So for fathers day i decided to do a t-shirt with a logo my brother made of a mountain dulcimer that my dad designed.
The HX Dulcimer t-shirt.

Round up for yourself one new or used T-shirt.

Step 1:

Find an image you like and print or sketch it onto a piece of freezer paper. I design and prepare my stencils using Silhouette Studio software and my Silhouette SD desktop cutting machine.

I save my art in a vector format in this case .dxf and send it to the cutter. Picture is the stencil positioned on the T-shirt. (ignore the lone square cut out in the upper part of the stencil, that was something else :-/ ) Of course if you don't have these tool's you'll need to carefully cut out your stencil using an X-acto knife.

Step 2:

Iron the stencil onto your fabric, placing the shiny side of the freezer paper down. Make sure you iron around all edges of the stencil so that a seal is created between the fabric and stenciled image.

Step 3:

Purchase PERMANENT fabric paint from craft stores, such as Michael’s or JoAnns. It will cost you somewhere around $1.50 or so for a 1 oz.bottle. I prefer Tulip brand Matte finish paint. These require only a little thinking with water to get a smooth easy to brush consistency.

Step 4:

Mix your paints for desired color.

Step 5:

Using a paintbrush, paint directly over the stencil, making sure the paint is spread evenly. Be careful with your strokes that you don’t accidentally brush too far and paint onto the outside fabric. You may need to apply additional coats. I did 3 or 4 on this.

Step 6:

Let the paint dry. This can take anywhere from one hour to a few hours (depending on how many layers are on there). If you’re antsy, you can speed up the process by drying it with a blow-dryer. Which i did :)

Step 7:

Carefully peel off the freezer paper. This is the fun part!

Step 8:

FINAL STEP (and an important one you can’t forget). Iron over the paint to seal the finish. Don’t iron directly on the paint. I place a cloth over the top.