Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Craft: Scribble Initial T-Shirt (Tutorial)


My girls seem to love drawing more than ever right now. All kinds, all tools. Audrey spotted some "Stained by Sharpie" fabric markers at our local office supply store the other day and by the next day we had a set of Scribble Initial T-Shirts.


This was such a fun and easy project! It made me think I need to spend a lot more doing creative things with my girls, not just for them.  The really great thing about this particular project too was that my girls' uninhibited scribbles resulted in much better looking t-shirts than my more controlled pattern. So much for the worry about giving up control to them!


Wouldn't this be a great project for a birthday party? Or to make as gifts?


 I love seeing the different colors Audrey and Scarlett picked for their shirts. Each shirt is an original--just like the artists.



Have a little artist who wants to make a Scribble Initial T-Shirt? Click to view the full tutorial.


SCRIBBLE INITIAL T-SHIRT TUTORIAL

You'll need:

Start by printing out an initial to use as your template. I used the font "Rockwell Extra Bold" at 600pt.


Trace the initial onto your freezer paper. (Dull side up) You'll want plenty of white space around the letter to protect the shirt from the scribbles that go outside the lines.


Cut out the initial to form the stencil. I used scissors because I couldn't find my X-acto knife.


Iron the freezer paper stencil onto the t-shirt centering it as best you can--unless you want it otherwise, which could be cool too. (Not that letters such as "A" with a hole or shape floating in the middle will require you to cut out that little triangle or circle and position it on the shirt after adhering the outline of the letter.)


Now start doodling, or scribbling or making some other pattern with the markers. I tried some neon dashes.


My girls just went for it with generous scribbling. I think more is more on this project--pile on the scribbles! (It took a minute for them to get the idea that they were to draw on the exposed shirt, not the paper, but they got it.)


I think my dashes turned out kind of fun:


But the stiffer cotton of my girls' shirts combined with their more energetic scribbling worked even better!


 I especially liked Audrey's use of black with the other colors she picked.


When (or your artist) feel the project is finished, just peel off the freezer paper and it really is finished! I love the way the crisp edge of the letter encloses all the scribbles.


Pretty cool! Pretty quick! Let me know if you try it...

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOVE this! One question: what is freezer paper? I'm from Australia, so unsure of our equivalent.

Anonymous said...

Freezer paper in AUS for above commenter
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Reynolds-Freezer-Paper-Box-12mx38cm-13-3-yds-x-15-/300630775846?pt=AU_Quilting&hash=item45fefd9826

Katie said...

can't wait to try this!

Tante Izzy said...

I'm going to try this with my little girl. She is going to love this.

Plummy Mummy said...

That's so cool. We were given fabric markers for Xmas and a set of T-shirts each. Yesterday we took them out and did random drawings (mine a bunch of paisleys, kiddos was her with a cat) but I love this idea. Luckily we got 2 shirts each so have one to try it out. Yippeee!

Leigh Anne said...

These turned out so cute! I wanna try it with my kids! And I do think it would be a fun b-day part project. Don't know if you mentioned it or not, but should you "heat set" with an iron so it doesn't fade in the wash?

Jane LaFazio said...

great little project! thanks so much.

Vanessa said...

I wonder if parchment paper would work?

Christie // lemon squeezy home said...

What a fun idea! I'd love to try it with different shapes of animals or something. Thanks for sharing!

Tennjenny said...

This is FANTASTIC. Absolutely perfect for one of our Moms Club art activities, or even a school art project. I love it!

What about regular Sharpies? Aren't they quite colorfast?

Oh, hey, this would be a great idea just for room art too!

Anneliese said...

@Leigh Anne: It says the "Stained by Sharpie" markers have “fade resistant” ink, but mine faded a bit after washing a few times. Perhaps heat setting with an iron would improve the performance. Couldn’t hurt to try it!

@Vanessa: Reynold's Freezer Paper has a sticky side that will adhere to fabric and create a crisp edge if you are painting or drawing inside a stencil. Parchment paper won't work the same way.

@Jenny: I would think regular Sharpies might work too but I haven't tried it... Worth a shot, maybe with some heat setting...

Bari Jo said...

This looks like fun!

Melinda said...

Popped over grom Gossamer Wings.
This is a cute idea--I think I need one. :)

Mommafo said...

I love this. :) And I know the feeling about relinquishing control! I'm really bad about that-- this seems like a good way to give up a little. :P

sunnymum said...

It's like controlled chaos. I know my kids would love this!

cheryl said...

Annelise and Jenny :: My kids and I have used regular sharpies for our kid-drawn birthday shirt, and I can tell you that regular sharpies are not so great. In fact, some of the colors bled so much it ruined one of our favorite shirts. We also tried heat setting and soaking in a vinegar solution, but what ended up working the best was switching to the opaque fabric markers by Marvey, which bled the least while drawing and not at all during washing, and could also be used on dark colored shirts.

Here's a link of some of the shirts if you'd like to take a look :: http://itstwoam.wordpress.com/?s=birthday+shirt&submit=Search

Anneliese said...

@cheryl: Those shirts of yours are so fabulous! Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge on this topic. I'll have to look for some of the Marvy markers. I have washed these scribble shirts a couple times and while there seems to be a little bit of fading there isn't bleeding, so that's good.

Cheryl said...

Love this idea so much that we had a go at making our own t-shirts this weekend. We used fabric paint and bottle tops. Thanks for the inspiration.

FrauWaldmeisterin said...

Hi!
I tried it, but your kids initials are prettier than mine (-:
Here is my Link, but its in german:
http://morgenschoen.blogspot.com/2012/07/shirt-mit-buchstabe.html

Thanks for sharing your idea and showing the process!

Caren with a C said...

Great idea!

Anonymous said...

This is a great idea! Thanks for sharing. I agree that it would be a fun party idea. Lovely photos too.

Teresa Whitehead said...

So cute--just ordered the sharpies from Amazon. Can't wait to do it!

Anonymous said...

Doing this tomorrow!! But, instead of initials were doing mickey mouse (his head) for our upcoming disney trip! Thanks for the idea!

Grendy05 said...

Two of my granddaughters have September birthdays and they are having a combined party and I think this will be a HIT!!!

Jeneta said...

What a great idea! I might try doing this with Contact paper instead of the freezer paper.

Jeneta said...

We tried this!

http://jeneta.blogspot.com.au/

Caroline said...

We did this today! I used my cricut to cut a truck stencil for my older son. I think they turned out great!
http://pinterest.com/pin/27584616439933596/

The Next Step said...

Hey, I did this for my twins' 3rd birthday party and the shirts came out SO cute! Easy to prep the night before and lay out for the kids to scribble away waiting for all the guests to show up!

Anonymous said...

We use contact paper whenever we do stencil t-shirt projects. The sticky holds it in the right place and it makes one less step for your project. No ironing needed. Also I would recommend fabric markers. In my experience, permanent markers fade. I love the letter idea.

Unknown said...

We get our grandson on Thursday afternoon and our other two grandchildren are coming from out of state this weekend. Thank you for the wonderful tutorial. I have been trying to come up with something creative they can do while they are here. This is perfect. Many thanks!

decoratinghomelovecrafts said...

I had to leave a comment to you and your girls... GREAT JOB!!!! So in love with this idea. Can't wait for my 2yr old to try it. He is going to love it!

Unknown said...

What site did you use to get the letters so big? I tried microsoft word
and it only goes to 70 which is way to small :(

Anonymous said...

Even though Microsoft shows a 70 font, you can type in larger numbers. Just highlight the 70 and enter another number such as 150.

Suzie Levett said...

awesome baby girl t shirt tips,, and described perfectly .....


thanks for sharing......

Unknown said...

We just stenciled totes and t-shirts as a family craft program at the Princeton (IL) Public Library. Our library has an Ellison die cutter (with 4" letters) that we used as an easy way to create stencils for the kids (though I also provided cutting boards and Exacto knives for the grown-ups. (Don't know if our Facebook album link will come through but: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152943911216642.1073741912.283654031641&type=3

vaddoni said...

I have regular sharpies, I think they'd work the same.
How many washes does the design last b4 it's not as new anymore?

(The more answers I get, the merrier)

Anneliese said...

@vaddoni: I didn't count washes. They do certainly fade over time, but they don't fade away. Maybe 30% lighter than the original.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...