Freezer Paper Stencil

Hubs is taking the older 2 kids to a football game in October. We needed kids t-shirts and decided to make our own. I had never done freezer paper stencils but had seen them around blog land a couple of times and most recently on franticallysimple.com.


What I bought: solid t-shirts for the kids (thrift store), freezer paper (look where you would find aluminum foil or saran wrap-I got mine at walmart), acrylic paint, textile medium (I got mine at a craft store-it was with the plain t-shirts and puffy paint.) The bottle looks just like a bottle of acrylic paint. I also picked up some foam paint brushes so I could just toss them when I was done.


What I already had: an exacto knife, an iron, a t-shirt with the decal I wanted so I could use it to make the stencil.

So first I stuck my existing t-shirt under my freezer paper (paper side up, plastic side down) and traced the design.


Then I cut out the stencil with an exacto knife.



Then I ironed the freezer paper onto the new shirt. Again, paper side up, plastic side down. This will temporarily adhere the paper to the shirt but you can easily peel it off with no residue on the shirt after painting. It helps create a nice, crisp line for your design. I made sure it was ironed really well so no paint would get under the paper.

Mix your paint with your textile medium according to the bottle directions. Mine was 2 parts paint to 1 part medium. I painted starting on the paper and painting toward the cloth to avoid forcing any paint under the paper should there be a spot where the iron didn't get it down really well. P.S. You probably want to put some cardboard or something inside the shirt to avoid bleeding any paint to the backside. I didn't have any paint bleed through at all, but you never know.


Then I filled in the rest. I used a blow-dryer to help dry the paint between coats. It took 2 coats plus a third touch up coat to get it nice and bright white.
Don't remove the stencil until you have all your coats done.
I dried it really well with the hair-dryer and then followed the bottle directions which were to turn it inside out, cover the design with a cloth and iron for 20 seconds while moving the iron around the design.
Here are the 3 finished products! Pick a design and get busy! We have some ideas about coordinated family t-shirts personalized just for us. The possibilities are endless!

GO COUGS!!