Thursday, January 31, 2013

Who doesn't love a good Ombre Monster?


I was determined to DIY a baby shower gift for a shower I went to (months ago...).  It was the first time I did so, as I usually just use the registry to be on the safe side.  I figured, if I could DIY a wedding gift, I could screw up my courage and make something for a baby.  And I did.

 Now, I'm fully aware that there's nothing new about freezer paper stenciling.  If you want a full tutorial, and a good one at that, you can go to I Am Momma.  Perfect explanation.  For my purposes, I figured I'd give you a brief rundown and share my painting technique.

I started with blank white onesies, which you can get just about anywhere.  I got 3 onesies in 3-6 months and 3 onesies in 6-9 months.  I figured everyone gets the newborn ones and then the baby is only in those for about a month before they grow out of them... The baby I was making these for was due around Halloween and happened to be a BOY.  That determined the theme I went with...

I found some cute overlays on picmonkey (obviously before picmonkey started charging, but you can maybe still use their overlays for free?  Or google clipart images.  Or try the overlays on ipiccy).  I used monsters for the 3 month onesies and monograms and stars for the 6 month onesies.  
So.  I just saved them to my computer, resized them the way I wanted, and then printed them on normal computer paper.  I lay a piece of freezer paper, waxy side down, on top and traced the image.  Then I used an exacto knife to cut out the image, saving the negative space pieces where I needed it to be white (i.e. the mouth and eye shapes).

Then, you just iron it onto the shirt.  No steam.

This little product is your best friend when freezer paper stenciling.  Turn any paint color into fabric paint!  Yea!  You know if you try to paint on fabric with normal paint it will get hard and crusty and likely fade, right?  Not that I've tried that...

So, you just follow the directions on the bottle and mix a bit with your paint choices, and then start painting the space inside the freezer paper.
To get an ombre look, I started with the lightest color, then added the darker color to the lighter color with the fabric medium a little at a time until I was just using the darker color alone.  
See what I mean?  For this fun "G" (love this font) I started at the top of the stencil with a light green, then slowly mixed in a bit of dark green and painted my way down.  The bottom of the g is only dark green with no light.

For this one, I started with the outer ring and painted it gray.  The I added a bit of black and painted the inner ring, then used just black for the G. ("G" for their last name, by the way)
This one I used a stipple brush to make it look faded and worn.


 I ombre-d the monsters too.  My favorite is the one in the middle.  I don't know exactly what they are eating (I added that myself, it wasn't in the original images) but I think it's cocoa puff cereal.

The little star onesie has a surprise on the bum.  I just couldn't resist.

Then, for more funsies, I threw in some hats I made from t-shirts, using my easy hat tutorial.

As you can see, some are slightly bigger than others to allow for growth. (I love that one with multiple knotted strands out the top).

Then I found a box just the right size, matched each hat to the onesie it went best with, rolled them up together and placed them all in.

I made little labels and named each "collection".  The labels were hand painted by bug.  The little gray things under the first label are baby mittens I made out of part of a sweater.

And that's that!  They were a hit at the shower!  I have requests to do a personal tutorial for a few friends from church!

I didn't save all the images I used, but here is the star arrangement from the all-star onesie if you'd like to use it to pattern your own.

Want more freezer paper stencil ideas?  Check out my "B is for Book" Bag, Lucky Dog T, or the other baby gift I made.  But be warned, two of those posts were before I started caring about my photos.

I had so much fun, I wanted to make my own.  But my kids are a bit old.



*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

this is ADORABLE! too cute!

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