Pumpkin Shirts for Kids

This post contains affiliate links. Please see full disclosure here.

Thanksgiving is weeks away and even though we should talk about what we are thankful for throughout the entire year, often times we wait until the month of November to do this. I love to sit with my kids and talk to them about what everyone is thankful for and also remind them of what we should all be thankful for. As a fun way to create a keepsake that they can look back on, I thought that it would be fun to create a ‘sort of’ simple DIY for the kids. Since it is still pumpkin season and my kids are similar to a mini pumpkin patch, I wanted to create pumpkin shirts for kids. This is a DIY that has to be planned, prepared for ahead of time and is best done by more than one person. I did it alone and survived but my biggest advice is to grab another adult to help out.

For these pumpkin shirts, you will only need a few simple supplies:

• White shirt or onesie: I like to use Rabbit Skins or this brand. It’s important to use a shirt that is not too thin so that the paint does not bleed through the shirt.
• Paintbrushes: I like to use these sponge type of paintbrushes when I paint the palm of the kid’s hands. It tickles them less.
• Paint Pallet: A simple paper plate will do.
• Black fabric marker: Depending on your preference you can use a thicker tipped fabric marker or a thinner tipped fabric marker such as this one. I prefer the thinner tipped since it was easier to write with.
• WaterWipes and Paper Towels: Expect a mess, so make sure to have plenty of WaterWipes and paper towels ready! You don’t have to use WaterWipes, you could use wet paper towels, but I recently did a WaterWipes post that you can find here and I absolutely love them.
• Acrylic Paint: You will need green paint, orange paint, and brown paint. My favorite to use is Marth Stewart or if I cannot find her paint then I use Apple Barrel, sadly for this project I was out of both.

The first step is to place a paper towel inside the shirt so that you can make sure that the paint will not bleed through. Then you will paint your child’s palm orange, place it firmly onto the shirt, and then lift it up carefully. Once the pumpkin has dried, paint the pumpkin stem brown, and the leaf green. It’s that simple!

After the pumpkin, stem, and leaf have dried write the name of the child underneath their palm. You will continue this with each child in the class or group. At the top of the shirt, I wrote: I am thankful for… On the back of the shirt, I placed my palm print and hand as well.

As I was making these shirts I learned a lot of helpful tips, especially since I was working with a variety of different aged children. A few things you may want to consider are: seek the help of an adult, lay each shirt out and create an assembly line, if you are working with a child under 2 have an extra blanket to cover yourself and the child with (their hands tend to go everywhere and are not very cooperative) and have a lot of WaterWipes available.

I love the idea of creating a pumpkin shirt for kids. This is a shirt that kids can hold onto and put in their memory box so they can look back on their preschool days. If you love fun DIY shirts like this, take a look at my Halloween Shirt for Kids and Rainbow Friendship Shirt for Kids.