I decorated a t-shirt

I posted a picture of a shirt I decorated on Facebook and received a backlash of comments! Who are you people?! Are you as excited for The Hunger Games  movie as I am? Or is it your love of crafting that has you up in arms??

I just whipped up a few of these babies for the crew I'm going to watch The Hunger Games with on Sunday.

Trust me: it's easy. The basic jist of it all is tracing a picture.

I did a freezer paper stencil. Here's a better tutorial than the incomplete one that I'm about to write.

Supplies you need:

• t-shirt or fabric to put the stencil on
• a picture
• freezer paper
• x-acto knife, the Dolla Tree equivalent or mad scissor skillz
• iron
• paint
• sponge brush
• something to put between the layers of your t-shirt/fabric

Ooooooh-kay, down to the nitty gritty.

Freezer paper. You can get it at the grocery store. I got mine on clearance for $2.09, but I think it usually runs around $5. If you're into crafting, a $5 roll of freezer paper will last you a long time. You could also attempt to ask at your local meat market for a piece of freezer paper for free. You only need about a 10"x10" square. Charm your meat cutter. (-:

Freezer paper has a paper side (lower left) and a plastic side (lower right). The plastic side will stick to your fabric when you iron it creating a similar effect as painter's tape on the wall. The plastic is thin enough that you can just peel it off without a residue once you're ready. It's magical. 

Your picture.

Since I was making a Hunger Games t-shirt I just did a google image search for The Hunger Games and chose a simple picture. You want to keep it simple. You're going to cut it out and all the little tiny details [while totally do-able] make this a much more difficult project. I printed my picture on cardstock and then cut the picture, next I placed my cut out picture on the freezer paper and cut around it with my faux-x-acto knife. 

I don't want the actual picture I want the dead space [in this example the black areas are the actual picture and the white areas are the dead space/negative zones]. So I cut as carefully as possible and have to put the negative zones in the correct areas so that when I paint the image and remove the freezer paper what is left is the picture. Capiche? 

As I arrange the negative space on my t-shirt I use the edge of my iron to just barely stick the paper down. Just a dot in the middle, so I can move it if I need to. Once everything is in place I press the iron over it for about 5 seconds. It doesn't take long. 

Then I put something between the layers of fabric to keep the paint from soaking onto the back side of my t-shirt.

Then I dab my paint on. 

Then I let the paint dry.

Then I peel the freezer paper off. 

Then I wash the shirt (inside out).

Then I put it on.

Then I take a picture.

Then I post the picture on fb.

Then people think I'm awesome. 

You think I'm awesome, right? 

Just in case you do think I might be awesome, I should also tell you that this is what my tiny living room looks like because of one night of crafting:

**I don't own rights to this picture and it could be illegal that I traced it, but I don't actually know if that's true or not. So, this shirt is just for me and my body and not for sale even though I know you want to pay me $52,028,384 for it, I will have to say no.

***Also, because people keep asking: apparently I look like a super-fan because I made a t-shirt. I am a super-fan. I really, really love sleep though, so I'm not going to see the movie until Sunday because of my desire to sleep and also because I have to work. People don't really like it when their massage therapist falls asleep. I don't know why.