Use it or Lose it: E.T. shirt

About two weeks ago, we had a special family movie night and watched “E.T.” It was Parker’s first time seeing it, and my first time since I saw it in a movie theater when I was nine years old. It was just as good as I remembered, if not better. But unlike when I was a kid, this time, I cried and cried … and cried …. at the end! Parker was not so emotional, but he did really enjoy it, so I decided to make him a shirt similar to the E.T. movie poster.

In keeping with my “use it or lose it” resolution, I used a black t-shirt I picked up at Michael’s when it was on sale for $2.50 and some textile paints I purchased a while back but had yet to try out. I also used some adhesive vinyl to make a stencil using my Silhouette machine. (Had I known it would come out so well, I would’ve taken step-by-step photos!)

Making the stencil was easy: I found a picture of the E.T. poster online, copied it into  Photoshop and enlarged it to the size I wanted. I then used the “magic wand” selection tool to select just the silhouette of Elliott and E.T., smoothed the edges a bit and filled it in with black. This step makes it easier to trace in the Silhouette software.

So what I ended up with was a vinyl stencil, with a big circle cut out for the moon and the letters “E.T.” cut out underneath, and a little “sticker” in the shape of Elliott and E.T. Once I had it stuck to the shirt, it took less than five minutes to paint. Really, all I did was dab white paint on the shirt, almost randomly, with a few dabs of blue added at the end. The way the black shirt shows through really made it look like the surface of the moon! It was so easy I’m tempted to make another one for myself.

And here’s a silly picture of our cat Marmalade. The morning after we watched the movie, I happened to throw all of Parker’s stuffed animals on his bed so I could vacuum, and Marmalade jumped up in the middle. It reminded me a bit of the scene from the movie when E.T. is hiding among all the toys and stuffed animals!