Saturday, February 6, 2010

Big/Little Brother T-shirts

For the life of me I could not find a "Big Brother" t-shirt in Weston's size. Granted most 19 month olds are not big brothers yet but still...that's no excuse! I'm sure I could have checked the internet or paid someone else to make me one, but I thought it would be more fun to do it all by myself. With all the snow we have had this weekend, I figured this was the perfect time to work on this project! So here it is...

I first learned about freezer paper stenciling from reading Samster Mommy's blog; however, I followed this website's direction since they were a bit more detailed on the process. Ok so here we go...

First I asked my friend Kristin to make a design (free) for me since she is amazing at graphics and I haven't quite mastered that craft yet.....So here is what she came up with:

Then...I traced the design onto the non-waxy side of freezer paper ($5.99 at Walmart)

Next was the grueling process of using an X-acto knife (already in my craft drawer) to cut the design out. Because this design was pretty detailed, it took me a few hours to cut out but it was definitely worth it to get the final outcome! I def made a few mistakes like forgetting to bridge the cut out in the "R" but it was nothing major and all fixable when it came to ....

The ironing stage! After ironing (who doesn't have an iron?) the stencil onto the t-shirt ($3.50 a piece at Walmart) I went back and fixed any mistakes. See how the "R" looks right now? I also cut the bridges off of all the letters using the X-acto knife. You have to be careful doing this so you don't cut the fabric!

Time to paint ($12 for 3 paints and 3 sponge brushes at Michaels). I'm impatient so I did all my colors at the same time. I didn't have any smears thank goodness!

My work space....
An hour and two coats of paint later it was time to see the final results! Taking the stencil off was so much fun! Next time I'll read the tips first and do a base of white so the colors pop out more. This being my first time though I think they turned out FABULOUS!!

Here is an improv fashion shoot...over top of pajamas! Hehe. One of my models was being feisty...(priceless!)

Little Brother Ferrante!

Big Brother Ferrante!

For about $25....this was the perfect snowy day project!!!

4 comments:

Natasha said...

WOW. Seriously, how the heck did you cut out all those details with an exacto knife?! WOW girl, wow!

Miranda said...

Um yea...it took me FOREVER! Haha. But totally worth it!

Randi~Dukes and Duchesses said...

Those are really cute!

Andrea @ TheTrainToCrazy.com said...

Nicely done!! I love them! If you are interested, stop by and link up to Make it, Wear it!