Crafternoons: baby clothes and stenciling
I had a baby shower to go to on Sunday afternoon. We have a lot of babies in our group of friends (some people are up to their second time around, or even third in one case!). Babies everywhere! Babies! But this is not about me and babies today (I won’t even go there, I promise), it is about getting crafty. I like giving non-generic gifts, with a bit of uniqueness. Especially for babies.
Among other things, one of the quickest, easiest ways of getting heaps of crafty kudos, is plain white rompers or t-shirts and iron on transfers. Honestly, I don’t know how it gets so much “Oh you’re so creative!” feedback. Iron on transfers are ridiculously easy: 1) buy cute transfer, 2) iron on. (The owl and bunny below are examples of this).
Time to up the ante. Stenciling. Something I’ve want to try for ages but have been AFRAID. Then, in my trawling of the Offbeat Empire (yes, I read all three, Bride / Mama / Home), I came across this tutorial for stenciling. It seemed really easy and straight-forward, except for one thing… freezer paper. It’s really hard to come across in Australia.
So I found this tutorial for making your own freezer paper, using paper, plastic bags, and an iron. It’s pretty clear in the directions, but if you use this method, here are my observations:
- it takes a long time for the plastic to adhere to the paper, keep moving the iron around and turn up the heat (I had it on the almost hottest setting), check it intermittently
- I put a piece of scrap fabric under the paper as well
- the plastic will shrink to about a 1/3 of it’s size
- the paper will curl up a bit
But it works! I’m very proud of my stenciling handiwork, and I’m wondering what else I can get paint on in the near future.
