Painting on Fabric

No, that’s not the new name of our home. Although it probably fits right now. This is the week of the drama performance for Gabriel and Benjamin. Which means they have practice for 3 or more hours each day except Wednesday.

Their play is called Kamp Kaos. So far, I haven’t seen any of the play. I’m pretty excited about that. In order to not be the slacker mama I offered to stencil the t-shirts for all the campers.

We used freezer paper, acrylic paint and a textile medium to make the acrylic paint not get super hard and crack when we wash the shirts.

First thing to do is to print up your design. We just printed on regular paper and then taped that to the freezer paper but you can cut your freezer paper to 8.5″X11″ and run it through your printer.

Next, use an xacto knife and cut out the letters (or design).

Iron the shiny side of the freezer paper to the shirt. The freezer paper will stick to the shirt. If you have a lot of edges like I do, make sure that they all get pressed down.

Put a second piece of freezer paper INSIDE the shirt with the shiny side up to keep the paint from bleeding onto the back. I forgot to do this to one of them (it’s important). Don’t use regular paper – it will stick to paint (trust me on this one).

Mix your paint and textile medium together following the instructions on the back of the textile medium bottle. Then paint it on the stencil.

Let dry. You don’t have to let it dry completely but I would let it dry for a while.

Carefully lift one corner of the freezer paper and slowly work your way around the paper lifting it up. If you notice that the paint is pulling up, use your finger to hold down the shirt to loosen it from the paper. (If the paint is dry, if no, wait until it is.)

Enjoy your shirt!

Patty

Wednesday 6th of March 2013

I love how this turned out. What a neat idea and I'm thinking this would work well for future Christmas gifts. Perhaps a person could do a simple picture, such as a dog or cat, and then add a name or fun saying under the picture. Where do you get textile medium? At a craft store?

Angi Schneider

You could. A while back we did one a onesie with the baby's name in cursive and put ruffles on the back. It turned out so cute. http://www.schneiderpeeps.com/2011/04/baby-shower-gifts.html

The textile medium can be found near the small craft bottles of acrylic paint. I got mine from Hobby Lobby but I bet Walmart would carry it if they have the acrylic paint.

I can't wait to see what you come up with.