Stacey is the Queen of Crafts (official title) She loves doing them and does them well. For me, crafts are often much better in theory than they are in practice. Kind of like Christmas cookies, by the time you get to the frosting you just want it to end. I usually head into crafts with enthusiasm and optimism, but often don't enjoy myself during the process and am easily frustrated by my lack of determination or talent. Once in a while if the pay off is good, it's a lot of fun, and this project paid big. 

Freezer stencil tutorials have been making their way around the internet for quite a while, probably because it's such a great craft. We were so chuffed by our results we wanted to share them with you. Buy some freezer paper. Choose an image. Draw it on the non waxy side of the paper or cut out an 8.5 x 11 piece and run it through your printer. We had a little trouble with this but when Stacey suggested taping it just below the edge of a regular piece of paper it ran through just fine. Use a self healing mat or a safe cutting surface and cut your image out with a sharp Exacto knife. Cut out all the black areas and save all the white pieces. You may want to do something kind of simple to begin with. Stacey did a fantastic job of cutting out the robot. I wouldn't have had the same level of precision. Iron your stencil outline on to the item you are stenciling, t-shirts, dress shirts, skirts, canvas bags, tea towels, table cloths and just about anything you can think of will work, and then place the white pieces back into the design and iron them down. We put a tea towel over the freezer paper before we ironed but I don't think it's imperative. If you happen to have placed any of your white bits upside down, they will get ironed to the tea towel but you can carefully peel them off and iron them to your project again. The next step is the ink. Place a piece of card stock or fabric that you don't mind getting stained between the layers of fabric to prevent the ink from going through. My fabric inks came with a short bristled stippling type brush but you can improvise with a regular brush or sponge. It's best to dab in an up and down direction so as not to disturb the edges of your stencil and try to get even and solid coverage. Skyler drew this gorgeous robot and since he chose silver ink on a black shirt, I suggested a white underlay of ink to create a good non absorbent base. It also keeps the color of the shirt from changing the look of the ink color.  It worked perfectly. After the white coat of ink was applied, we used a blow drier to speed the process up a bit. When all the ink is good and dry, carefully remove the stencil and the small pieces with the tip of your Exacto knife. Last but not least, you need to heat set the ink with your iron. This will keep it from coming out in the wash. 

The cutting and ironing part of this project are not kid friendly but picking out an image, drawing one, applying the fabric ink, drying the ink and pulling off the freezer paper to reveal the finished product are all great for kids. 

The first time you do it, allow 3 to 4 hours to complete all the steps and get take out for dinner. 

Check out these links or Google freezer stencils to see more info .