Make a T-Shirt Painting Smock

My older daughter’s Girl Scout troop did a painting session led by a local art instructor yesterday. Our troop leader told the girls to wear an old T-shirt so they would not get paint all over their clothes. I had wanted to make a smock of some kind for awhile now so I decided to repurpose an old T-shirt of mine. I needed something easy and fast, too.

I looked through my embarrassingly large collection of old t-shirts and found an old white one with an art picture on it. I was willing to part with it for this project. I turned the shirt over and simply cut a straight line from the bottom all the way up through the collar. I then sewed a seam along each side of where I cut. (This part could have been skipped, but I wanted a little bit of a finished look.) I don’t have a serger so I just used my sewing machine to sew two straight seams.

I cut four 16-inch pieces of grosgrain ribbon (7/8 inch). I sewed two of the ribbons under the collar on each side of the cut. Then I sewed the other two ribbons a little further down the back of the shirt. I made sure to line them up facing each other so that I could tie them together later.

I was finished!

My 3 year-old was the model while her older sister was at school. There was not much to it, and I think it served its purpose. Now the girls can use their T-shirt smocks for everyday painting projects.

Our girl scout troop had a blast painting, and Ididn't have to worry about paint spills!