Freezer Paper Attempt #1

Tonight was my first attemp at working with freezer paper. I have seen a couple tutorials online and it seems easy enough. I am making bean bags with numbers and letters on them for the craft show in May and thought it might be easier to paint the bean bags instead of applique them. Not sure how much of a time saver it is, so the jury is still out on how I will actually make the bean bags! Here is what I did though... (and consider this my new craft of the month for my New Year's Resolution!!)

1. Use your wonderful friend's Cricut to cut out numbers on the freezer paper. Tada!! Custom stencils! Be sure to cut on the non-waxy side otherwise your stencil will be backwards!



2. Iron the stencils to your fabric. I eyeballed the middle, which is probably not a good idea and now my bean bags will look lopsided. :) Be sure to get a good seal around the edges of the number so the paint won't leak through.



3. Gather your painting supplies, only to realize you don't have white paint or a paint brush! Lovely! So, improvise with a make-up brush and use a second choice color paint. (Make mental note to get to the store to buy correct supplies!) Be sure to put your fabric on a protective covering (like cardboard) so the paint doesn't get onto the counter or table. Lightly paint the fabric. Do not paint too much on the edges of the freezer paper itself or it will leak through onto your fabric. Wait until the paint completely dries before painting the next coat. The yellow paint took three coats and the blue took two. Again, not sure if this is a time saver, but watching The Bachelor inbetween coats helped pass the time!





4. Once the paint is dry, peel away the freezer paper. Supposedly you can use the stencil a few times, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I ironed over the paint to seal it, but not sure if that worked. And it got paint on my iron which may present a problem tomorrow when I try to iron my pants for work!



And there we have it...painted numbers! Easy as can be. My next step is to sew the back and fill it will beans. That will be saved for another night when I am not busy watching ultra-important TV shows!