CuriousJayne

This was my first attempt at stenciling on canvas.  It was a little difficult because I couldn’t really iron the freezer paper onto the canvas without the iron disturbing the acrylic background that I had painted but it worked ok anyways.  The picture I stencilled is of Nate and I on Halloween when we dressed up as Jack and Meg White.  That’s why we look so freaking cool.

I’ve been researching stenciling for a while now and I found some great tutorials at stencil revolution and craftster to help me.  I chose to use the freezer paper method because it is simple to do and it produces high quality images. 

Here is the photo I started with. Doesn’t Andy look cool?  Ignore Jen.

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after some fancy photoshopping, here is the uncut stencil printed on freezer paper:

cut out stencil:

ironed onto my fabric:

I used a foam roller to apply a mix of 1/2 black acrylic paint and 1/2 textile medium:

Here’s what happens when you stencil on top of your roommate’s ironing board and you don’t put something underneath.  You get a permanent stencil right on the ironing board.  She’ll be so happy.

And the most satisfying part, removing the freezer paper to reveal the image:

Then you just whip up a bag, and you get the finished product:

So I officially love stenciling now.  This stencil only took about 1 hour to make and it cost me about 4 cents.  I already have a few more stencils made on the computer, so expect more stenciling to come. 

Also check out flickr’s freezer paper stencils group to see other people’s projects.

I made this bag as a Christmas gift for Nate last year. It’s one of the more labor intensive projects I’ve tackled, so I thought it deserved a post. The bag is huge because Nate needed a bag big enough for his enormous laptop. The design on the front is a replication of one of Jeff Mangum’s totally weird and awesome drawings.  I used a pearl white metallic acrylic fabric paint to make it.

The inside was the fun part. I just listened to Neutral Milk Hotel for like 8 hours while I stamped all of the lyrics on the lining. Here is the inside of the flap:

For the stamped lyrics, I just used regular white acrylic paint. The fabric paints were all too thin so the letters didn’t come out as strong.

Here’s the inside of the bag:

So, I got this idea a few days ago, during an impromptu dance party.  Jason was playing some killer air guitar to “I am a tree” by Guided by Voices and he did this great impression of a tree, so I thought, this must be immortalized in a tote bag.  I realize the reference is a strech, but it’s a GBV tote because I say it is.

 The tote itself is very simple, with a pocket on the inside. The fabric I used for the tree frays a lot, so it will look way cooler after a couple weeks of use.