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For Church Kids Camp this year one of the special costume nights was “Twin Night” so I decided to make twin shirts for all four boys and the two counselors (my hubby being one of them) in my son’s group. Yes, I know a set of six babies are not called twins, they’re called sextuplets but that would’ve been really awkward on these shirts, yes? So, for the purpose and fun of this costume night, I made shirts for TWINS 1-6.
If you’ve ever seen my tutorial for my No-Sew Dr. Seuss Thing One and Thing Two shirts I made a few years ago for my boys, then you’ll see that they were my inspiration for this project as well. In fact, the steps towards the end of this one will be the same as those.
Before we get to that though, I want to give you a PicMonkey tutorial on how to make the TWIN 1 and TWIN 2 graphic for your shirts, should you ever wish to make these or something similar for yourself.
Bear with me, this is my first PicMonkey tutorial, although I’ve used it for a few years now. I’ll try to keep it simple, but feel free to email me if you have questions. I’m an amature, I don’t use Photoshop because it doesn’t make sense to me, but PicMonkey does. So if you’re in the same skill level as I am, this tutorial is for you.
Okay, let’s begin.
*Updated October 2017
Since my original post, PicMonkey has added some great editing options, so I’m updating this post to reflect those changes 🙂
Start by heading to PicMonkey. If you’re not familiar with the program, it’s a free online editing program, with the option to upgrade for additional fun editing features.
When you open it, the editor is automatically opened to Canvas Color, and simply click the box that says transparent canvas, and click apply. Voila!
On the left side, click the butterfly image, and then click Geometric.
You’ll find a circle, click the corner of the image pull it to enlarge it to as big as it will get within the square.
I left mine black because I want it to be an outline of my graphic.
Next, click circle again and drag the button in the color box there to give your new circle a different color. Make your second circle large enough so that it fits inside the black circle. This gives your new circle a nice crisp black outline.
Two Ways to Curve Text on PicMonkey
For the text, there are two ways to curve it exactly the way you’d like it.
For this project I used the CHELSEA MARKET font for the words and CHUNK FIVE font for the number, and adjusted them to white.
Option One
The first way is to use the built in curved text feature.
To use the CURVE feature, simply type out your text and in the editing box that pops up on the side, click EFFECTS and you’ll see options to STYLE and to CURVE. Click curve and a drop down menu will appear to either ARC or CIRCLE. Click Arc to curve your text. Then there’s a slider bar that will help you adjust the amount of curve you give to your word.
That’s the first way. You’ll find that you’re a tiny bit limited to where each letter is, even after you manipulate and resize and stretch your text. It works really well for some projects but maybe not all.
Option Two
If you find that your word still isn’t looking exactly the way you want, your second option to curve text on PicMonkey is to manually curve each letter.
You’ll want to click ADD TEXT for each individual letter and resize each letter to match the others. I didn’t get real specific for this project, just kind of eyeballed it so they were close.
To move each individual letter, grab the circle at the top of the white box around the letter to tilt it, and click the center of the letter to move it. Once your letters are on, go ahead and tilt and move them to follow the top curve of the circle.
Again, I didn’t get too OCD about tilting them up exactly perfect for this project, but feel free to do so if you’re a perfectionist.
Once the letters were all curved in place where I wanted them, I added the number.
When you’re happy with the way it looks, click EXPORT to name & save your image. Then click the back arrow and change your number to the next twin, and repeat the save process. Do this until you’ve made enough twin shirts. Again, in my case that was six of them.
Now that you have your image ready, just paste or drop it into your word or pages program to the size you’d like it printed.
Following THIS tutorial for my Thing One shirts, it’s time to print them onto your heat transfer paper and then iron the design onto your shirt.
That’s the final step.
I always wait several days before washing the shirts to be sure they set. Whatever heat transfer paper you choose to use will have specifics on how to care for your final product.
And in case you were wondering if we won the Twin Costume night? Oh yeah baby, with some orange hair paint and these shirts, you bet we did!
I just wish the pic was better, but I wasn’t at camp and this is the only one I received from my husband from his phone. A photographer he is not. The best camp counselor and most awesome Twin Six on the planet? For sure!
I use PicMonkey to easily create all my graphics. If you’re a new user, it’s free to try all of the features, and if you love it you can start a free trial in order to save your designs to Hub, create custom effects, and share and export your work.
Be sure to check out my No-Sew Thing One and Thing Two Dr. Seuss shirts that inspired this project!
I love the shirts, they're so cute. Thanks for sharing your pic monkey tutorial.