Last Minute Valentine's Day Shirt

Whew!  Is anyone kind of not ready for V-day to be here?

I'm not.  I just have so many heart related crafts swimming around in my head and not enough time to do them all!

Well, I had to squeeze one more shirt in before heart day gets here.

If you are at a loss for what to wear to be festive tomorrow, make this shirt real quick.  You'll look adorable!

What you'll need:

Blue & red fabric paint

Painters' tape (or masking tape)

X-acto knife & cutting board (unless you have skinny tape)

Small piece of freezer paper

Iron

Paint brushes

Cardboard (or something to put in the middle of your tee)

Here's the paint I used:

Sparkles!

So, if you have fat tape, like mine, you can cut it in half on your cutting board with an X-acto knife.

This is before I cut it.  I followed the lines (you can barely see them through the tape)

Then lay 3 pieces of your tape where you want to start on the shirt & take off the middle piece.  This will give you more accurate spacing.  Repeat until you have enough stripes.

Paint in between the tape lines.  I had just enough paint from this little bottle.  So if you are making more than one shirt, buy more than one bottle.

The bottle says you should wait 4 hours for it to dry.  Um, that is not happening.  I am like the world's most impatient crafter.  That tape came off in 30 minutes!

Then cut a heart in your piece of freezer paper (free hand it or use a template). 

Freezer paper looks like this (in case you've never bought it) & can be found on the Ziploc aisle at the grocery store.

source

Iron it down & paint your red heart.

Note: If you don't want the stripes to show through, lay a heart down before you paint your stripes.

Yay!  All done :)

Happy Valentine's Day, Everyone!

Technology and a T-Shirt Scarf

I use technology daily as do most non-Amish American people. However, I must have missed something because I am suddenly really bad at computer stuff. Namely networking internet stuff.

Why is Facebook making me feel like an 90 year old lady using a cell phone for the first time? Seriously.

Maybe I am making it harder than it actually is. Maybe I am not hip enough to hang with the cool cats. Okay, that last statement for sure put me in the senior citizen group. I’m going to start hanging out with nothing but old people. They know where it is at.

Ugh, so, FB if you are listening, I am over you. I don’t get how to link my blog to you or how to add a “like” button. I don't get it and frankly I don't really wanna get it anymore.

I am going to promote my blog the old fashioned way. I am going to make cold calls on a rotary phone and wear a sandwich board in the mall. That’s how it must be done, because clearly you cannot teach this old dog new tricks.

Whatever. I am good at email and posting hilarious cat pictures online. That’s all I need in life, really. Well, that and cake.

Here’s a fun craft to use a worn-out or somehow un-wearable t-shirt.

My poor workout shirt has a hole under the arm, which would not normally be a big deal, but when I’m in Fusion Fitness class and I catch a glimpse of myself in the wall of mirrors, I fear I look like a hobo.

So this shirt is getting a makeover.

All you need is a t-shirt, scissors and hot glue (or you can sew this closed, if that is your thing).

Lay your tee down and cut strips, keeping them connected. Stop at the pits. Here’s a diagram:

Wrap a piece of scrap around to close it and hot glue it.

Put it on and strut your stuff.

Awesome--a t-shirt necklace scarf just for you!
Craft idea from: Cut out and Keep

Freezer Paper Stencil T-Shirt Design

I love making t-shirts. I like tie-dying them, coloring on them with markers, but most of all, I like making stencils and painting them. It is so fun to think that someone is walking around wearing your art. I saved this image a few months ago because it was perfect for a hungry monster such as myself. When I found a 2 dollar tee at Target this week, I knew this t-shirt creation would come to life.

Freezer paper is used for the stencil because it has a shiny side that you can iron down onto fabric and it holds the stencil in place while you paint it, then can be easily peeled off. Very scientific.

I have probably made a gazillion shirts (that's just a rough estimate) using the freezer paper stencil method. Here's a few that I have made:



You should make one, too! It's super easy.
They would be great to make for yourself or for a gift. If you have a softball team or some other event, making your own t-shirts would be so fun and crafty!

Here's what you need:



*Freezer paper (I bought this roll years ago and I still have a bunch left)
*X-acto knife
*Image (I swear by google image searches)
*Shirt
*Surface for cutting (I have a self healing cutting mat, but have used cardboard)
*Marker/pen for tracing image (not pictured)
*Iron
*Fabric paint
*Paint brush
*Cardboard to put in the middle of your shirt
*Scissors (not pictured)

Ok, step one is tracing your image onto the freezer paper. If it is hard to see your image, press it up against a window to trace. Trace on the smooth, not shiny side.



Next, you will need to draw bridges. Bridges are for when you have an image with a detail in it that you need to hold on the shirt. For instance, if I am wanting to put the letter "O" on my shirt, if I cut out the outside of the "O", I don't want the tiny hole in the middle to fall out. Then I'd just have a circle. Um, I hope that is not confusing. See the image for a better explanation.



See-that little bridge will hold the dinosaur's eyeball there (so no paint will go there) until I can press it down with the iron.

The next step is to cut out your image with your x-acto knife. Here's an image to further illustrate the awesomeness and practicality of the bridge concept:



Now you can lightly iron your design--don't press too hard, because you will need to remove your bridges before painting. Remember to iron it shiny side down.



Clip those bridges (but don't burn bridges) with your scissors and iron it all down a little harder.



Time to paint!
Don't forget to put cardboard or something in the middle of your shirt, otherwise your shirt will get glued together with paint and you'll never be able to wear it.



Let your shirt dry for a few hours, then peel off the freezer paper. When you peel up small pieces like the eye or the middle of the "A", tweezers would be helpful, but I usually just use my fingernails.



Let the shirt dry overnight before wearing it or wrapping it as a gift.