Friday, January 9, 2009

Silhouette T-Shirts

Well, part of my new year’s resolution is to live more creatively. This project was an attempt at that. I also want to express more love and appreciation to my loved ones and to live more frugally…this also fits all of those as well.

I made shirts for my sister and her husband with their children on them. I made a shirt for my daughter with her daughter/my granddaughter on it. And one for my son with his dog/my grand puppy on it…he doesn’t have any kids yet.

I bought the shirts at Joann’s, for 5 of them, it was $10. I picked up a package with 4 bottles of pastel soft fabric paint for $4.99 and a package of sable hair paint brushes for $1.99. So for less than $17, I can make 5 customized t-shirts.

I got the idea from here:
www.inhabitots.com/2008/09/12/making-a-customized-silhouette-t-shirt/

This project was fairly quick to do; it took me about a week to pick the photos, print the photos, cut out the stencils, buy the materials, then actually sit down to prep and paint the shirts. Other more aggressive/less lazy people could probably finish this project in a few hours.

A couple of things I did wrong, which I’ll make note not to do next time, is I used regular paper for my templates, not the freezer paper the link suggests. Because of this, I was unable to iron the paper and have it stick to the fabric. I used tape which didn’t hold the stencil tightly to the fabric all over, especially in the center of the designs. I believe that the regular paper, probably tore more easily than freezer paper would have, leaving little pieces of paper stuck to the edges of the painted designs in spots, which I’ll try pulling off with tweezers as the link suggests.

Also, I may have used too much paint on them. It was labeled soft fabric paint, but it felt pretty stiff while I was removing the paper and tape from the shirts this morning. I’ll have to check on that more closely later.

I do have concerns though about how long the designs will last on the shirts. This paint easily washed off my brushes and hands with warm tap water, so I’m wondering how it will hold up after a few machine washings. I have never used fabric paint before, so it will be interesting for me to watch their age progression.

I still have one blank shirt…I’m contemplating a design on that one for myself…I’ll probably post it here in a few days, if it’s presentable.

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