Freezer Paper Tutorial

Since seeing various freezer paper crafts on the internet I've been dying to try my hand at it, but it's not as easy a thing to come by in sunny South Africa as it seems to be in the USA.

The other day I was in luck though and found some in my local quilting store, so I just had to buy a couple meters to try it out!

As it happens it all turned out quite well so I decided to post my own tutorial.

So here's the list of stuff you'll need:

• Freezer paper if you're not sure where to get it in SA follow this link
• Your design/stencil
  
• An art knife (I love my olfa one)
  
• A surface to cut onto like a healing mat
• Seloptape
• Iron
• Fabric paint
• Paint brush
  
• Something to put your design onto like a t-shirt, piece of fabric, canvas bag etc.

You can find lots of pictures/stencils online, or you can create your own. I used some images and photoshop to design mine and then printed them out. You can print directly onto your freezer paper if you trim it to the right size and make sure it prints onto the paper side NOT the plastic side. That seemed like to much effort to me though so normal paper it was.

Once you have your design drawn/printed out secure it to your cutting surface with seloptape. Place your freezer paper over the design with the shiny/plastic side down and again secure it in place. This is just so nothing moves while you're cutting out your design.

Then you are good to go, put on some music, pick up your art knife and get cutting!

Here's the start of mine, I wanted some text
With a picture to go with it

Once you've finished cutting out your whole design, lift the tape carefully from your cutting board and discard all the bits of paper & freezer paper you don't need.

Place your stencil onto the piece of clothing/fabric you're using making sure the shiny/plastic side is face down and carefully iron into place

Now it's time to get out your fabric paint & paintbrush. But before painting make sure you've put something behind your piece of clothing/fabric to prevent the paint bleeding through. I just used some magazines that were laying close to hand.

Soon you should have your whole stencil painted in!

Once it's had time to dry you can carefully start pulling off the freezer paper

And voila, you're done!!!
All that's left to do is follow the instructions of your fabric paint to seal it, in my case using heat (the iron) on the reverse side does the trick!

And now you can go on and make your own baby grows, bags, t-shirts etc!
I've got some great ideas for some baby showers I have coming up :D

And just cause I can here's a little top I did for my little girl!