Wild Kratts Power Suit T-Shirt

As the youngest of three boys, I’m disappointed to confess that JJ has a lot interests that are not particularly age-appropriate for a four-year-old. So, I’m always happy to encourage him when he gets excited by something more wholesome than Power Rangers. Wild Kratts is a really sweet show which I like, because it features brothers working together (melt this mom-of-boys’ heart), and it teaches kids about animals, while adding enough action to keep JJ engaged.

One of his friends has a Wild Kratts birthday party coming up, and I promised JJ I’d make him a Power Suit. For my inspiration, here are the cartoon celebrities decked out:

I have a habit I picked up from my mom, which is that she always wanted our costumes, which we otherwise rarely wore, to have a double-life as regular clothes. Our “angel” costumes became beloved nightgowns we wore for a long time, as did my sister’s Princess Leia costume. The kimono for my geisha costume served a long time as a (rather fancy) house robe.

So, when it came to JJ’s Wild Kratts costume, I decided to make a T-shirt instead of this vest. Hopefully it will get lots of everyday use, like our Ninjago T-shirts.

My materials were:

Plain black T-shirt
Two colors of green (or blue) fabric – I used scraps from old t-shirts
Heat’n Bond Ultra Hold Iron-On Adhesive
Clear vinyl – I cut some from the packaging from curtains

I started by pre-washing the shirt and all the fabric.

Next, I ironed some Heat’n Bond to the main green fabric and cut the following pieces:

I then ironed Heat’n Bond to the second green fabric and cut these additional pieces:
I then ironed all the pieces on to the T-shirt and sewed a circle of clear vinyl in the center to hold the “creature power discs.” Even though the Heat’n Bond is not supposed to require sewing, I do find that it eventually starts peeling, so I stitched around all the appliqued pieces with clear thread. Finally, I needed to add the creature power discs. I was excited to find that Sandy at My Geeklings had made some printable creature power discs, so I printed these out and covered them with clear contact paper. They fit perfectly inside the slot on our T-shirt!