This summer, when I was staying with my sister for a week, we stenciled T-shirts with the kids. I had been seeing things online about freezer paper stencils and I really wanted to try it out. It sounded pretty fun and relatively easy. And, because my husband is a hunter, freezer paper is something we have laying around the house. Bonus! Also, because I was at my sisters, we were able to use her Cricut to cut out the shapes we wanted. At my house I probably would have had to do it by hand.
Genius!
Supplies:
*Freezer Paper (sorry no picture) You can find it in the same aisle as aluminum foil and cling wrap.
*A way to cut out a stencil or desired design - we used the Cricut but you could do it by hand with an Exacto knife.
*T-shirt - I found ours at JoAnn fabrics for less than $3.00 each
*T-shirt paint - we used Tulip Brand
*Paint applicators
*Iron
After cutting out your desired design, you then place it on your t-shirt shiny side down. Use your iron to secure it to the shirt. It won't take too long
Place some kind of paper or protective barrier between the layers of your t-shirt to prevent the paint from bleeding through.
It's time to start applying the paint:
We put a small amount of paint in a small plastic cup and used the paint pouncers to apply it. It was important to make sure you put a thick enough layer of paint on if you wanted it to be a uniform color.
I especially wanted a thick enough coat of paint with the white paint I was applying on the dark blue t-shirt. I wanted to make sure that the bird really 'popped' and didn't look washed out at all.
When you are all done painting, carefully peel up the freezer paper. Be very careful that none of the paper with wet paint on it accidentally touches your t-shirt. The freezer paper made a really good seal and we didn't have any problems with bleeding through the lines. It left a very crisp picture.
Set your finished t-shirt aside and let it dry completely.
Be sure to read the instructions on your paint bottle, some of the paint needs to be heat set before you wash it.
Here are all of the designs we made that day.
Although this was a craft activity that the kids couldn't do all of the steps on, they still enjoyed it and really loved wearing their shirts when they were all done.
I thought it was a pretty simple craft overall with a really good result. I was slightly stressed as I was helping them paint, just making sure they didn't spread the paint on the outside of their stencil or gob it on too thick, but that's just me.
I bought 4 small bottles of paint and I have enough paint after making all of these shirts to do the same amount of shirts all over again. The paint stretches pretty far. At only about $1.75 a bottle, that's a pretty good value.
I really like the results of the shirt I made for myself and think it looks really nice. It would be hard to tell it apart from a store bought shirt.
So, I encourage you to get some freezer paper and some t-shirt paint. The possibilities are endless and the results could be amazing!
Craft on people, craft on!
-Jana
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