Fabric painting tutorial

So, I promised you to show you a tutorial of my diy jeans here and finally here we are. I'll show you a method I used, just with different picture. First, what you'll need:

- fabric paint

- manicure scissors and knife

- brushes and old sponge

- paper

- plastic for stencil ( I used one of the thicker paper covers)

- t-shirt or fabric you want to paint

- old fabric you can damage

-carton/ paperboard to put under the fabric

- water

- cd liner

1. At first we're going to create a stencil for our painting. For the first time I recommend to choose simple designs without any small parts. I've done this difficult rococco pattern and I've almost died before I finished cutting it off.  You can draw your own style or use a picture from internet/ book or from wherever. I made a simple silhouette of bird sitting on twig.

2. Cover your picture with plastic and retrace it- you only need contours of the picture.

3. Then take your manicure scissors and cut your stencil out. Make sure all the parts are separate so it's good for stencil.  

You'll end up with something like this: 

4. Now the hardest ( and boring) part is over. Take a brush and paint and try to use your stencil on the paper, just to see if you want to change or repair some parts.  ( Don't be affraid, it looks better on fabric than on paper) 

 5. Now when everything is perfect, take an old fabric you aren't sorry to damage, put a carton under it, so the paint doesn't dirty your table, and try your stencil out. Give it few tries, so you kow how it works best. You can use a brush to fill it, but for me, small piece of sponge worked much better. Just cut small piece of sponge and soak it in color. Than start to gently tapping/pressing on the fabric. Remove stencil...( be careful- you don't want to smudge your painting) And it's done! Now you can do same on the t-shirt or jeans or whatever you want to paint, let it dry and, if necessary, ( it depends on color you're using) iron it.

  Tip: Try to wash your stencil after using it, the more times you'll use it, the more paint will get stuck on it and it may cause the edges to became less sharp. 

 Now you have a new t-shirt with your own design and a stencil you can use over and over again. Hope you'll find this tutorial helpful and interesting and you'll try it on your own. Let me know how it worked.

E.