We’re back to discuss crafting that you can do while you are listening to your audiobooks. Last week, we covered painting on fabric, so now that you get the basics of that craft, we’re going to talk about fabric painting using stencils. When I first started painting shirts or hats, I found it easier to use a stencil to paint images before I began to paint freehanded. Even now I use stencils for some of my projects.
You can purchase stencils at a craft store or Amazon, but I like to make my own. If you do use a purchased stencil, be sure that it isn’t paper, or it won’t hold up.
At the beginning, I made my own stencils with paper, clear packing tape, and my xacto knife. I would find an image that I liked and print it out, often using my printer/copier to resize the image to fit my needs. Then I would cover the paper with the tape and cut out the shape with my xacto knife. It works well for the short- term. However, this method doesn’t hold up to more than only 2 or 3 uses. So I searched to find a much better method of making stencils.
If you own a Cricut or Silhouette machine, either of those will make stencils for you. However, I don’t have the money to purchase one, especially given how little I’d actually use it. So I had to keep looking. And I found a great alternative!
For only $26.99, you can purchase a stencil cutting tool from Amazon that will use its hot tip to melt lines that you draw on clear plastic sheets (think of the overhead sheets of our youth!). You’ll want a piece of glass to do this on. I like to print out a copy of the image I want to turn into a stencil, tape it to the plastic sheet, and trace the image onto the sheet before cutting it out with the tool.
A word of caution: Be careful not to plan out lines that circle inner lines, or you will cut out the whole design. However, I have sometimes found it helpful to create a stencil of the outer shape and then have filled in the rest by freehand once the outline is settled.
The first step once you have created your stencil is to position it onto the article of clothing you wish to decorate. Make sure that the stencil is laid flat on the fabric. I have recently discovered Elmer’s Craftbond Spray Adhesive, which you can spray on the back of the stencil to make it stay in place on top of the fabric in order to keep your paint from bleeding under the stencil. Be sure to remove the stencil soon after using it. Don’t try to let the paint dry first because the adhesive grows stronger over time and makes the stencil difficult to remove from the fabric.
Now take your paints and fill in the stencils. You can use the TULIP or Plaid paints we used last week. But you can also use acrylic paints approved for use on fabric. These are thinner, and they don’t stick together like the Tulip and Plaid fabric paints do. However, if the latter paints do stick together, just pull them apart. The paint won’t pull off the fabric. The acrylic paints don’t have a tip to draw directly onto the fabric, so you’ll need either a paintbrush or a foam dauber.
One style I enjoy is using a flower pattern and daub acrylic paint onto the stencil, repeating the flower in different colors. You will notice in the bottom photo in the below collage that the flower in the bottom has less defined petals than the one on the top. That is because I neglected to use the adhesive spray to hold the stencil in place, so paint seeped under the stencil while I daubed it in the spaces.
With stencils I have been able to decorate things other than just shirts. I put a lot of time and effort into decorating the below dress. To continue the pattern, I had to let each set dry before I could lay down the stencil for the next set, since the edge of the stencil overlapped the edge of the previous set. This dress took a lot longer to stencil than I had expected because I hadn’t accounted for the flare of the skirt, so if you decorate a skirt or dress, pay attention to the flare when planning for the length of time needed. This dress required so much work and took so much time to make that it is one of only a couple sentimental dresses that I saved when I got rid of clothing due to weight gain.
Finally, I want to show two examples of skirts I made, one successful and one, ahem, less successful. For the first skirt, I used a cotton boho skirt that gathers at the elastic waist and flares out widely at the bottom. I used the acrylic paint that I painted in with a brush through the stencil. It turned out so great that I made a couple more of these to give out as presents.
For the less successful skirt, I didn’t pay attention to the design of the skirt, for one thing. The one I ordered was gathered in several rows, so my stencil lay over the seam of the lowest row. That wasn’t a good idea. Next, I didn’t take the time to wait for the adhesive to arrive after I ordered it and just lay the stencil over the skirt, but the seam prevented that from lying very flat. When the acrylic paint did not look very good as a result, I turned to the Tulip fabric paint. However, that proved to be too heavy for the skirt to fall naturally. It feels very awkward to wear because of that added weight. The flowers also just looked too thick. So I’ve concluded that I need to use acrylic paint with a stencil that has adhesive sprayed on it. And I need a skirt that doesn’t have any seams for the stencil to lie on top of
I hope you have fun as you learn to paint on fabric with stencils. Next time we’ll talk about another type of paint to use on your fabric: spray paint.
