Re-Post from 7.09 - Freezer Paper Stencils Tutorial

I while ago on the old blog I wrote a tutorial for making freezer paper stencils on your die-cut machine.  I thought now would be a great time to bring it back out and show it to you again.

This is one of my all time favorite projects.  We did a Girls Camp craft that year using freezer paper stencils to put the girls names on their camp t-shirts.  I've used them quite a few times and every time I just love it!

This is a great project for kids to help out with.  You'll need to do the preparation and the ironing.  They can do the painting and even the removing of the stencil.  I imagine you'll need to do the cleaning up, too, if your kids are anything like mine.

Cutting and Using 

Freezer Paper Stencils

Freezer paper stencils are so fun and easy to use 

you’ll wonder why you didn’t try it sooner! 

1. Create your design.

Method A: If you want your letters to be the part that is painted, create a border around the letters of some kind. In this example, the word Samantha will be painted and anything outside the scalloped border. The white parts will be the paper stencil. For this method, you may want to choose either a stencil font or create bridges to connect the centers of your letters to the outside. Otherwise, you’ll have to save the centers of your letters and iron them on in place.

Method B: If you want the letters to be unpainted with a field of color, create a decorative border around the letters and a second border around the decorative one. In this example, the letters will not be painted, but the scalloped rectangle around it will. Optionally, anything outside the plain rectangle can also be painted. The white parts will be the freezer paper stencil.

2. Place your freezer paper shiny side up on your cutting mat. Cutter shown is the KNK Maxx, but any cutter will cut this material. It’s important that the shiny side is up because the shiny side won’t stick to your cutting mat very well and may shift during cutting.

3. Open your design in your software and “mirror” it so that it is backwards on your screen. This is so that when you cut it out it will be forwards when you iron the shiny side down on your material.

4. Cut your design.

5. Remove the paper from the cutting mats, saving the parts you plan to iron down to your material.

Method A: If you didn’t use a stencil font, be sure you save the centers of your letters so you can iron them down in place.

Method B: Be sure to save the dots of for each “i” or “j” and any punctuation so you can iron them down in place.

6. Iron all the relevant parts for your stencil down to your material. Grown-ups should do this part! Be sure you have the shiny side of the stencil down or you’ll iron it to your iron! Use an iron set to medium-high and press down for a few seconds without moving or rubbing.

7. Paint all the areas you want painted with fabric or other appropriate paint.

8. Kids will want to decorate the rest of their project, too!

9. Allow the paint to dry completely. If you try to remove the stencil before the paint is dry, you may blur your edges and they won’t be clean and crisp.

10. Carefully peel the freezer paper off your material. A pin or tweezers will help get any little bits left behind.

11. Be sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions on both your garment and the paint for laundering.

12. Enjoy your new wearable art project!!!

Try combining these two methods in one project like the shirts below!

Here is an compact and easily downloadable version of this tutorial. Just click on the image to open it larger to read and/or save it. It's slightly abbreviated but the essentials are there.  You can pin this, too, for later!

We loved these shirts so much that the girls wore them all the time.  We recently passed them down to some friends with little girls about the same distance apart in age.  They wore them to Disneyland and got so many comments on how cute their shirts were!  I'm thinking I need to make a new batch!

Time to get crafty, people!

Summer Fun plus a Freebie!

It's been a very busy summer around here.  That's what I get with two busy girls and being busy myself by nature.  I'll give you a little personal update and then some crafty fun, too!

We had a wonderful trip to visit my parents at the end of May and beginning of June.  My mom is doing about was well as can be expected as she enters hosipce care.  She continues to have such a wonderful attitude about live and the trials that have come her way.  We are hoping to get back up to see them very soon.  As we were getting ready to leave to return home, Mom, Samantha and I were sitting on the sofa together getting a last minute snuggle in.  I snapped this picture of our hands with the camera on my phone.

After that, we only had a week at home before I was off to a week of Girls Camp.  What was my assignment at Camp?  Crafts, of course!  My favorite project was the felt hair bows we made.

What else have we been up to?  Hmm... Here are a few pictures:

Samantha helped me can for the first time.  We made lots of pints of apricot Jam.  She was thrilled to be trusted with a knife!

We went to the zoo presentation at the library.  It's been fun to find free things to do there this summer!

Their favorite animal was the hedgehog.  Good thing they aren't legal to own as pets in AZ or we'd probably have one now.  He was so cute!

Honestly, could you say no to that face?

Today's fun was the girls deciding to take over one of the tables in my studio for their own purposes.  I didn't mind since it meant they had to clean everything off of it and put it away for me.  I'm the worst at cleaning up from my own projects!

So, those are the highlights!  How about some crafty stuff, now?

I just finished uploading a new 6 for $6 Grab Bag to the store!  Yippee!!  This one is titled Summer Road Trip!  Guess that's been on my mind in more ways than one.  Since we are all trying to save money by driving instead of flying, why not save a few bucks and get a great collection of designs to scrapbook all about your trip?   This grab bag includes two Itty Bitty collections, a set of Journal Spots, two Background Cuts and a Road Trip Flag Banner!  That's a whole lotta cuts for just six bucks.

Here's a bonus for you... until the end of August, you can get my design Background Cuts - Road Sign 2 for free when you buy the Summer Road Trip 6 for $6 Grab Bag.  Cha-ching!  I love saving money!

Make sure you put both of these designs in your cart before your check out in order to get the Road Sign 2 design!

That's not all I have for you today!  I've got a fun freebie for you since you managed to read all the way down here.  Independence Day is on it's way.  Here are a set of cupcake wrappers you can use for all those cook outs you know are coming up!  This design will be available for free this week only.  Then it will go up into the store.

Boring but Important Legal Stuff: My terms of use are included in each zipped download. If you have any questions about how you may use this file, please read it. By clicking to download the file, you are agreeing to abide by the terms. If you'd like to share it, please don't. Rather, send your friends a link to this blog post. Once it's no longer available as a freebie, you might be tempted to share it with someone. Please don't! 'Nuf said! 

Click to download your favorite file format:

SORRY!  This freebie has expired.  Look for it in the Sam & Hailey Designs Store soon!

Time to get crafty, people!

Spring Fever

Now don't pass out, people.... Yes, I'm blogging.  It's a festivus miracle!

Before I get to an update on life and such, I thought I'd let you know that the last few days of the Splendidly Spring 6 for $6 Grab Bag are upon us!  Don't forget you can pick up a great deal and an extra free file to go with it.  Check it out by clicking on the image below!

Okay, let's see, what have I been up to lately?  General craziness, mixed with lots of piano lessons, school projects, parenting (or the lack thereof), and gardening.  That's pretty much it. Notice, cleaning my house was not on that list.  :-/

We had a nice visit with my sister last month.  We did lots of science stuff with the girls.  They loved having someone who really came just to see them and spend time with them.  We wen't lots of places including the Tucson Children's Museum and the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. The Desert Museum was our favorite for sure.  Here are some cute pictures I took of the girls with their Aunt Sue.

At the Children's Museum and their creepy new health exhibit.

Cuteness!

 At the Desert Museum, getting to meet an owl.

Hailey getting up close and personal with a Prairie Dog at the Desert Museum.

So, I've also been enjoying getting my vegetable garden planted again this year.  I'm more determined this year to keep the weeds out.  Unfortunately, the bugs seem more determined this year, too!  Despite the bugs and the hot weather we've been having, everything seems to be mostly flourishing so far.  I've planted tomatoes, peppers, squash in various forms, watermelon, cantaloupe, onions, potatoes, beans, peas, carrots, parsnips, artichokes, and tomatillos.  I got my first harvest from the peas today and gobbled them up for lunch.  Yummy!

In the spirit of gardening, I wanted to share a new garden themed die-cut design with you!  Here is my new Itty Bitty Gardening design.  I hope you enjoy it!

Sorry! This download has expired. Click here to purchase it from the Sam & Hailey Designs store!

Have a wonderful spring (or Summer here in AZ) weekend!!!

Time to get crafty, people!

The Valentines Day 6 for $6 Grab Bag is here!

It's here!  After much tribulation and wrestling with my mouse, I've managed to come up with a little Valentine's Day treat for you!  I collected up six of my newest Valentine's Day designs and bundled them up into a Grab Bag for you.  Just $6 for 6 awesome cutting files!

The Grab Bag includes a Love Memory Book, a Love Word Book, two Card Shapers, a new set of Valentine's Cupcake Wrappers, and a new set of pretty heart motif Rosettes!

AND, I've got a little extra bonus for you!  Buy it now and get my Lollipop Lips & Staches design for free!

I'm going to use these for my kids valentine's this year.  Won't it look cute to have a whole class of Kindergartners wearing lips and mustaches while they eat their lollipops!  Love it!

I hope to get creative again soon.  I've got to replace my Wacom pen so I don't have to use the mouse on my computer.  I have carpal tunnel syndrome in both of my hands and the mouse just aggravates it so much!  Once I get that, I should be able to blog regularly again, too.  I'm seeing a TON of cool stuff coming out of this years CHA Winter Trade Show!!!

Time to get crafty, people!

Cards to have in your stash

Does this ever happen to you?  You are going about your life, humming along a mile-a-minute as usual and then... BANG!  An occasion arises that requires a card.  You don't have time to make one. There's no time to stop at the store for one.  What do you do?

This happened to me today as I realized it was my turn to post a card over on the Card-A-Day blog!  What do I do?  I run to my stash, pull out a blank card, put a sentiment on it and GO!  

I came up with a simple card.  It may not be flashy, but it's not boring either. And in just a couple of minutes I was ready to post it.  I'd already done the work of cutting and assembling the card a long time ago.  The hardest part was picking which sentiment to put on it!

I started out with one of the cards from my Flip-Flop cards cutting file set.  I used a masculine color scheme for the ones in my stash.  It's nice to have a few masculine cards ready to go, don't you think?  

 I added a rub-on and a bit of ribbon to dress it up on the front.

Another rub-on on the inside.  I like that when this card is unfolded, whatever was on the sides of the card on the front is still visible!  Plus there is lots of room to write a little something.

If you throw a few basics in your stash like these, you can quickly dress them up for any occasion!

Looking for this cutting file?  Here's a link:

Here are a few suggestions for more fun cards to put in your stash:

Time to get crafty, people!

Happy New Year!

It's a new year alright.  I checked to be sure.  We are back from visiting the Grandparents.  The kids are back in school.  I'm still in my jammies at 11:00.  Yup, things are business as usual here at Sam & Hailey Designs.

Our Christmas was so nice.  It wasn't too crazy, just family, a few friends, and some fun. We decided to throw a last minute trip in to see the folks one last time this year. As usual, we played games until our hands were to sore to shuffle cards one more time.  The girls enjoyed playing with their cousins and even met some second cousins they didn't know before. Lots of fun. Sure hoping we left my parents without any cold germs.  I'm thinking we probably won't be able to visit again until cold and flu season is over.

I know there are a few of you out there who got new digi cutters this year for Christmas.  The hot new models being the Silhouette Cameo and the KNK Zing.  A big old "Welcome" to you if this is your first time visiting us.  Next week we will be back to posting our normal routine.  That means I have to get busy and come up with a new batch of stuff to write about.

Before I go, I wanted to let you know about this month's product specials!  Everything Itty Bitty is 25% off.  These are big collections of little designs especially for cutting out small for cards, tags, ATCs or other tiny projects.  Fun fun fun!

~STOCK UP SALE!~STOCK UP SALE!~STOCK UP SALE!~

Get 25% off everything Itty Bitty 

from Sam & Hailey Designs

through the end of January!

Click to shop!

~STOCK UP SALE!~STOCK UP SALE!~STOCK UP SALE!~

Time to get crafty, people!