Layered Freezer Paper Tee Tutorial

There are already a lot of tutorials out there about freezer paper stenciling (links here, video here, or here), so I'm not going to bother explaining the basics, just how you can make a rather simple process more complicated.  I've noticed that most freezer stenciled projects on the web are rather straightforward one-color affairs, and I wanted something a bit more exciting and complicated.

(Because I'm all about complicated.  The more complicated something is, the more I like it.  Why do things the easy way when you can do it the hard way?)

This is a regular tee that I purchased on sale last year for Miss Boo.  It had a pocket on the front which was getting in the way of my stencil, so first I carefully removed it with a seam ripper.

Here is my image, which I shamelessly stole from Google Images (I just did a search for "Hello Kitty Image".)

I copied it and then stretched it to fit a 8x10 piece of paper, which I then printed out.  It's a good idea to print out a few extras in case you make a mistake.  If you're really clever you can print it directly onto the matte side of the freezer paper that you have already cut into a 8x10 paper size.  (See paragraph #2 above as to why I didn't do that.)

From there, I taped my printed image onto the matte side of the freezer paper, and using an exacto knife, cut out all the white parts.  Try to be careful not to cut anything else, and most importantly, SAVE THE BITS YOU ARE CUTTING OUT.  You might need them later.

For lighter colors, I'd recommend doing at least three coats, so don't get impatient and pull off your freezer paper right away.  Save your impatience for an intelligent purpose, like using your hair dryer to dry the paint quickly so you can get three coats onto the shirt in 10 minutes.  Once the paint is dry to the touch, carefully peel off the freezer paper.

For the next layer, I decided to do the light pink sections.  It doesn't particularly matter which sections you do first, but I find it's easier to do the largest parts first and then work your way down from there (do all of one color at the same time).

Using the same piece of paper as your first layer, cut it out onto another fresh piece of freezer paper.  The advantage to using the same paper over and over is that you're more likely to match up the different parts.  This time, ignore the white sections and only cut out the light pink sections.

Making sure that it's positioned in the line with the part you've already done, iron it onto the shirt and paint your color, again drying it with your hair dryer.

Repeat the process with whatever layers you have next.

Next comes my favorite part, adding all the bling and embellishments.  I happened to have a black puffy pen and a clear glitter puffy pen, so I used those to do the outlining and eyes, along with a blob of yellow for the nose.

I really like a bit of 3-D or texture, so I added the purple rosette by hand stitching it onto the shirt. 

Finally, I made two little bows with some leftover bits of ribbon I had on hand.  I used a glue gun to form the bow, and then hand stitched one of the bows to the shirt so it wouldn't fall off.

Now, although you should've dried the paint with your hair dryer, I would recommend letting the paint cure for at least 24 hours before using the shirt, and definitely waiting that long before washing it.  However, the great thing about this technique is that it doesn't wear out.  The shirt itself will wear out before the paint does (and believe me, my kids are hard on their clothes.)

So what did I do with that extra bow?  I glued a hair clip onto the back so that Miss Boo could have the same hair clip as her Hello Kitty!

Perfectly cute!