Detailed Freezer Paper Stenciling

So I, and I know you have also, seen a million freezer paper t-shirts/designs. I have only used the technique on some fabric favor bags for my sons' birthday party. But I got this really great idea to make t-shirts for my family to wear to the hospital to welcome my sister's baby  (she had the baby by the way, a boy, Liam a couple days ago) and so I wanted to practice with the paper and see just how detailed the technique would allow me to go.

So I used a couple dollar store tee shirts and got to cutting...

The robot turned out the best, I think because the silver paint was thicker... or maybe because it was the 3rd shirt I had done and I was just better at it?

In case you didn't know, here's how I did it:

Draw out, or print out, the image you want on the shirt in the size you want. Black out the areas that you are cutting out (they will be the parts that will be painted) so these black areas on the mermaid princess will actually be white from the paint.

Trace it on to the freezer paper, not the waxy side.

Cut out the areas that you are going to paint. I tried to leave most of the image connected so I didn't have a lot of little pieces floating around but I did have a few in the hair.

I decided not to cut out any pieces from her face and just drew them in with a small paint brush after I pulled off all the paper.

Next, iron. I think it worked the best with a really hot dry iron. Do not pull it up to reposition, this is a one shot thing. The wax will melt a little into the fabric and hold it in place but once removed it won't work again.

A couple of my edges didn't stick well but when I was sponging on the paint I just made sure to sponge only on top of the paper to lay it down and the paint held it there pretty good.

I sponged on 3 layers of the white paint since I was painting a light color onto a darker shirt. For the robot shirt I only did 2 layers.

After the shrits are dry, pull the paper away and you are done!

The kids are happy with the way they turned out.... mostly because they were what they asked for.

Julia loves mermaids and princesses, in fact she wants to be a mermaid when she grows up.

Jaden thinks she is already a princess, so I made hers a fairy tale princess.

 I really like my son's, it really makes a plain shirt special.

 I also really like the silver paint, need to come up with an idea for a shirt for me =)

The technique worked out really good for small detailed designs, so I did end up using it for the shirts I made for my family... that is my next post!