Car Love Shirt - Distressed Freezer Paper Stencilling

I have a love-hate relationship with holiday clothes...especially holidays like Halloween, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, etc...  It's fun for the kids to have something to special to wear, but it seems like such a waste to have an outfit that they can only wear for a few weeks...not that it's stopped my kids from wearing Halloween shirts all year...I'm just sayin'.

So I made Little Brother this Valentine's shirt...that he can wear all year.

Recently I saw this post from Jane on Out of the Crayon Box.  It's a post from way before I started reading blogs, so it's new to me, and I just loved the design of the patterns.  So I was laying awake that night and somehow all the ideas floating around in my head melded into this.

I love it...and more importantly Little Brother loves it.  (If you've read this blog before, you've probably seen Little Brother's dresser, sheets, fabric roads, and parking lots and know how much he loves anything with wheels.)

Just goes to show, boys can wear hearts to. 

I think the cars and the simplicity of pattern came together well, and the distressed look gives it just the right touch.  After the gyrocopter shirt troubles, I wanted to give regular acrylic paint one last try...and it worked pretty well for this project.

Here's what you'll need to make your own:

• The patterns, given at the bottom of this post.
• Freezer Paper (found at most grocery stores)
• Fabric paint or Acrylic Craft Paint
• A piece of scrap cardstock or cardboard
• Scissors and/or a razor blade
• And of course the shirt or other item of clothing to embellish

Directions:
Cut your freezer paper down to size to fit through your paper.  8 1/2 x 11 will work for printing the heart.  You'll need a piece that is 8 1/2 by 14 or so for printing the cars.

Then cut out your freezer paper stencil.  Not all the cars will fit, so choose the ones you like the best.  I used a mix of the different cars available.  I used a good pair of scissors for the outside of the cars and a razor blade for the inside details.  Center the heart on your shirt, choose which cars you want to use and line them up.  Make sure the SHINY SIDE of your freezer paper is DOWN.  Double check all the edges to make sure they're sealed well to the shirt.  (Otherwise paint will get under them.)

Put a piece of cardboard or cardstock inside the shirt, under your design to prevent paint from bleeding through to the back.  Use a stiff brush to blot the paint onto the shirt.  You don't want to brush it on because then paint can get under the edges of the freezer paper.  Most people will tell you to use fabric paint.  I used regular acrylic craft paint here because I wanted a slightly distressed look...and I didn't have fabric paint.   Acrylic paint will be permanent, but gives a different finished look.  If you're using acrylic paint, make sure you don't put it on too thick and that it's an even coat.  (I let Little Brother help with the painting...which isn't the best way to get an even coat, but he was really excited about the design.)

Wait for the paint to completely dry...(Okay I cheated a little.  You can see by that shine mine wasn't all the way dry...but it was dry next to all the freezer paper edges.)

and remove the freezer paper.  (Oops, forgot to pull off one of the wheels before snapping this pic.)

Wash in the washing machine to loosen up the fabric and remove the paint smell.

And wear!

And read some book (about cars of course) in it.

And Little Brother was excited to find this awesome car at Goodwill...and I was excited it was only $1.  Now we just have to find the right way to incorporate it into his room.

Now for the pattern itself.  I found some cute car sillouhettes here.  I used Picnik to edit them and get black and white line drawings instead.  (Because I didn't want to use all that colored ink printing them out.)  I used the heart shape from here and enlarged it.

Click here for the printable pattern for the Car Love HEART.

Click here for the printable pattern for the Car Love VEHICLES.

Looking for another Valentine idea for your boy?  You might like this "I Love You to the Moon" Tutorial.

Click here for more Valentine Tutorials.

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