Custom T-Shirts a La Freezer Paper

We painted up some wonderful t-shirts using the freezer paper stencil method. Brother-Bug had a friend over for the day, and knowing they would do better with a project to fill part of the day, I got some kid shirts and busted out my freezer paper.

Since we started making freezer paper t-shirts years ago, we have made or re-vamped many, many awesome shirts (and other articles of clothes). It is the rare item that does not turn out fabulous. There are sites upon sites dedicated to step-by-step DIYs for this craft, so I won't fill this page with those details.

You can Google "freezer paper shirt" and this page will come up. Of those possibilities, I like The Stay at Home Artist the best, but look around and see what you can find.

What I am writing about here is making these shirts with kids. With some preparation, it is a super easy project that even Sister-Bug could participate in, and yields a product that they feel really good about. Freezer paper shirts are great for giving new life to stained clothes. Brother-Bug's "new" elephant shirt was one we pulled out of his drawer; it was looking dingy and had a couple of unsightly bits. Carefully placing the elephant stencil over the stains made this old shirt new and exciting. I have saved plenty of clothes from the rag-bag with a little time and ingenuity and the appropriate application of a freezer paper stencil.

Essential number one: Pre-cut the stencil! This is slow and detailed work with a sharp craft knife. Better to get these ready during a quiet moment when excitement to get the project going isn't bouncing all around you.

Shirts in process - here we are waiting for the first color of paint to dry.

Essential number two: Don't conserve the freezer paper. It comes in huge rolls and if you cut the stencil out of the center of a large piece, the whole child's shirt can be tucked under the paper. Less smears, accidents, and other potentially sad incidents.

A birthday present for a spy/detective obsessed friend of Brother-Bug. 

Essential number three: Stick with one or two colors of paint, especially if you are working with younger children. In our project we used black to make outstanding silhouettes, and highlighted with the silvery metallic. Everyone was happy. We could have used my whole rainbow of fabric paint, but it would have meant a constant rotation of brushes needing to be washed, new paint colors to distribute, and so on. The older the kids, the more paint colors I will get out for play.

Sistre-Bug's shirt - she got a very basic stencil, the easier for her to paint. Yes, she painted this with very little help!

Essential number four: Have a thing to do while you wait for the paint to dry - away from the work space. While we waited we played outside. As soon as the paint was dry enough I pulled the paper off and carefully hung the shirts on a high laundry line. It's so hard for little fingers to resist checking the paint to see if it's dry.

Brother-Bug's renewed elephant shirt. So very cool.

When cutting out relief - like the insides of letters or the tracing of fairy wings, I have my own method. I'll attempt to describe it here, but I don't have pictures, so bear with me. In the past I always meticulously saved each little relief piece (the inside of the "D" in detective or each white piece in the fairy wings) and did my best to place them accurately.

See those wings? Each white bit needs to be saved and applied as its own piece. Meticulous and antsy work...

This time, I cut the wing relief in one piece, connecting each piece with a, eighth inch of freezer paper - truly stencil like. With the tip of my iron I anchored each piece in just one small area. Then with my thread-snipping scissors I went through and cut out the eighth inch connectors, leaving the true relief pieces in place as individual pieces. Once all the connectors were removed I ironed the true relief pieces down fully.

A couple more things:
*Make sure you follow the directions for setting the fabric paint. Most needs to be heat set with a dryer or an iron. Once it is well set these shirts are as washable as any other shirt.
*Pick something simple to start - words and fairy wings are very time consuming and potentially frustrating. If you haven't done this before, go for something fairly basic.
*I find it easiest to pull the paper off when the paint is barely tacky. When I've pulled it off completely dry paint it is much more difficult. Have a good pair of tweezers to lift of small paper bits.
*You can layer colors and even stencils! Your creativity and ingenuity is the limit here.

Look at this. They are so proud of themselves! And they look so sharp...

Have fun. Create well. The holidays are coming up... Who do you know who needs an awesome custom t-shirt?

Simple Saturday - Holiday Edition: Make It Ourselves

One of the things I deeply enjoy about the holidays is Creation. Baking cookies, making gifts, crafting decorations... Always the gifts we give involve some homemade elements. We buy a few things new (or "newly used" at the thrift), but I love the feeling of ingenuity I get when I create something special out of something we already have.

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This year I knitted these darling cherries as a Tree Ornament. One tradition is that the Little Bugs always find a new ornament in their Christmas stocking. Often I find nice ones at the thrift store. This year I saw this pattern online and knitted up two little cherry bunches for their Ornaments. They were fun and easy to knit, very quick, and I made them out of yarn ends that were just gathering dust at my mom's house.

Tasty tree trims - made of old scraps.

I would post some of our other creations, but I don't know who reads this and don't want to spoil any surprises. After the Holidays, when the gifts are all given, I will post more extensive pictures and descriptions of some of our creating. I've been having fun, in a financially tight year, finding what I can make with what we have or can find. I often do this, but this year I am focusing on it more than usual and having great success!

The other thing I delight in creating each year is our holiday card. Some years I draw a picture, we color copy it, and make that design into a card. The year I was 6 months pregnant with Sister-Bug we sent a standard photo card. But since then I have been getting into minimizing our card footprint. What can I use to make a fun card?

We are blessed to have the Materials Exchange Center for Community Art (MECCA) here, which is an art supply thrift store. Bins of old fabric, stacks of paper, odd bottle caps, you name it. And more than fairly priced. MECCA is a blessing when it comes to making holiday cards. Last year I scored a stack of odd shaped white card stock, 55 envelopes, and a pile of used holiday cards for $4.00. A little work with paper cutter and glue stick and I had glued the old cards to the card stock, creating new cards!

Kid writing, fabric scraps, reused card stock. Voila!

This year I made these cards - again a stack of old card stock and assorted envelopes from MECCA. I added fabric scraps from my scrap bin, and had Brother-Bug write assorted festive words on a paper, which I color copied and cut out to finish the front. I used some other old card to print out our own greeting which I glued to the inside. I like writing this - what I want and not settling for an approximation of what I want in someone elses' words. Very home made. Very us.

Making my own cards is not simple. It is, in fact, far more complicated than buying cards at the dollar store, or getting a photo card printed. But there is a blessing here. The card says "I took time to make this for you. I thought about you." At least, that's what is says to me. It also champions recycling and reusing (the genesis of the card is printed on the inside, letting recipients know it is a reused item) which is so important to think about in this season of trash.

But though it is not a simple thing, it makes me plan ahead a bit. It makes me slow down and think about people outside my immediate family and those I make or buy gifts for. It makes me stretch my creativity each year as I find something new, something fun, something that will be special when opened.