2 ways to make stencils with freezer paper | A spring project

This week on QUILTsocial we’re celebrating the arrival of spring!! I have some really amazing products that I’ll use to personalize some tea towels and make a spring wall banner. Today I’ll use Sew Easy Freezer Paper for Quilting and Applique to make some awesome spring-inspired stencils by hand and with my desktop cutting machine. I’ll also use my Oliso Pro TG1600 Pro Plus Smart Iron and Mary Ellen’s Best Press Starch Alternative spray to get my plain cotton tea towels ready for stenciling. Tomorrow I’ll use Mont Marte Signature Fabric Paints and Odif OdiShine Glitter Gel to paint the design with the stencils.

Later on this week, I’ll use other products such as Odif Fabric Booster, Odif 505 Temporary Quilt Basting Adhesive Fabric Spray, my Oliso M2Pro Mini Project Iron, Fabric Fuse by HeatnBond Quick Bond Fabric Adhesive and some embellishments from the Unique Creativ Trim Pack – Red and Green to create 3D flowers on a quilted wall banner.

Prepare the tea towels

The first thing I need to do is wash my tea towels to remove any sizing. Then I’ll dry them with no fabric softener. This will ensure that the Mont Marte Signature Fabric Paints will adhere to the fabric the best. You’ll need to wash and dry any fabric that you want to paint on – bags, T-shirts etc.

My tea towels are 100% cotton and they were pretty wrinkled when I took them out of the dryer. But no worries!! My Oliso Pro TG1600 Pro Plus Smart Iron and Mary Ellen’s Best Press Starch Alternative spray come to the rescue. You can see the top of the tea towel that was sprayed and ironed versus the bottom of the tea towel – what a difference!

Prepare the stencils

Next, I’ll prepare the freezer paper stencils. I’ve created two designs for my tea towel stencils. I’ll show you two different ways to make them, depending on what type of tools you have on hand. The first way is probably the most accessible to everyone – cutting them by hand with a craft knife.

Method 1 – By hand

To make your freezer paper stencils by hand, first download the free PDF of the stencil designs.

Now I’ll cut the stencil out using a sharp craft knife. Lay the freezer paper over top of the paper template and tape the two of them together so that the freezer paper doesn’t move. Make sure that your freezer paper is paper side up, and shiny side down.

Next, cut along the lines of the design. I won’t trace it first, because I think it’s an unnecessary step and it doesn’t matter if I cut the paper template at the same time. If you have an inkjet printer, you can probably just print the design right onto the freezer paper and then cut it out.

Method 2 – By desktop cutting machine

This method will work if you have a Scan n’ Cut, Cricut, Silhouette, or other type of cutting machine. Just download the SVG file and load it into your cutting machine software program.

Cut a piece of freezer paper about 12” long and adhere it to your cutting mat with the shiny side down and then set your machine to cut.

Here are the finished stencils – they should look almost the same whether you cut them by hand or with a cutting machine.

Once it’s lined up, I’ll use my Oliso Pro TG1600 Pro Plus Smart Iron to fuse it in place. It doesn’t take long – just make sure that the stencil isn’t lifting anywhere.

Tomorrow, we paint! The set of Mont Marte Signature Fabric Paints includes 12 x 20ml (0.7oz) tubs of bright and beautiful colors that you can mix for endless color options! The colors are Titanium White, Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Brilliant Red, Pink, Light Purple, Cerulean Blue, Light Green, Sap Green, Burnt Sienna, Lamp Black and Gold. So really, I have endless possibilities for colors! I think I’ll use a combo of some colors straight out of the tub and some that I mix. These paints are permanent once dry and machine washable once set. You can use them on almost anything – clothing, fabric shoes, tote bags, cushions and more.

Now that my stencils are cut and ironed to my tea towels, I’m ready to paint. The Sew Easy Freezer Paper for Quilting and Applique was easy to use for both methods of cutting and my Oliso Pro TG1600 Pro Plus Smart Iron and Mary Ellen’s Best Press Starch Alternative made quick work of all of those wrinkles. I can’t wait to try out the Mont Marte Signature Fabric Paints. See you tomorrow.

This is part 1 of 5 in this series

Go to part 2: 12 easy steps to stencil tea towels using Mont Marte fabric paints