Ever since I received my Cricut back in December of 2016, I have been dying to try and personalize some shirts. Everyone knows about heat transfer vinyl, however it is quite expensive and I am just too terrified I will mess it up. So, I have tried several ways to personalize shirts using my Cricut's cutting capability. One of the main ways I have tried to personalize shirts is by making stencils. Freezer paper is great for shirt stencils, because it can be ironed down onto the fabric and remain in place. You can paint over it without it bleeding through onto the fabric. When it's time to remove the freezer paper it peels off very easy and leaves no residue.
This is how I made some personalized gifts for a friend's baby shower with the use of freezer paper. I picked up three baby onesies and an owl blanket. I first created the designs on my Cricut design space. I made it scale to size based upon the size of the item I was putting the design on.
The first thing I made was the baby's monogram and I decided it would be good to put it on the owl blanket.
I made sure the image was sized correctly for the blanket.
I put the freezer paper shiny side down onto the sticky mat.
I set my Cricut to cut with the same pressure as when cutting regular vinyl.
I had it cut out the image onto the freezer paper.
I set my iron to the highest heat setting, cotton.
I ironed the blanket to make sure I got all of the wrinkles out before I began to iron on the stencil.
Since the stencil comes up in multiple pieces, I had to iron each individual piece separately onto the blanket.
I thought it was going to be a lot more difficult to iron on each individual piece of the stencil then it actually was. I think the hardest part of this process was just peeling up the individual pieces from the sticky board.
Once I had all of the individual pieces of the stencil ironed onto the blanket, I continued to iron making sure that the sides of the stencils were secure so that no paint could seep through.
Now it was time to get painting. When painting on fabric you either want to get paint specifically made for fabric or use fabric medium. I always use fabric medium. You can mix it half and half with any paint and it'll soften up the paint and keep it from drying hard. The fabric medium also helps the paint properly adhere to the fabric material. Using fabric medium also helps increase the potential color options for your designs.
I mixed together equal parts fabric medium and black acrylic paint.
I made sure that the paint would bleed through the onto the surface/ fabric below.
I painted over the stencil, being careful not to mess up any edges.
Once the paint was dry I removed the freezer paper.
I repeated this same method for all of the additional items I decided to gift for my friend's baby shower. The second design I created was inspired by some pins on Pinterest. The quote I put on one of the onesies said, "The snuggle is real."
The next onesie I personalized a designed so that it would have two different colors. So when doing this design I had to used the stencils in layers and waited for each layer to dry.
This is the final product after finishing all three designs.
This method has it's advantages and disadvantages. It does take a some time, with all the painting and waiting for it to dry. Also it can be a little tedious dealing with complex stencils. However, if you're trying to save your money then this is a great route to take. There's also many other ways you can use the freezer paper stencils which is mention all across Pinterest and other blogs.
If you're wanting to try out this method and have any questions or want additional advice feel free to ask. I would love to answer any questions you have. Thanks so much for reading.
Lots of Love,
Kayla