Create a hand-made Canada 150 t-shirt!

You are invited to lend a hand and help City Parent celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.

Create a personalized Canadian flag t-shirt that features your hand print as the maple leaf and send us a photo and/or video of you wearing it. Share it with us and if you create a video be sure to give your country a shout out by saying “happy birthday Canada” or some other fitting salutation.

Here’s how to craft your t-shirt.

You’ll need:

• white t-shirt

• red acrylic or craft paint (not Trempera)

• paper plate (waxed)

• several sheets of tissue paper or parchment paper

• your hand

• iron

What to do:

Place t-shirt front side up on a work surface. Insert four layers of tissue paper or single layer of parchment paper inside the shirt to protect the back from the wet paint.

Put a generous blob of red paint on the plate.

Place one hand in the paint and move around until the palm is covered in a relatively even layer of paint.

Place the painted hand, with fingers spread wide, in the centre of the t-shirt at the desired location of the flag design. Press to leave a handprint. You may need to apply a small amount of pressure on the top of the hand to ensure the entire handprint is recreated.

Using fingertips dipped in leftover paint, create the flag’s red stripes by dabbing overlapping fingerprints to fill a rectangular shape on either side of the “maple leaf”.

Wait for paint to dry then make the painting permanent by ironing over the design at a medium heat setting. Protect the iron by covering the painted area with two or three sheets of tissue paper or a layer of parchment paper.

Share it with us!

Try on the t-shirt and share a photo of your creation with City Parent on social media. A video would also be great. Be sure to tag @cityparent’s timeline

(Facebook) and @CityParentMag (Twitter) and use the hashtag #Canada150.