Freezer Paper

I have a new favorite craft object, I guess that is what you would call it.  It is freezer paper.  You may have heard about it, I know I had but I wasn't sure about trying.  We decided to surprise the kids with a day at Disneyland and I thought it would be the perfect time to try it out.  So I made some freezer paper stencils.  I really wish that I had taken pictures of the process, but I wasn't very confident in how it would turn out.  I found some pictures I liked, a Mickey Mouse face and  Minnie Mouse face, and I used an exacto knife to cut out the stencil.  The hardest part for me was looking at the picture and figuring out which parts I had to keep for the inside bits.  Basically I cut out the areas I wanted to show up black and kept the bits that I wanted to not be painted.  The coolest part is putting the stencil on the shirt.  Freezer paper has a plasticy side (I'm sure that is a real word somewhere) and that is the side you put on the shirt.  Then you iron it on, iron on low, and it sticks.  If you aren't happy with where it is, you can pull it up and iron it down again.  When it is ironed on it creates a seal and you can paint inside without the paint bleeding.  When it dries you peel it off and it creates a crisp clean edge.  Like so.

 The kids were very excited about their shirts, and we got many compliments on them.  I did learn a few things during this process.  I probably could have used the big pieces of the stencils twice, if I put a cloth over the painted bits, but the little pieces ripped as I was trying to peel them off so I had to make more stencils.  The second set I printed directly on the freezer paper.  This was so much easier than printing and then tracing or cutting through two pieces of paper and hoping that they didn't shift.  I didn't have any pieces of cardboard to slid inside the shirts, so I ironed some freezer paper on the inside of the shirt and that prevented the paint from bleeding through to the back.  When I cut out the stencil the second time I was able to save the parts I cut out and use them for shirts for me and Brandon.  They look like this.

Okay, clearly this is Brandon's, mine has Minnie Mouse.  I cut a square of freezer paper and then put the face outline and stuff inside the square.  These took a lot of paint and took forever to dry but they were cute.  So now I just want to get a bunch of plain t-shirts and print out coloring pages.