25 March 2011

Try, try, try again! Freezer paper stencilling...

I had fail after fail with this project.  I don't know why, but it didn't like me.  I'm happy with the end result, but it took 4 t-shirts, 3 different methods, and a whole lotta cursing to get there.

It all started with my daughter coming to me on Thursday morning and telling me that on Friday everyone was going to wear t-shirts from the college of their choice to school.  Ok, well - not a problem if she wanted to got to school at UT (we live in Austin).  You can buy a UT shirt at Goodwill or the grocery store... pretty much anywhere.  But no, she wants to go to BYU, which is where I graduated from.   Proud mama I am, but I dislike this 24 hr. notice business.  And it appears to be happening more and more often.  Grumble, grumble.  

Have no fear though, I'm pretty good with my hands.  I knew I could probably whip something up for her pretty quickly.  I've seen freezer paper stencilling tutorials all over the internet, but I went with the one my good friend Char wrote up at Crap I've Made.  I really liked the look of the bleach method, so I tried that one first.  As much as I love Char, her tutorial did not work for me.  Maybe she forgot to add that you must actually BE her in order for the tutorial to work.  In fact I tried her spray bottle method as well as a bleach pen method I'd heard of.  Neither worked.  Phooey.

So, going back to square 1 and back to Char's blog, because in the end I still trust her, I tried the painting method, using this:


Worked like a charm!  For whatever reason, my bleaching technique needs a lot of work!  That's ok though, paint and I are old friends.  I should never have strayed away from it to begin with!

Today I am actually going to show you the shirt I made for my son, because I am entering it into the "Let's Hear It For The Boys" t-shirt contest over at "I Am Momma, Hear Me Roar".  And it turned out much cuter then the BYU shirt, anyway.  Tomorrow I will show you the shirt I made for my daughter, along with instructions on how to avoid my series of catastrophes.




I Am Momma Hear Me Roar


The concept for this t-shirt came to me months ago, and it sat in the back of my mind until Adriana came to me with her request yesterday.  I figured I may as well make both t-shirts as long as I was at it.  The big D, little d stand for my youngest son's name.  But I also wanted to illustrate something else that started with "D" on the t-shirt.  And so I doodled and doodled both dinosaurs and dogs until I came up with this:


Love how my little guy rocked his shirt to school this morning!  He had me scared.  No, seriously... he roared a loud and terrible roar for this picture and I had to tell him to keep it down!  Lol.

Here's a close-up:

 

I love it.  Did you know that "RAWR" is how dinosaurs say "I love you"?  

It's true. ;)

10 comments:

Angela Orr said...

I just love the shirt! Super creative :)

Amanda said...

Adorable shirt! We also made a dinosaur one.

Lisa (StuffMummyMakes) said...

That is adorable! I 'rawr' it! x

Kris @ everywhereorange.com said...

so cute!!! i love the way Rawr is written on the shirt!! i saw you at the linky party

Pickled Blu said...

RAWR is cute!

Michell @ Girl In Air said...

That's cute!! I made a dino shirt too:-)

Now I want that one too:-)

chris said...

Darling. Way to keep at it. I have a love-hate relationship with freezer paper. :)

Marcilla said...

Rawr indeed! Now I'm pondering ideas using my kids initials. I love that you used both the upper and lowercase letter.

Sabra at Sew a Straight Line said...

My five year old with love this..with a S, of course. Such a great idea, Lei.

Steph said...

Hi! So, all you did was literally paint it on with the Tulip paint? Was there anything special you had to do once it was painted on? Thanks for any help you can give me. Hopefully I didn't miss a tutorial on it. I am hoping to also whip something up for my daughter's 2nd b'day that is in 6 weeks!