For the Hubby’s birthday, we decided not to spend too much on the gifts to each other. I was trying to think of something creative to make him when I realized that he has so many old t-shirts that he never wears but just can’t throw away. I have been meaning to put them on a canvas to hang in his “man cave” for a while, but just haven’t gotten around to it. This would be the perfect project for his birthday!
He was gone last weekend on a golf trip, so I had the perfect opportunity to make these wonderful t-shirt canvases for him!
I started by gathering all of the materials I needed to complete the project. I purchased 3 canvases at Michaels craft store. I made sure to get the cheap canvas since I was not painting on them. I had my husband’s shirts, a staple gun, sharp scissors, and I ended up using my fabric cutter as well. Taking one of the t-shirts, I cut off the back so I could fit it on the canvas.
After laying the t-shirt over the canvas, I then pulled the t-shirt over the top of the canvas and put in one staple. Using this one staple as an anchor for the t-shirt, I pulled the bottom of the t-shirt over the bottom of the canvas and put in one staple. Make sure to pull the t-shirt really tight as they can be really stretchy!
I turned the canvas over to make sure the t-shirt was not bunching anywhere and proceeded to put one staple on the left and right side of the canvas before moving onto the corners.
With the corners, I laid the top of the t-shirt flat over the top of the canvas and folded the side of the t-shirt over the top part. To secure this, I added a staple. Any extra material I just cut off, but made sure to pull the sides really tight!
I continued this process with the remaining 3 corners. Then went on to staple the remainder of the t-shirt to the canvas. I made sure to pull the t-shirt really tight as I was stapling so there would be no bunching once I was completed. I used a lot of staples because this shirt was really stretchy! If I were to do it again with this same material, I would purchase iron-on batting like this to put on first to make it not so stretchy!
Once the t-shirt was really good and stapled to the canvas, I cut off the excess fabric with my sharp scissors.
And ta-da…the final product!
I repeated this process with two other shirts. One was a thicker material making it much easier to secure and the other was a jersey that I needed to get stronger staples for! My suggestion for making this a quick and easy project is to see how stretchy your material is before you start cutting. If you have really stetchy material, then iron-on batting will be a time saver! If you have really thick material, then making sure your staple gun can handle that thickness and get strong staples!
I am so happy with how they turned out and they look great hanging in the “man cave”!
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