31 Days of Halloween 2012 - Day 14: Superman Shirt

I finished my son's Superman cape on Day 11, and the only remaining piece of the costume was his Superman shirt.  There were a couple of ways I could do this - by making a felt logo, or by using screenprint paint and a freezer paper stencil.  I decided to go with the stencil and paint - just thought it might last a little longer, because felt tends to get those little pilly-balls after being washed a couple of times.

Here's what I did:

Supplies: 

Blue t-shirt

red and yellow screen printing paint

exacto knife

freezer paper

artist canvas panel or something else hard that you don't mind cutting into

iron and ironing board

black puffy paint

Bought a royal blue jersey t-shirt in his size at Walmart for less than $4.  I think it was Hanes brand.

To make your stencil, cut a piece of freezer paper the same size as a regular piece of paper and print your logo (I found one in a google image search) on the NON-SHINY side.  (You want to be able to lay the shiny side on the shirt and have the image be in the right direction.)

Get an exacto knife and something hard to work on (I use the back of a painting canvas panel) and cut out the main shape and all the little yellow sections.

Lay your shirt flat out on your ironing board and iron on low dry heat (I did level 4 and emptied out the water tank just to make sure).  Place the outer shape onto the t-shirt and iron in place.  On level 4, this should happen very quickly.  Don't leave the iron on the paper or fabric too long or it could burn.

Get out your screen printing paint, which I also bought at Walmart in the crafts section for about $2.50, in red and yellow. 

Open the package and squeeze the yellow paint into the lid.  Using a foam brush, apply yellow paint all along the inside shape (I didn't manage to get a picture of this step- sorry!).  Make sure that you apply from outside to inside on the stencil line so you don't have any bleed-through. My t-shirt stretched out and I had to remove the outer stencil and do a new one before I painted the red.  Don't worry if you have to do this, too.  

Once the yellow paint has dried, iron on the new outer stencil if necessary, and use the "S" shape to determine where the little yellow-covered spots need to go.  Iron those down.

Paint over everything with the red.

Remove the outer stencil and use tweezers to remove the inner stencil pieces.

Get some black puffy paint and paint along all the lines.  This is one go around:

And I thought it needed to pop more, so I did a thicker line.  

And you're done!  Enjoy your little superhero :D

***I fully recognize that any amount of intelligence or creativity I have is a gift from God.  What I have been freely given, I freely give.  But if you choose to use these tutorials to sell items from, I would ask that you consider joining the Let Justice Flow Initiative, where you commit to donating either 10% of the total purchase price of each item, or designate a specific item for sale where the entire purchase price is donated to an organization that helps fight injustices around the world.  There are specific groups listed to give you an idea on the LJF page.  And feel free to snag the LJF button and put it on your page or etsy site.  Thanks!!***