My inspiration for this post comes from How About Orange’s post on freezer paper stenciling. I think I was too intimidated by the very fancy (to my eye) design featured there and so I didn’t dare try it for a while. But finally I found myself with some freezer paper, a little time, and a desire for some fancy-type linens.
My materials:
Freezer paper (purchased at the grocery store)
An X-acto style cutting implement (as with everything else on the list, purchased at Hobby Lobby)
What Hobby Lobby called a “kerchief” and I’m calling a “napkin”
This was a big project for me for one simple reason. I’m terrified of X-acto knives and their whole family. This is a perfectly practical phobia. For the projects I enjoy I can almost always get around knife use by using a really sharp tipped pair of scissors, but sometimes you just have to face that fear, you know?
I washed the napkin before I started, just to make sure that any shrinking that would be done would… be done. I also ironed the cloth before I tried to work with it. I looked up teacup in the Google Image search and found one I liked. I was going to print it out, then trace it, but after a second I realized that I could save a fair amount of time and trouble by just putting the freezer paper on the computer screen and lightly tracing with a pencil. I cut the tea cup with the knife (I did it!) and made sure to save all the parts, both the cut out image, the outline, and the little bit that I cut out that forms the handle.
I ironed the cup in one corner and ironed the outline on the opposite corner. I had overestimated how hard it would be to get the little piece inside the handle in place. I played with it for a second until it looked right and then touched down the tip of the iron to give it an initial sticking place, then ironed the whole thing. I put my iron on the cotton setting, and went over the design a few times. The key is especially to make sure that all of the edges have been secured so that paint doesn’t seep under them.
I put a ribbon of paint around the tea cup and at the top of the outline.
While there are fancy paint spreading squeegees you can get for this kind of thing, but I used regular old sponge brushes to do it and they worked just fine. I made sure that I had good coverage where I wanted it and used the brush to sop up a little extra paint. I then left the whole thing to dry for a few hours.
I was worried that it would be difficult to peel the freezer paper off, but once the paint was dry I just had to get a finger nail under the edge and it peeled off quite easily.
Not bad, huh? I’m dying to try it on a t-shirt.
The Freezer paper stenciling by FasterCraft, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
