My Love Affair

I love things.

I love people too.

But sometimes I LOVE things more than I should.  And I kinda have a tendency to become obsessed.

This past few weeks, my obsessions have grown to epic proportions.  And I have fallen IN LOVE with some new things.

One of them, I mentioned HERE.   My new Silhouette Machine.  I’ve decided to name her “Scarlett”.  Partly because I also LOVE Scarlett O’Hara, and I think that name is lovely.  And also because I always wanted a Scarlett O’Hara dress, and I doubt I’ll ever get one.

A couple weeks ago, Silhouette released their Mac software.  Being a Mac gal…..that was the kicker to get me to pony up the dough for my very own machine.  SO THRILLED!

Now I’m in love.  And my mind is swimming with all the projects that Scarlett is going to help me make.  And I kind of want to stay up all night long to do projects.  Thank goodness that Scarlett reminds me that “tomorrow is another day.”  And so I will just plug-along….making, and making.

You also know about how I LOVE all things Disney, right?  And how my family just took a lovely vacation to the Happiest Place on Earth?

Well, I was determined that Scarlett and my Disney obsession should meet.  And cooperate.

We decided to attend the Not-So-Scary-Halloween party at Disneyland while on our vacation.  (Not so scary….sounds right up my alley!!)

Originally we were all going to dress up for it.  But time and money and stress prohibited that from happening.  So I settled for making Halloween T-Shirts for everyone featuring Disney Villains.

I decided to try my hand at Freezer Paper Stenciling for the first time.

Haven’t heard of it?

Oh dear!  You must!   (and you don’t NEED a fancy cutter to do it.  Although it helped to do really intricate designs)

I was THRILLED because I knew that the uber talented Cheri over at I Am Momma-Hear Me Roar is the world’s greatest expert on freezer paper stenciling.   I headed over there to get some tips.

Rather than give you 10,000 tips, may I just direct you to the amazing video tutorial that she made on this subject?  It was completely invaluable in getting me started on my first try.

I decided to buy a “dummy” T-shirt to try first.  Then, if I liked the outcome, I’d make the rest.  After all, one can never have too many Disney shirts….right?

This one is my homage to my girl, Alice.  We are sisters in all things nonsense.

I found a simplistic image of Alice, and then pulled it into Photoshop. I then removed all the background, and put a black overlay on her to turn her into a silhouette. I then pulled that silhouette into Illustrator and turned it into a vector image so that the Silhouette could cut her.

I also have learned that it’s important to try on your T-Shirt and pin your image where you’d like it to be.  I promise.  If you eyeball it…..you’ll guess wrong. It looks much different on a body. So try it on, and then pin your image where you’d like it.

Head over to Cheri’s tutorial to get all the tips for the freezer paper painting. My most important one is to KEEP THE LITTLE PIECES! The letters and pictures will have tiny holes that you MUST have to make them look right. Don’t lose them. (see that one in her arm?  It’s teeny-tiny!)

Here’s another great tip that I got from my super smart friend Jen. You can buy an additive to put in your paint that will turn it into “fabric paint.” That way you’re not confined to only “fabric paint” colors. It opens up the entire painting isle to you and your creations! GENIUS!! Jen uses one made by DecoArt. Mine was from Delta. And I will tell you that my shirt just came out of the washer & dryer…and looks FAB!!

I used a sparkly black paint for Alice and the black words. It looks amazing in person, but is hard to capture on camera. After it was dry, I did a scond layer of hot pink. It went on awesome!

It has a smart ‘lil Alice quote on it:

“I give myself very good advice,
But I very seldom follow it”

(thank you Alice….so TRUE!)

It definitely turned out well enough to embark on 8 Halloween T-Shirts for the party!
(PS….8 takes a wee bit longer than one…hello 3AM…just sayin’)

I wore my shirt proudly in The Land of Disney. And I’m not opposed to showing you a photo….but there weren’t any good ones of the shirt that day.

Tomorrow, however, I plan to share some of the Halloween shirts….and they’re FAB!

So start thinking….

What can you paint on your clothes?

I have a feeling that we’ll be buying a LOT of plain colored clothes this winter.
I’m obsessed now.
And in LOVE with another THING!

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