this week's craftiness

Finally, I got the chance to try my hand at a freezer paper stencil; I'd been wanting to do it for a while since I definitely don't have time to mess with even the simplest screenprinting. This morning I made this swing shirt for Emily, and it came out really swell, we thought! The design is a little cat face from the credit sequence of Totoro. (See it bigger here!) It was pretty easy too -- I pencilled the design on the freezer paper (on the dull side), cut out the stencil with an x-acto, laid the pieces out on the shirt (shiny side down) and ironed them on. Then dabbed on some black fabric paint, peeled up the stencil pieces (the only really scary step), let the paint dry and heat-set it. I'm sure there's loads of tutorials but I basically followed the system I saw here (where I first saw this idea), especially Amy's brilliant step of adding freezer paper behind the stencil as well. I didn't let it dry overnight though -- I used the blow-dryer on it and heat set it so I could put everything back away as fast as possible. We're all excited to make more stencils!

Also this week, a new washcloth bib, made from an Astroboy washcloth someone gave us years ago (I'm thinking it was our friend Devon but I'm not sure). I think Emily loves it way more than we do!