Putting childhood crafts to good use!

This is one of my favourite crafty activities! Do you remember cutting out paper snowflakes as a child? My kids love making them even though they've never seen actual snow. We're not going to hang these snowflakes up though, we're going to use them to decorate a shirt.

First you need to fold your paper and cut out your snowflake. There are heaps of tutorials around the place on the best ways to do this, just hit google and once you get the folding right, design away!

Once you've cut your snowflake you want a second piece of paper so you can trace the outline and cut the shape out, leaving you with your stencil.

 

 

I've used an A4 size paper here and a size 00 onesie which makes for a fairly large picture. Now for things you shall need!

 



I've slipped a book inside the onesie so I've got a nice flat surface, and also not pictured is a glue stick. Just the regular school use type, before you place the stencil on the onesie, run the glue along the back of it, it won't glue it there forever, but it will make sure it sits nice and flat. The fabulous bottle of pink is spray on fabric paint. You can buy these at Spotlight (and I assume other crafty type places) for around twelve dollars and they last for ages!

 

 

Give your stencil a generous spray. A smarter person would have put an old towel on the bench and perhaps covered the sleeves. Clearly I was unsupervised at this point. Thankfully the paint wiped off the bench much easier than the mess I thought I'd created. Live and learn!

 

 

 

Managed to disguise my woops by spraying both sleeves and I really like how it looks. Everything happens for a reason! I took my stencil off five minutes or so after I'd sprayed and then left the onesie to dry overnight. Since then it has been worn and washed several times and is still nice and bright.

 

 

 

The little Spudling thinks it is pretty awesome too!

 

Snowflakes are just a really fun and basic way to make a stencil. The best part about them is that the kids can make their own and with a little bit of help from mum or dad they get a shirt they decorated themselves. I've used GIMP to make this next stencil for Pixie's top.

 

 

 

This was done using the same bottle of fabric spray paint (it really does last a LONG time) and a black fabric marker.

 

Don't limit yourself to just clothing items though. Check out my latest piece de resistance....

 

 

 

 

 

Mad photography skills aside, having an autobot cast has cheered wee Bug up this afternoon. Making your own paper stencils is super easy, and heaps of fun.

 

Happy days!