It’s been a week for late nights. Big L and I enjoy staying up together– playing card games or practicing language or whatever. But, the past few days, I’ve been busy, so our late nights have been filled with doing. Reed’s birthday is tomorrow, so I need to bake his cake + school cupcakes and make his birthday shirt.

I made Reed and Lena their first birthday shirts before they were even home, because it seemed like a cute, Pinteresty thing to do. Now, the kids love them and still want them each year. Last year, when I did Reed’s birthday shirt, I told myself I’d just start buying birthday shirts off of Etsy. So, it seems like a great idea and that’s what I did for Lena this year, but I couldn’t remember to order one for Reed in the midst of the holiday season.

Cue making a shirt at 8:30 the night before.

I haven’t been screenprinting much lately, so I didn’t have everything set up to do that quickly. Painting by hand it was.

I made my own little DIY lightbox, small enough to fit inside the shirt. I just took a clear plastic storage container and put my phone + another flashlight inside to make this little lightbox, then I put the printout between the box and the shirt. Super easy.

It worked really well!

Big L played cards with Aaron, then came and sat across the able from me, working in an ESL workbook.

This is the almost finished product. It made a final pass over the black outline to get it a bit cleaner looking.