Day Heart Shirt just for the occasion.

This shirt is pretty self explanatory but I wanted to share a few tips we learned through our process. My daughter is 4 and has just begun liking paint as a medium. She has made several holiday shirts while visiting her Grandma so I knew she would be interested in using paint for a Valentines Day shirt.

Materials Needed:

Shirt (we found a white Old Navy shirt at Goodwill for $1.50)
Fabric Paint (we used Martha Stewart because it’s what we have on hand)
Tape (we used Painter’s Tape because it’s extra sticky)
Cotton Balls
Clothespins
Paper Plate (or paint pallet)
Color Paper (card stock thickness is best so it doesn’t warp)

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The first step was to choose the colors. Sophia is just beginning to learn about color mixing so I chose the paints this time. Choosing colors that were similar that I knew wouldn’t mix to make brown was my goal. I knew she’d want pink so I chose a bright pink, light pink and coral. As long as you choose a few colors in the same family they will blend nicely.

She wanted a heart so I cut a simple template out of card stock colored paper and taped it extra well with painter’s tape. I let her use the clothespins to pick up the cotton balls and choose which paints she dabbed where. This was a good exercise in her motor skills and creating something how she wanted (with some guidelines I’d already put into place.) TIP: Having a cotton ball and clothespin for each color was helpful to keep the colors separated. If she wanted to blend the colors she would just mix them on the shirt rather than on the pallet.

The shirt turned out cuter than I thought it would and the best part is how proud she is of her shirt that she made. TIP: Have your child try the shirt on after washing and before painting to make sure it’s a good fit. This shirt is a little big on her but it will get tons of use before next year’s Valentine’s Day!

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