My sports mom style usually is: whatever is clean (or semi-clean), comfortable, weather-appropriate, and okay to wear around kids (my short lounge around the house shorts- those stay home).
If I was really on top of things, I might put on a shirt that matches my kids’ team colors. But I never ordered a personalized shirt with my child’s team name or number on it. But I recently made this soccer mom shirt and I think it turned out pretty cute. Plus now I don’t even have to think about what to throw on when I’m headed to a game. And, for now, my son thinks it’s cool… though I can see myself doing things like this even when they’re in high school and a little embarrassed by mom (isn’t that what moms are for?)
I made this soccer mom shirt for under $10 and in just a few minutes. It’s so easy to make that you really don’t even need step-by-step directions but just a reminder that you actually don’t need to have much crafting ability at all to make a cute sports mom shirt. I’m just pointing it out. It’s sort of like the post I read earlier this year that was talking about how to send hot chicken nuggets in your child’s lunch. I didn’t need the step-by-step, but until I read it, it just didn’t occur to me to buy some thermoses for my boys’ lunch boxes, though I did appreciate the tip to put a paper towel in the bottom of the thermos to collect some of the moisture to keep the nuggets from getting soggy. This soccer mom shirt “tutorial” is a reminder like that.
Some crafty moms make their own decals and design really creative shirts. But if you’re a crafter like me, you like to do projects, but you aren’t all that artistic and/or you don’t have a lot of time to spend on them. So, all I did was to go to Hobby Lobby and look at the iron-on decals. I got the “Mom” decal, which is made up of lots of little decorative dots, two 8s, and then a soccer ball decal for the front. Those four decals plus the shirt were only $10. I did use a 40% off one item coupon that Hobby Lobby always has on their mobile site, but nothing else was on sale- this is really affordable.
Directions are on the decals for how to apply them, though I will share a few things that I learned.
To center my numbers, I folded the shirt in half lengthwise and then placed the first 8. I set the “mom” decal down above it so I could see how far down I wanted the numbers to go before I ironed them on, though I ironed on the mom decal after the numbers were already on so that I could use them as a centering guide.
If you’re using a decal with all the little decorative dots and one or more doesn’t come off the backing or if a piece moves out of place before you iron it on, go ahead and put those pieces off to the side and iron on the rest of it. Then, use tweezers to place those small pieces in the right spot and then iron them into place.
If you’re adding a decal on the front and it’s one that’s where a pocket would be (or near about, anyway) instead of being centered, I recommend grabbing a shirt you already have that has a decal in that spot and using it to guide your placement. If you don’t have one like that, you can put on the shirt and check in the mirror for where you want it to go and mark the spot with a pencil.
It really is easy to make a soccer mom shirt. Or really, any other sport or activity your child plays. All you have to do is take a walk down the iron on aisle in the craft store and see what’s available.