Making Your Own Shirts for Family Travel

When we were getting ready to move across the country and planning the path we would take to maximize learning and fun, my husband came up with a brilliant idea. He made family shirts for us. We didn’t wear the shirts every day of the trip or anything — just on the first day so that our “leaving pictures” matched and I think one other time on the trip.

It was a fun way to bond as a family and give the kids a great memory of our family travel. Seeing the pictures or wearing the shirts today helps us remember the awesome trip we enjoyed.

Since we had no idea how to find shirts, design shirts, or make shirts we had to figure it all out on our own. Even if you aren’t traveling across the country, making shirts for family travel can be handy for day trips (pretty easy to spot in the crowd), vacations, staycations, and any other form of family travel. If you like the idea, maybe this post will help you get through the process a little easier.

The first thing we had to figure out was the easiest and most affordable way to get good quality matching shirts for 10 people of mixed size and shape. We checked out a whole bunch of options — in the end we went with Hanes t-shirts because that was a great way to get 10 shirts in a variety of sizes in the same color. I think we paid $4 a shirt, and we didn’t go fancy – although the “cool dri” fabrics did tempt us. The only thing “fancy” we did was get v-necks for the girls and regular tees for the boys. Just remember that you cannot control the dryer heat in hotel laundry rooms – so if you are planning to use your shirts for a family trip buy a size larger than you need.

With the shirts on order, the next thing to do was come up with a design. My husband surfed the web and searched through the stock photo site where I had credits. He found these cute little robots. In the end, that drove the design because we chose a “robot-esque” font to match. You could also get animals, “people sticker” graphics, or any other theme you wanted. You could do a family saying, an inside joke, or just a cute photograph.

With the design completed, we needed a way to transfer the design to the shirts. We went with printable iron-on transfers and used our inkjet printer to create our design on the transfers. We washed and dried all the shirts. We made a test copy with regular paper to make sure it looked the way we wanted. We printed all the transfers.

The final step was to iron on the transfers. It was a pretty easy process, following the directions that came in the box and working SLOWLY to avoid wrinkles or errors. We ran out of transfers halfway through the iron-on process (made a mistake) and made a run to the office store.

Can you match each of the people in this picture to a robot?

One thing to consider — will you change the size of the iron-on design based on the size of the shirt or just keep the design the same size for all shirts? We chose to keep it simple and make all of the transfers the same size. You will also need to make sure your design will fit on the smallest size shirt you have.

We discovered that not all iron-on transfers are created equal. The cheaper set was a very different color than the more expensive set! They absorbed color differently. My best advice is to buy all that you will need plus EXTRAS well in advance. Like when you order the t-shirts. That way they are ready to go and you are ready for print errors.

Another tip? Don’t wait until the week before you leave to figure it all out! This is something that can be done well in advance of your family travel.

Here are the steps for making your own shirts for family travel:

1. Find matching shirts for everyone.
2. Create a design that will fit on all shirt sizes or a scalable design.
3. Purchase iron-on transfers.
4. Wash the shirts.
5. Print the transfers.
6. Iron on the design.

Enjoy your matching shirts the next time you get ready for family travel!