Fall is coming and it’s getting colder outside – what a great excuse to stay inside and create some art with your nephew or niece!! Decorating fabric is a great project to complete either with little ones or even with teenagers. The complexity of the project and the materials can be varied depending on the age of the children that you are working with.

The fabric that can be decorated most successfully are often 100% cotton. Certain synthetic fabrics will not properly absorb or maintain the artwork’s color. T-shirt decorating is a sure fire ‘crowd pleaser’. It’s inexpensive to get a cotton t-shirt to decorate, and it’s less of a problem if the drawing doesn’t go as planned.

Other possible fabric options:
•    XXL t-shirt for a nightshirt
•    Socks
•    Canvas book bag
•    Fabrics for making book covers
•    Denim blue jeans (ask a parent first!)
•    Baseball cap.

There are several types of fabric markers, which are permanent when drawn on certain types of fabric. There are a number of brands of fabric markers. I recommend Crayola Fabric Markers which are non-toxic, and because they are less expensive and the overall experience is exactly like coloring with a regular marker. Other popular brands include Jacquard Tee Juice Fabric Markers (great smooth coverage, kind of paint-like) and Marvy DecoFabric Paint Markers (These markers are for older kids and need to be heat set for best results. However, they also will have better opacity and will be good for drawing on light and dark fabrics.)

Tips:

1)    Make sure to work on a clean, open, covered area (newspaper or butcher paper works well).
2)    Wear an apron, old clothes and short sleeves so that nothing can get ruined by the fabric inks and paints.

3)    Don’t use any fabrics that have sentimental value. Create your own ‘keepsake’ items.

4)    Always ask the children’s parents before you begin using the children’s clothing for decorating purposes to avoid trouble later. Our nieces and nephews are great, but it’s their parents that really have the final say.

5)    Your best bet is to come over armed with fabric and markers so that you aren’t reliant on any materials from someone else.

6)    Create practice drawings on paper with regular markers, in order to avoid costly mistakes that cannot be erased or changed once they are on fabric.

7)    Aim for a small project at first, and then get more adventuresome later.

8)    Put a piece of paper (or newspaper) in between the t-shirt before you start working so that the color doesn’t get absorbed from one side to the other.

9)    Try to avoid drawing on the children’s fabric. This work should represent their abilities and skills. If you can also avoid creating representational art so that they feel free to create, rather than to copy your work, that is ideal.

10)    Remind the children before you start that there’s no such thing as doing it ‘wrong.' Every line, drawing or detail can be turned into something else with a little creativity or imagination.