Materials
~T-shirts (I like "fitted t-shirts" from craft stores or clothing shops)
~Neopaque paints (colors: Black, White, Blue, Turquoise, Yellow,
Green, Purple, Deep Pink (*Jacquard Products)
~Inkjet Shrink Film (**Grafix Arts)
~Plastic Stencils: 12" Mexican Skull (Black & Yellow T), 12" Flower
Frenzy (Skull Eyes on Black T), 6" Flower Frenzy (Frida's Hair), Birds
(Symbols Red T), Spilled Hearts (Symbols Red T), Mini Cosmic_Swirl (Frida's
Hair), 6" Zinnia (layer 2 of symbols flower), Flames (Red Symbols T),
Edith & Maude (Frida), 8 1/2x11" Sandbox Letters (Black T)
(***The Crafter's Workshop)
~A coated shirt board or a 12" square thick piece of corrugated cardboard
~Paper towels
~Spray Adhesive (mine is by Elmers)
~Stencil tape in approix. 3/4" and 1/4" wide rolls
Tools
~Paintbrushes: Flat 3/8" wide; and mini, medium and large size stencil brushes
~Small dish of water
~ Palette for paint (I use old CD's, coated shiny paper plates
or plastic lids from butter or food
*Visit Jacquard for paints and many other mediums at the:
Stenciling T-Shirts
Basic Stenciling Instructions
1. Wash your t-shirt if it's new, to remove sizing and dry the shirt.
Slide a coated shirt board (or a packing tape covered heavy piece of
cardboard (12"x12" works well) into the t-shirt to avoid paint seeping
through to the back of the shirt.
2. Spray the back of the 12" square "Mexican Skull" stencil you will use
with a coat of adhesive. Press in place on shirt. Use masking tape
to secure the stencil edges down and 'mask' (cover up the opening) any areas
you do not want to stencil. For this shirt, mask the flowers inside the
eye sockets (see photo below).
3. To add a white Neopaque stenciled sugar skull on a black t-shirt,
use a medium sized stencil brush and pounce the bristle ends down over the
stencil openings. Repeat, applying 1-2 more coats of white paint
for a solid application.
4. Remove masking tape from edges and carefully pull away the stencil
from fabric. Remove all tape and wash stencil right away. If you wait
until the paint has dried completely, you will need to scrub the paint
off. Place stencil on a stack of 3 paper towels and use liquid soap and
a soft brush in a circle motion to clean. Rinse and dry thoroughly.
5. Mask the area around the "Flower Frenzy" flower for the eye area
with masking tape. Spray stencil adhesive on the back of the flower area
only and press in place over an eye socket. Stencil the flower with one coat
of white Neopaque paint and let dry 5 minutes. Then, stencil the flower with
Gold Yellow Neopaque paint. IF it is not solid, repeat with one
more coat of Gold Yellow. Remove and clean stencil.
6. Add a curved piece of masking tape under the skull, leaving enough
room for the text. Either plan out the 'phrase spacing' by stenciling the
words onto two sheets of paper taped together, using it as a guide. Or,
follow the instructions *below. Use a mixed light yellow (1P Gold Yellow +
1P White Neopaque) paint, and stencil the "Sandbox" design open "D". Let
it dry for 10 minutes. Then move the stencil lined up with the center of
the "D" shape and stencil the shape with a mini stencil brush
and Black Neopaque paint.
7.To stencil the "Dia de los Muertos" begin with the 'Dia' at the far
left, then the "Muertos" at the far right (starting with the 's' at the
end of the tape, then the 'o', then the 't' and so on). Then stencil the de
los, evenly spaced in-between. Only the "D", "a", "e's" and "o's" have two
parts (to stencil a black center area).
8. *Heat set with dry iron and a pressing cloth over painted area of
t-shirts on the cotton setting (or setting matching fabric used).
Colorful Mexican Skull
NOTE: The skull on the yellow t-shirt is stenciled with the same
techniques, using multi-colors for different areas of the skull. Follow the
photos for masking and color placement. Stencil the remaining openings
with red paint and let dry 24 hours. Heat set with dry iron and a pressing
cloth over painted area of t-shirt on the cotton setting (or fabric
you used setting).
Red Dia de los Muertos Symbols T
Note: Follow basic stenciling instructions above. You will use a few
different stencils on this shirt. A large Yellow daisy from the 12"
Flower Frenzy stencil with a Yellow 6" Zianna layered on top of the daisy,
two Green swishes form the 12" Mexican Skull stencil, two birds (12" Birds
stencil) stenciled in Turquoise at an angel.
Also, you will stencil a heart with fire using the Spillied Hearts
stencil just dabbing the edges with black Neopaque paint, then adding
yellow and orange flames from 6" flames. Lastly you can add two
stenciled designs from the 12" Skull to shoulder area above birds, pouncing
with a mini brush on the edges only, to outline in black.
Intermediate Stenciled Frida T-Shirt
1. Follow Basic Stenciling Instructions above. Secure the 12" Edith face (on
left of stencil front), centered on your white shirt. Stencil the face and
neck outline only using black Neopaque paint.
2. Remove stencil and clean it (see step 4. above). Using a flat
paintbrush, paint the face and neck with a light peach color (white with a
tiny dab of orange and a tiny dab of yellow in it). I left the nose
bridge area lighter. Now, add a little pink (or very tiny bit of red) to the
peach color and add a little on the cheek area as shown.
3. Secure and stencil the eyes and nose black and the lips red with
a mini stencil brush. The face should now look like the photo
on the right. Clean stencil.
4. Secure 12" Maude side of the stencil (on right of stencil front) with
the hair at an angle on your stenciled face, so the hair is flowing
horizontally. Tape off the edges and any nearby openings you do not want
paint to touch, as shown. Stencil the hair with black. Clean and dry the
stencil (step 4 above of Basic Stenciling Instructions) then flip the
stencil over and stencil the same hair area in the opposite direction.
5. Tape off an area (see photo) of the Cosmic Swirl 6" stencil, and
stencil one side of Frida's hair above the forehead area, clean stencil and
stencil the opposite hair side. Clean stencil.
6. Mask off one corner swirl of Cosmic Swirl 6" stencil and stencil
the design slightly overlapping the hairline in the center of the
head. Then stencil five more curls on each side of the center
swirl/curl. Overlap the curls slightly. Use a small flat brush to fill in
the lips area.
7. Stencil just the lip line with black.
8. Stencil the eyebrows black, about 3/8" apart,with the thick ends
near the center of the face area. Use the shape shown (from Edith's hair)
and paint eyebrows black.
9. To "dry-brush" between the eyebrows and the white areas of hair strands,
dip a mini stencil brush in black paint, brush off most of the paint then
lightly pounce it between eyebrows.
10. Add a six petal flower to Frida's hair, using the 6" flower frenzy
stencil. Stencil with red then highlight center with orange paint.
11. Using a small flat paintbrush, paint the eyes white, outside
the iris area. Then paint the iris (colored part of the eye) dark brown
(brown mixed with a little black paint) right over the black stenciled
shape to form round eyes. Now paint the pupil at the top center of eyes,
black. Let dry, then add a tiny white dot to highlight the pupil on the top
just to the right of the center of the pupil.
12. Mask off areas around the skull shapes you will use. Stencil the
necklace as shown, using the nose areas of the 12' Mexican Skull stencil.
13. Mask off areas around the skull shapes you will use. Stencil the
teardrop shape of the 12" Skull over the bottom edge of earlobe and
the flower shape slightly overlapping the bottom edge
of the teardrop for earrings.
Printed Inkjet Shrink Film Jewelry
1. Lay shirt over your scanning bed and place a piece of black or
very dark clothing on top of it. Make sure that the stenciled area is
within the scanner edges. Scan and crop as necessary.
2. Do this for all shirts. Reduce the size of the designs you will use
for your jewelry to 2 times the size of your desired finished size.
3. In a photo program (I use Photoshop) create a new 8.5" x 11" page with
all of your designs. Now, it is important to do this next step. Change the
lightness of the whole page to 50%. It will look very light but the
film shrinks less then half the size and darkens quite a bit in
color when shrunk! Refer to the Photo above.
4. Also, go into your "Advanced" settings tab, and change the ink volume
to the setting just above the lightest ink volume. This will lighten the images a little more.
5. Print the page using an inkjet printer. Cut out around the outside
of the black lines of the design edges so they still show. This outlines the
design. Use small sharp, pointed scissors to get into tight areas of the
film and move the shrink film around, not the scissors while cutting.
6. Most important step probabaly, punch out a hole using an 1/8" hand
held paper punch tool if the design will be ab earring or pendant! This
MUST be done before shrinking your jewelry pieces! There is
no hole in the ring designs.
7. Place the design, one at a time on a thick piece of cardstock or
matte board, and use a heat tool (rubber stamp section also called an
embossing heat tool or heat gun) about 3" above the plastic to shrink
the design. Continually move the heat tool around as you shrink.
Continue heating until the piece is flat. You can press a spatula over the
piece to flatten also while still very warm.
