Pinnovations: April 2012

Yesterday when I came home from work I found my brothers in their new favorite location - family room in front of the TV watching "Heroes". I told them that they should go away and read some books or play a game or something. Gav said he wanted to make a shirt for The Hunger Games premier and since I had this pin, I knew we could do it!

The pinsipration:

http://kojo-designs.com/2010/11/gifts-for-guys-guest-craftiness-is-not-optional/

PINNOVATION

(Prepare for mind blowing awesomeness...)

We found images online to create our own designs. Gav wanted to stick with a theme - mockingjay and Peeta.

Burke decided to be a little clever...

(He wasn't confused...but I bet you are!)

I had to adjust the pictures so they didn't use too much ink when we printed since we were running low. I changed it to a grayscale print and used draft mode. (For our designs, click on the links below.)

Mockingjay design Team Jacob design

Then we got to tracing on wax paper. Yes I said wax paper. My tired brain didn't think to actually read the post before starting. I got to thinking while tracing and realized that I was doing something wrong. I went back to the post and realized I should have been using FREEZER PAPER. We got ready to head to Wally World, but Mom came in with a delicious dinner - stuffed peppers (she used quinoa!). So we ate our tasty dinner and then made the excursion to the store to get the magical freezer paper, paint, shirt, ink cartridges (they still ran out) and an extra X-Acto knife. On a side note - who knew that having a 14-year-old boy pick gold paint could be such a time-consuming process?

So we returned home triumphant and began again with the tracing the images, but this time on the magical freezer paper (paper side, not the shiny side).

We cut out the stencils using x-acto knives or scissors. (You have to cut out the part that you want to be on the shirt and leave the outline.)

Then we ironed the freezer paper stencil to the shirt (paper side up or you'll make a mess with the iron).

We painted on the shirts with small sponge brushes using a mixture of 2 parts normal acrylic paint mixed with 1 part fabric medium (available at a craft store - Michael's or JoAnn).

We figured out that the best way to avoid the paint getting under the edges of the stencil was to paint away from the edge.

We let the shirts dry (the boys may have pulled out my hair dryer to speed the process along) and then applied a second coat of paint mixture.

When the second coat was dried, then the fun began! We peeled away the magical freezer paper to find that the paint didn't seep through the edges except in one place!!! Like I said - that stuff is magical!