Guest Blogger: Melissa from Precious Little Poppets

Remember this cute fabric flower headband tutorial by Precious Little Poppets?  

Well, today Melissa is back to share another cute tutorial. The flower headband was the top viewed link two weeks ago at It's A Rockin' Party and therefore she gets to be a guest blogger today...so take it away Melissa!
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Hello!  I'm Melissa from Precious Little Poppets.  I am a stay at home mum to The Smalls and wife to Soldier.  I live in Melbourne, Australia and I am super excited to be guest posting over here for Carmen today. Do you have a dino loving Small in your life??  Want a great shirt to make his or her day?  Here is an easy, stenciled shirt with a little applique thrown in, just for fun.

Here is what you will need:

1.  a plain t-shirt,
2. fabric paint in two colours - one for the lettering and another for the shovel,
3. freezer paper,
4. a sharp craft knife,
5. felt - for the bone applique,
6. a piece of cardboard big enough to cover the area you will be painting, but small enough to fit inside the shirt.
7. general sewing supplies - scissors, needle and thread etc,

Firstly, make sure you read the instructions on the fabric paint.  The paint I choose to use requires pre-washed fabric, so I washed, dried and ironed a plain blue cotton t-shirt. You will then need to find a font that you like, or draw some lettering if you are talented in that way - I am not, so I had a poke around dafont.com and found one I liked.  It, very aptly, is called Boneyard Army.

Once you have found the perfect font, print out the words, I DIG DINOS onto some white printer paper.  Lay a piece of freezer paper, shiney side down, over the lettering and trace all the letters except for the 'I's in dig and dinos, with a pencil. Then very carefully cut out the letters with a very sharp craft knife.  Be sure to use a self healing mat underneath!

When cutting out letters with a centre piece, like the D above, make sure you keep the little piece that goes in the middle, you will need this to make the letter look right when you paint. Once all the letters are cut out, iron the freezer paper to the front of the t-shirt.  To get the letters looking really crisp, you will need to pay careful attention to the edges of cut out pieces.  They need to be stuck down really well or the paint will bleed under the freezer paper and look untidy.

Now, put the piece of cardboard between the back and front of the t-shirt and slowly apply the paint.  I like to use a stippling brush and dab the paint on.

I think it helps to stop the paint getting under the stencil. Then let the shirt dry.  The paint I used says to leave it for 48 hours, but it was 33 degrees celcius on the day I made it and it was bone dry in around three hours!  Good to know the hot Australian summer sun is good for something.

Peal off the stencil.  Carefully.

 

For the shovel, I found a picture here, and traced it onto freezer paper, cut it out and ironed onto the shirt.   I used a little square of the original freezer paper stencil, because freezer paper is hard and expensive to get my hands on.  We can't find it in the grocery store like most Americans can.

A little application of brown fabric paint and another few hours drying and I was one step away from a cute little shirt.

All that is missing now is a bone for the I in dinos.  I chose some white felt from my stash, cut it out in a bone shape, and attached it to the shirt with a running stitch.

And there you have it!  A cute little shirt.

Thanks Carmen for letting me crash your bloggy home!  I had a blast.