Spraypaint a Shirt – cub scout tshirts

I’m finally digging out of the funk of Cub Scout Day Camp – – I did this before then (obviously) but am just now getting around to posting about it…  Anyways, we are given tshirts for camp on Sunday afternoon – camp is bright and early Monday morning.  So we had an evening to somehow mark the boys so we could keep track of our troop (all the boys at the camp – millions of them – wear the same shirt) – I thought the quickest way was spraypaint.  And so I tried it….

here’s my tips and tricks on how to spraypaint a shirt – a quick tutorial….

First off, I’d recommend washing the shirts if they’re new.  I didn’t do that but wish I would have.

I made stencils using my Silhouette Cameo and cutting big numbers out of contact paper (so I didn’t waste precious vinyl).  The numbers are big enough that you could hand cut them if you want.  Then adhere that to the back of the shirts (we made them slanted so they didn’t have to be perfectly straight) – I enlisted help with the task:

Next up, make sure the area is protected, or go outside.  Grab your spraypaint – nothing special about it – just the $1 can from Walmart….

Now, this is where things went wrong for a minute or two and I thought I was doomed to ruin 20 shirts….wondering why I ever thought spraypaint would work….

I sprayed it and didn’t see much, so I sprayed it really really heavily – – it ate away at the contact paper and the shirt was so saturated that it bleed and seeped –

 and it turned out like this – – it worked, but it wasn’t what I pictured.

 I did about 4 like this and then got the crazy idea to just spray it normal-to-lightly instead of super heavy – – it didn’t seem like the white was dark enough, but I peeled away the contact paper, and voila:

 Now THAT’S what I pictured!!  And they went so much faster without soaking each shirt in paint.  So that’s the way to go – just a normal once-over spray layer.  Then I did a whole bunch more:

And I’m sure you wanted a picture of the shirts in action – it really did help us to keep track of our boys:

So if you ever need to make a group of shirts in a hurry, I’d recommend spraypaint!