t- shirt printing

The first half of this weekend was more beautiful that I could have hoped for and I tried my best to plan accordingly; spending as much time out of doors as possible. However, when it rained like mad yesterday, I sat face to face with the piles of laundry + cleaning that I had neglected to do. As I worked, I thought of this project that I would rather have been doing instead...

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I had made these t-shirts last summer. Although I had a bunch of ideas for designs, I tried to narrow it down to just a few, to make things more simple. Once we had drawn and traced our design onto freezer paper, we {grown up folk} use an exacto knife and a wooden cutting board {to protect the table} to cut out the image. Prior to ironing the freezer paper onto the shirt, I placed cardboard underneath the prevent paint seepage, but then found that using freezer paper underneath {shiny side up} also worked very well. {When ironing, the paper on the inside adheres to the shirt, making the transfer to a drying spot easier than cardboard, which can slide and shift.} Some say it is best to leave the freezer paper on the shirt until after the paint has dried, however, we chose to peel it off while the paint was wet, then set the t-shirt aside to dry. By doing this, I was able to reuse the same piece of freezer paper a few times without having to cut out an new image! I remembered his made me very happy, since cutting with the exacto is kind of a pain in the a**. After that, we just followed the directions on the paint we purchased. We waited a day, then ironed, then waited 3 days, then washed, then ironed again...To me, this was both annoying and exciting {I'm not patient}, but well worth it, as all of my images stayed on perfectly! I had made these to sell at the craft show I did last summer + on my Etsy shop, but ended up using all of the left over T's for baby Liam. He wore them ALL summer + the images stayed perfectly! I wouldn't say that this is a kid project, although I'm sure the Monks would be capable of painting a bit, with some help. I remember that I was really happy to have John home when I was printing these to give me a hand with the peeling of the freezer paper after the paint had been applied. {i.e.: If you have a house full of kiddos like me, you might want to try this project when you have an extra set of adult hands around!}

This is such a great rainy day project...to dress up tshirts, or anything else you might have kicking around the house! So even though I didn't get to play in the paint on this rainy weekend day, atleast I had plenty of time to daydream about the different designs I'd like to try out...and I have a clean house.

Happy Monday!

xo.