feelin' crafty with freezer paper {my first tutorial}
6:28 PM
lately, i've been going through stuff around the house, mainly the kids clothes, and finding a bunch of new stuff that they never got around to wearing before growing like mutant weeds. it's kinda heartbreaking to find a whole pack of 12 month white onesies still in their packaging. pretty sure at some point, i had some grand plan for them that never came to fruition. i instantly had a burst of inspiration upon finding them and decided exactly what i was going to do with them. obviously it wouldn't be for my weeds, so i promptly called my bestie in dallas and figured out the sizes of her munchkins and gathered my supplies. . . .
sans onesies. have no idea where they went. of course.
baby lucas will have to wait for me to find them. in the meantime, i've gotten crafty for his older sister, miss kaylee. i realize this will totally spoil the surprise for amber, but i just couldn't resist showing off my little COMPLETED project. this is a joyous day!! not only have i completed a project, i took the step-by-step pictures, edited them, and have this tutorial ready to go ALL. IN. ONE. DAY. whew! if i had a therapist, she'd be proud of my progress!
ok, so let's gather our supplies:
- freezer paper {you can find this at your grocery store near the foil and saran wrap. i got mine at walmart - reynolds brand}
- exacto knife (gives you more control than scissors)
- cutting mat
- iron and ironing board
- screen printing/fabric ink/paint
- sponge applicator
- shirt, pants, bag, whatever you'd like to print on...
i started by sketching out a design for kaylee's shirt. you can draw something like i did, or use any sort of clip art you find.
then i went over my sketch with marker to make the lines thicker and easier to see when i traced over onto the matte side of the freezer paper.
i clipped the pages together to avoid slipping (the underside of the freezer paper is shiny and smooth.)
once the image was on the transfer paper, i cut it out using an exacto knife. at first i was trying to be a perfectionist, but quickly got over that for sanity's sake.
i wanted the finished result to be a line drawing, so cutting out the individual lines was a bit tedious. the whole time i was doing it i was becoming more and more positive that there HAD to be an easier way to do it. . . anyone heard of the silouette machine? yeah. wanted that. cutting out the larger pieces (petals) of the picture did prove easier, so i would do that first. then cut the lines away from the main page. . .
at the beginning of this i was feeling hopeful and inspired. by this point, i was feeling neck pain and finger cramps. worth it in the end though.
once you have your image cut out, it's time for the magic. take your freezer paper and iron it, shiny side down, onto the fabric. i used the highest, driest setting and went over it for a few minutes until i was sure that the paper was stuck to the shirt. the shine is actually wax that melts as you heat it with the iron.
remember, i wanted the line drawing to be the finished product, so i ironed down all of the petals leaving the shirt exposed through the lines. if you wanted the petals to be colored, you could leave the paper as-is.
now, the extra fun part! get out your paint or ink and your sponge applicator. you'll also want to put cardboard or thick paper between the two layers of fabric so the ink doesn't bleed through. i have an OVERabundance of magazines, so i just folded a sheet in half.
i found this screen printing ink in tons of colors and pretty cheap at hobby lobby at $2.99 a bottle. you can find them where the fabric paint is located. i wasn't doing any large projects so i didn't feel the need to spend an assload on the large bottles of ink (like chancellor and his lover, Yudu.)
then paint away. or dob. or whatever with your applicator. make sure the ink covers all of the areas thoroughly. i probably could have used a little more ink in some areas.
and i probably could have used a little more heat in this particular spot. my petal fell off after i applied the ink, so i was able to continue without some sort of frustrated melt down after all that cutting.
when you're done, remove the freezer paper.
yay! exactly how i wanted it to look!
the bottle says to let the ink air dry for 24 hours before you "heat set" it. i'm impatient and i think i waited 30 minutes. i put a piece of paper down over the inked area and heated the area for a few minutes on both the outside and inside of the shirt. don't skip this step! you could risk all or parts of your image washing out the first time you put it in the washing machine.
wait 72 hours before handwashing your final product. after that it should be machine washable! (otherwise, this project is 100% useless. i mean unless you dry clean your kids clothes. i do not. and if you do, you have a lot of spare time and money you could be sharing with the rest of us laundry slaves.)
i can't wait to send this out for kaylee!!! hope she likes it. now, she's gonna have to wait a bit while i locate those onesies.
send me pictures if you try this super easy project!!
2 comments
That looks so AWESOME! Thank you! She is going to love it and I can't wait for her to wear it. Great job.
ReplyDeleteAngela, this is awsome! You did a great job. You should be very proud of yourself. As your therpist would be to...if you had one. lol
ReplyDelete