March 1, 2011

St. Patrick's Day t-shirt

Since St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner, it's time for another holiday-themed shirt for my son. (On a side note, I really don't think he minds the holiday-themed shirts. Last Monday he wanted to know why he didn't have a President's Day shirt to wear.) I found a clearance green t-shirt at Target and removed the pocket. This is shirt #2 since shirt #1 was a crafting disaster. Fortunately another Target had another 4T green shirt on clearance. For a good tutorial on freezer paper stencils, check out this post at Crap I've Made.



I have a love/hate relationship with my Cricut. It was a Christmas gift from my husband at least three years ago, and it has been in the box in the closet for over a year. I unpacked it again because I was determined to make this work. After a frustrating hour resulting in a ton of destroyed freezer paper, a trip to Michael's for new blades and cutting mats, and a lot of research on the internet--success!


I found some good Cricut/freezer paper advice here. I used the Jasmine cartridge to cut 4 inch letters for the word "Lucky" and the Plantain Schoolbook cartridge to cut 2 inch letters for the word "boy." I set both my speed and pressure to "medium" and the blade depth to "5." I used the "flip" feature since you put the freezer paper shiny side up and need to cut the letters in reverse. When using the "flip" feature to cut out words, be sure to enter your word in the reverse order. (So I typed in "ykcuL" for "Lucky" and "yob" for "boy.") Also make sure "Real Dial Size" is not engaged.

I then inserted a piece of cardboard into the shirt so paint wouldn't soak through and folded the sleeves under the shirt. Because somehow I managed to get paint on the sleeve of craft disaster shirt #1.


I used white Tulip fabric paint and a foam brush to paint the letters. To avoid getting paint under the freezer paper stencil, I used a "dabbing" motion rather than brushing the paint on.



After one coat of paint. . .



After 4 or 5 coats of paint. (I lost track.) I let it dry at least 45 minutes to an hour between coats.

After my final coat of paint, I let it dry overnight. Carefully remove the freezer paper.



There are a few areas where some paint seeped under the freezer paper, but it still turned out pretty good. Hopefully it still looks this good after washing it.



And because you're all dying to see it, craft disaster shirt #1.

Even though it is tempting, do not remove the freezer paper while the paint is still wet. You'll get paint everywhere. Thanks for stopping by!

1 comment:

  1. I love that you keep it real by showing us the disaster one too. I have freezer paper, but no digital cutter. I can trace a mean letter...LOL...going to try my hand at this soon...

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