art smock

When I was in kindergarten (many, many years ago) we had to bring one of our dad's old shirts to use as a paint smock. (Apparently there were budget issues even back then.) Using that same dress-shirt-to-smock idea, I made my son an art smock using a thrifted men's dress shirt. The smock is worn backwards with the buttons in the back. I removed the pocket and sewed it the the front of the smock. I also cut the shirt apart, trimmed the extra fabric, and sewed it back together. This made the shirt small enough so it's not in the way but has enough room to fit over his clothes. (If you used a boy's dress shirt in a size larger than your child wears, that would probably eliminate a lot of the extra cutting and sewing.) The front of the smock complete with crusty play-doh:

The very wrinkled back of the smock (or straight jacket since he can't get out of it by himself):

My favorite part is the elastic around the wrists to keep the clothing underneath clean:

Thanks for looking!