Father’s Day is just around the corner, and my children and I have been thinking of something special to make their Daddy. We decided to make some fun graphic T-shirts!  It’s something that he likes to wear, and he can use often!

Freezer paper stencils are very easy to make.  My children had so much fun making a shirt for their dad, and were so proud to show him what they made him!

To make the T-shirt, you need to gather up a few supplies.

Supplies:

- Freezer Paper (found near the saran wrap at the grocery store, one side is shiny and the other smooth)
- New T-shirt
- Exacto Knife
- Mat for cutting on
- Foam Paint Brush
- Fabric Paint (found at the craft store, I prefer the Tulip brand)
- Iron
- Print out a Design of your choice onto paper (We used some great free graphics from dafont under the dingbat section)


1. Cut of a piece of Freezer Paper, and place the shiny side down onto the cutting mat.  Tape the paper with your design onto the smooth side of the freezer paper.
2. Use the exacto knife to cut out the design. When cutting letters, cut out each individual letter.
3.  Cut out the design, and remember that you will be using the negative space as your stencil.
4.  Take off the taped piece of paper from the freezer paper remaining and place it on the t-shirt where you want the design to be.  On a medium setting, iron your stencil onto your shirt.  This should stick to the shirt well.  If you have letters, place them and iron them where you would like them to be on the shirt.  If you want to avoid paint soaking through to the other side of the shirt, you can place a piece of cardboard inside the shirt under where you are painting.


Be sure to let your special helpers come in at this point.


Ask them to paint inside the stencil.


5. Paint inside the stencil carefully, making sure to coat the entire area.  Try not to place too much paint near the stencils edge, to help avoid bleeding.
6. Fill the entire area with paint, and allow the paint to dry for 1-2 hours.
7. Carefully peel off the freezer paper.  If you are having trouble getting it up, take your exacto knife, and carefully use it to pry the paper off the shirt.
8. It should come off smooth, and have clean lines!


We made a few selections for our dad!   A #1 Dad robot! You can find the graphic from a font called WC Sold Out, and we used the font Stencil Std for the letters. You can download the template I used here.


Super Dad!  You can download the font we used here, or the template I used here.

And, the last one we did a fun retro camper T-shirt, because my children love to go camping with their Daddy!  You can find the graphic from downloading a font called Traffic or download the template I used here.

Have fun creating!

by Caroline of Armelle Blog