25 Days of Christmas: Day 17 - Santa's Beard T-Shirt

At Halloween this year, I made a last minute ghost shirt for my son with some felt and a white long-sleeved tee.  It held up for approximately one wash and then was done for ;P  So much for my hand sewing skills!

I was determined that I would be able to reuse the tshirt, even though in that short period of time, he had managed to make a lovely stain right on the front of it.  What's a girl to do?  Paint over it, that's what!!

I was playing around on Picmonkey, (which is a super fun photo editing site, if you've never been there) and I saw some fun beards under the "Santa Land" design theme.  At that moment, my brain started screaming, "Cover that stain up with a beard!"  So, I did.

I went in search of some fabric paint, and found Tulip's soft velveteen fabric paint at Hobby Lobby.  Velveteen?  I had to try that out!

First, I cut the beard out of freezer paper using my Silhouette machine.  I've done this technique before and it is absolutely not necessary to have a cutting machine.  Just print on the matte side of the freezer paper (cut to fit your printer as necessary), and use an exacto knife to cut out your shapes.

Now that your stencil is made, you have to prep your tshirt.  You'll want it to be clean and washed (no fabric softener), and I ironed all the wrinkles out of mine.  Then I placed a piece of stiffened felt inside to prevent any paint bleed-through, and ironed the freezer paper stencil shiny side down onto the shirt.  Don't forget to iron on the little mouth piece, or it will just look like a devil pinecone.  Go ahead.  Look at it.  Once you see it, you'll never unsee it ;P

I didn't even bother pouring the paint into anything - I just stuck my paint brush into the bottle and worked from there.  Make sure your edges are all sealed, or you will have some seepage problems.  Go ahead and paint those sections first, from the outside in, and then get the inside.  While it is still wet, peel off the stencil and toss in the trash.  You might need to use some tweezers or a pin or something to get under the center piece and pull it off.

Let dry for about 4 hours, then set your iron on steam and steam over it about 1/2" above the surface. It says not to "oversteam," but without a picture of what it's supposed to look like, that instruction is a bit useless.  I just kinda went with it.

Once it was all done, it had a velvety feel, but was still pretty stiff.  Who knows...maybe I did oversteam it.  But it looked adorable, and covered that stain like a charm ;P

There are so many possibilities for this, especially if you spend any time looking around Picmonkey.  If you come up with something, I'd love to see what you make :D

Happy crafting!!