How to: I Heart Dr. Seuss T-Shirt with Free Printable

I love Dr. Seuss! His birthday is celebrated on March 2 each year. In our school district it is a big deal! They celebrate Dr. Seuss and his writings all week long. Crazy hat day and a lunch of green eggs and ham are just a few of the things they do.

I wanted to create a fun shirt for a friend who teaches 2nd grade. The idea for this design was born while watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” back in December. When the Grinch’s heart was growing “three times that day,” I thought that would be such a cute premise for an “I heart Dr. Seuss” shirt! The colors are a little Grinchy and if you look close you can see the growing heart! My fancy friend (who did my Bless This Mess banner at the top of the page) whipped this design up for me! Thanks so much Meg!

Here is the image! You can click on it to make it larger, then right click and press save to save it somewhere on your computer. You can then open it up in Microsoft Word to get ready to print it. I would change the page margins to .5 so that it fills up the whole page! The shirt shown is an adult medium. If you are doing a child size you probably want to make the image a little smaller. You can just decide how big you want the image and adjust it in Word!

Design on a T-shirt:

Design on a store-bought canvas bag:

I know that they make an Inkjet printable fabric that is “iron-on” and not “sew-on”. I live in Themiddleofnowhere though and couldn’t find it. I bought the sew-on, not a big deal, it just adds an extra step. The t-shirts came from the craft section at Walmart and were less than $4. I’m not a Walmart woman, but I didn’t want to drive an hour and a half to go somewhere else 🙂

The directions on the Inkjet printable fabric are great! Save the image and then follow the directions to print the image onto the fabric.

Mine didn’t print perfectly in the middle or the page, so you can just trim it up with scissors.

Peel the backing from the fabric.

Now, if you found the iron on type, proceed with ironing. If you couldn’t find it, here is the middle step. I just used some Heat ‘n’ Bond Iron-on Adhesive to make my printed fabric iron-on-able.

I love Heat ‘n’ Bond and use it a lot. I have found that projects look so much more complete with a little fabric paint around the edges. It just looks finished! So use a little fabric paint around the edge of the design. I also put a little around the center heart. Use black, red, white, green, or glitter fabric paint.

My red center heart looks pretty blah here on my red shirt. I just went over it with a permanent marker to brighten up the color as a final step.

I found these simple canvas bags at Walmart too. They were just a little over $2 each. I thought they would be so cute to add this design to. It would make a great teacher gift for Dr. Seuss’s Birthday, Christmas or the end of the year! I think all teachers like Dr. Seuss; there must be some kind of unwritten rule about it.

A black t-shirt would look great too or even just a plain white one!

There you have it! A simple no-sew t-shirt to celebrate Dr. Seuss Birthday. Make one for your kids and one for their teachers too!

FYI: I strongly recommend hand washing this in cold water. Iron-ons and fabric paint just do not fare well in the washing machine. It would be worth the effort to keep the shirt nice. The printable fabric instructions also say to handwash the design in cold water to get rid of any extra ink…probably a good idea. I know I wouldn’t throw this red shirt in with my normal laundry; no one likes pink undies that should be white!

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lacier77

5 years ago

I really love your blog, and would love to feature you on mine and introduce my readers to you! Would you be interested in guest posting on my site? I am currently doing a series of posts on Dr. Seuss and love love love your idea. I was wondering if you would be interested in reblogging your post and as a guest post on my blog? Thank you for your consideration!