Graphic Halloween Shirt - Tutorial!

Have I mentioned before that shopping for my precious baby boys is depressing? It is so hard to find cute boy stuff! I HATE that I go to a store like Target, Old Navy, or Kohl's (yes, we are on a budget here!) and there are racks and racks AND RACKS of girl clothes but only half the selection for boys. And usually the selction for boys have dorky/ugly cartoon figures. Yuck.

Thankfully my mom loves to shop for her grandkids and goes to the 'good stores'! So the boys always have some cute clothes from Janie and Jack which are a little too pricey for me. I am also thankful that I have found a couple fabulous blogs that seem to focus on making clothes for boys and among those I fell in love with I Am Momma - Hear Me Roar, who had a tutorial for a Captain America shirt. I saw this post a while ago and decided to try to make a Halloween shirt for John using a similar design.

How cute is John John?! (and he looks so old!)




So, here is how I made it.

Supplies:


-shirt (duh) I got this one at Target on sale for $1.50. Awesome!
-fabric paint
-brush (I used a sponge brush)
-freezer paper (I had to order mine from a hardware store. Weird!)
-iron
-scissors/Xacto knife

1. Print your design to whatever size you would like it to be. (I have heard you can print directly onto the freezer paper, but I always forget to do that! One day I will try it out!) Lay your paper over a sheet of freezer paper and cut out the parts of the design you want to PAINT. (see pic below for this to make sense!)

Here is the design I created on the computer using Microsoft Publisher and a pumpkin image I found on The Graphics Fairy.



2. Iron the freezer paper to your shirt, waxy side down. This will create the stencil on your shirt. Looking at the picture below, you can see that I will paint the grey parts. Everything that is under the white freezer paper will stay grey since it is covered up by the freezer paper.




3. Start painting! I painted the pumpkin white and the outer circle white. I used a sponge brush and tried to paint it to look 'distressed' but kind of dabbing the paint around and not making it nice and fully painted.



Once it dried I painted the remaining ring orange, using the same distressed technique. Well, I am pretty sure it isn't a technique, but whatev.



4. Peel off the freezer paper to reveal your final product! To seal the paint, place a cloth over your shirt and iron.



5. Put on your favorite little pumpkin and admire.






Easy, cute, and cheap. My kind of project!

I think Matthew approves!




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