In honor of Independence Day this year I wanted to do something I had never done before. I decided to make matching t-shirts for my whole family to wear on the 4th but that would work year round for any family outing we go on (until the kids start growing out of them). I wanted to use this tutorial to make fireworks on the front but I ran out of time and I guess it wouldn't look as cool on the red shirts I got. It took us awhile to decide on what to put on the backs but finalized on the lyrics to "God Bless America" spread across our backs.
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I hadn't put a whole lot of thought to my method until I was ready to do it (no time to consult Pinterest). I wasn't really sure how to go about it but I knew from experience that Acrylic paint doesn't come off of clothes so I figured that would be the best way to go.
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Experiment #1:
I used white paint to try and stay in the patriotic colors and I printed the phrases on the computer. I used a light box to shine the words through and I started free handing the words using the printout as my guide. I didn't think about changing the font so it was Times New Roman and had all the little extra lines so it took forever. Also I was using the back of the paint brush to keep my lines even (with a paint brush it is easy to go from too fat to too skinny) I developed a new appreciation for people who used to use a quill though so that helped me get in a patriotic mood. I had to keep getting more and more paint, probably over 10 dunks each letter.
The outcome may look alright from the picture but the texture was a little bumpy and since it took so long this was not the method I was going to use for all 6 shirts.
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Experiment #2:
I had heard about using freezer paper or the Glad Press and Seal Paper as stencils and you just iron it on, paint over it and it peels right off. I didn't have any freezer paper though. I found some Press and Seal Paper in the back of my drawer that is at least 4 years old but I gave it a try. I used the Cricut to cut out the words and stuck it on (no iron needed). I did this one one word at a time. I used a sponge brush to get a more even coat. The last stencil didn't stick too well so the edges aren't as crisp and it looks pretty sloppy.
I had to do several coats of paint. The "God" has about 4-5 coats, "Bless" has 2 and "America" has only one. It looks way pink but I was done putting time into this method and it has kind of a fade effect to it.
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While I was working on that one I had sent my wonderful Husband to the store. He bought me; freezer paper, some fabric paint and 2 new shirts for the babies (I really need to stop calling them that) since I was not satisfied with my first attempts - but hey, now they have new shirts to hang around the house in. All he could find for fabric paint was "Dimensional Fabric Paint" (aka, puff paint = cheesy). Do they have anything better for fabric besides markers and puff paint?
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Experiment #3:
I used the Cricut with the freezer paper and cut out a little lighthouse. I spent 5-10 minutes trying to position the windows and finally gave up... it was just an experiment anyways. This is on the front of the first shirt because I wasn't going to touch the new shirts until I knew what I was doing. I ironed on the freezer paper and used the foam brush to spread out the cheesy puff paint so that it wouldn't be so cheesy and the same thing happened... it looked pink. I gave up and went to bed. The next morning I put another really thick layer on and walked away. After a couple hours I came back and very carefully peeled it off because 'dimensional' paint is very thick and the whole thing could come off if you're not careful.
So with a thin base layer and a very thick 2nd layer it turned out nice and crisp looking but I knew that peeling the stencil from around letters would be a whole lot more difficult than from a lighthouse and I didn't want to take that chance. Plus it was really thick and I don't know how well it will wear after being washed.
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Experiment #4
Back to acrylic it is... but 4 -5 coats... no thanks. Time for a different color. I tried black and a couple different blues. One coat for the black was perfect, 2 coats on the blues looked pretty good and not too purpley.
So I decided on black. It looked nice and crisp and was still pretty flexible like a shirt should be. Only one more thing I needed before starting the real shirts.... A new Cricut blade. I totally had abused the other one and it wasn't going to handle one more project successfully. My wonderful husband to the rescue again. He came home for lunch to watch the kids and I ran out the door and drove 10.4 miles to the nearest JoAnns with coupon in hand. I told him I knew the exact aisle it was in and I would just grab it and come back. (I lied a little bit, I got new mats too and they were sooo much nicer than my beat up ones that no longer stick.) Then the lady at the register asked if I wanted the regular or the deep cut blades. I couldn't decide so I got both (Hey they were on sale, why not).
So now I was ready to start on our team shirts.
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FINAL ROUND:
All shirts were pre-washed.
It took me a couple hours to make the stencils for each shirt. I didn't really have a fancy method on the positioning, I kept it all the same font but I changed up the size depending on the width of the word or phrase. I think my range was 1 1/4" - 2". And then I just layed the shirt as flat as I could and using my trusty eyeballs, I centered each line using the tag as my guide. And if you mess up and iron it on crooked, just peel it off and iron it again (freezer paper is my new best friend).
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Before you paint make sure you have something in between the layers of the shirts. I flattened a couple cereal boxes and cut each one in half giving me 4 boards then I used the cardboard that came with my new cricut mats and cut that in half for the 2 small shirts. Make sure the laminated side is up so that the painted shirt peels off it easier.
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Now we are ready to paint. It probably took around an hour to do all 6 shirts. Not too bad. And they dried really quickly with only one layer of paint.
I forgot to take a picture before I painted but here is what it looked like after.
Then I removing the freezer paper.
Here are all of them together.
John has the first 2 lines on his shirt and I got the third line on mine
Michael has the fourth line and Vivian got the fifth
We decided to break up the last line between Theodore and Lawrence
(Oh and yes I did get a little dot of paint on the side of Lawrence's shirt but it's all good.)
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And here is how they looked while we were wearing them. Of course we couldn't get Lawrence to stand at the end of the line and I didn't think about our ponytails getting in the way but a pretty cool shot for what it is. Maybe next time we'll try to get a better one.
Even though I had a few hiccups it was fun to do. Usually I am just a huge copycat and with this one I never took the time to find someone else's work to copy. But it felt good to figure it out on my own. It was also really fun to be a team with my family and show off our pride.
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Any suggestions on what I should do to the front of the shirts?
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