Freezer paper stencil t-shirts - on my $0 budget

{Remember everyone, that April 1st is the $0 Budget link party here. Everyone is welcome to share their ideas no matter how big or small. If you can't make it but would like to participate, please email me the link and image and I can post it for you.}

We are coming to the end of our March Break and I promised my guys I would do a kids craft with them this week. Since I am in the middle of my $0 craft budget month and I worried I was going to run out of ideas, I borrowed my mom's Cricut.

Forgive me but I must digress for one moment...I want one of my own..or a Silhouette. Maybe if I am positive and put it out there the 'Secret' will bring it. Keeping my fingers positively crossed that one day I will have  a cutter of my own to share my ideas with you :)

OK back to my craft. I have always loved the freezer paper transfers and I have a huge roll of freezer paper so I thought we could customize a couple of shirts for them. They each picked a plain shirt from their collection (since I can't buy them a new one -$0 budget remember) and an image they liked. My daughter picked three hearts (I know it is the wrong season for hearts and we should be doing Shamrocks but she is a girly girl) and my son picked three different robots. I tried to convince my son to use a nicer shirt, but he wants to use this one as PJs so it is fine.

Materials:
Freezer paper (Wax paper will not work)
Iron
Fabric Paint
Item to paint

Method:
We cut the images out of freezer paper (shiny side down) on the Cricut. If you don't have a Cricut or a Silhouette, you can draw an image on the paper side of the freezer paper and cut it out with scissors. It really is easy.

With my iron on medium heat, I ironed the shirt flat and once cooled placed the cut freezer paper (shiny side down) where the kids wanted the image to appear. Carefully iron the the freezer paper cut out to the shirt. You can do this with almost any fabric, so the possibilities are endless.

Using fabric paint, we applied a layer of paint and evened it out with a cheap foam brush.

This is what it looks like once the entire area was covered in paint. My son loves to color things to look like rainbows so he decided to use multiple colors for his robots. After he was done I was a little worried because I wasn't sure if the color pattern had a bad association to it, so I googled it and realized it was the Romanian flag, all is good :).  He is now a  new inadvertent fan of Romania

 

We immediately peeled off the freezer paper, being careful not to get any of the excess paint onto the shirt.

Here are the end results. Aren't they so cute!!

 My son desperately wanted to model it so here he is (fresh out of a bath with wet hair).

 

 

I think I might start making these as gifts for the birthday parties my kids attend. Also, wouldn't it be great as a craft at a birthday party?  Buy a pile of shirts at Michaels when they are on sale (and I am not on my $0 budget) and let each child decorate their own.

17 days into the challenge and still going :)

 What do you think? The possibilities are endless!