Maybe I've been living under a crafting rock, but did you know that freezer paper is sort of like, an amazing trick of the crafting trade? Yes, freezer paper. The kind you can buy in the grocery store paper aisle next to it's BFF aluminum foil. Or you can buy it here. For those of us who don't have a fancy cutting machine, freezer paper is the perfect stencil. Let me explain.
For Christmas, I wanted to make David's aunt (who we call "Nornie") a special gift. HDawg looooves going to his Nornie's house (she really does have an amazing home!) and asks at least every other day to do so. So I wanted to whip up a sign that showed our love for both Nornie and her house.
I grabbed a blank canvas (actually this was an old photo canvas, so I painted over the photo with off-white paint) and simply glued burlap around the canvas frame. Make sure to pull that burlap tight. To make my stencil, I cut pieces of the freezer paper into 8.5"x11" strips and used Word to print out the saying I wanted to paint- "welcome to Nornie's house!" The awesome part about freezer paper is that it has a flat side and a shiny side, so you can print onto the flat side like regular paper. Next, cut the letters out with an X-acto knife, leaving the perfect little stencil behind. Don't forget to save the middles of your "O's" and "R's" and "P's" : )
Here's my favorite part about the freezer paper- you can iron it on temporarily to whatever you are painting so that it stays still while you paint the stenciled letters. Boom. Crafty mind blown. I was apprehensive that the paper would iron on to the burlap, but it held tight perfectly. Iron the shiny side facing down towards the fabric. I used off-white craft paint to paint the stenciled letters and then simply peeled up the freezer paper (no residue! easy to peel off! a crafting miracle!) before the paint dried. My letters were crisp and perfecto. Okay, and the top line is a little crooked, but who's counting. Not Nornie!
Now all of you can say- duh, Michelle! We've been crafting with freezer paper since 1999! Welcome to the crafting world! Or you can be a novice like me and search on Pinterest for all of the other amazing projects you can do with freezer paper.
.jpg)
I had no idea! This might be captain obvious, but can you iron it to anything other than fabric, or a fabric stencil only??
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle, I just discovered your blog tonight after searching for rental nursery ideas on Pinterest. We're thinking about moving into a rent house while we get our current home ready to sell (and then hopefully sold!). Baby boy #3 is due in May, and we could really use another bedroom. I've been sitting here reading a bunch of your old posts tonight, and they have been so inspiring! Just wanted to tell you that you have a great writing style, and I really appreciate all you've shared! Thank you! :)
ReplyDeleteHow do you keep the burlap from fraying??? I love this!!
ReplyDeleteThe edges of the burlap fray but you glue those to the back of the canvas- just wrap the canvas like a present! With enough glue any fraying holds down well and you can't see it anyways : )
ReplyDelete