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Luna Laufghudd · 11-30-2008, 10:59 PM

Hi everybody!
I thought it would be fun to make a tutorial to show you how to make prints on fabrics

Today, we will be making this

This is a pretty simple project, and you'll realise that there is no end to the possibilities
of printing and that you can mix it up to great results

(No house discrimination intended, this will be a present
for my friend who also is a Hufflepuff!)
Here we go!

I'll be using Contact Paper, which you can probably find in your
local hardware- or crafts/hobby store. Its a sort of paper that has a sticky
back (like a giant sticker).

Photos!: Contact Paper!

Just so you know, this is the way that I print stuff and make no claim that
its the perfect-only-right-way to make something like this. Im sure there are alot of better ways to make prints, but I thought this went pretty well lol.

Stencilry is a great site that has a very big archive of stencils
to use for printing. There is also several tutorials on printing.
Really worth visiting!

Sewhooked is an awsome site where i got the Hufflepuff badge stencil!
(You need Adobe Reader to see the stencil. Click to download)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Contact paper
* Stencil (picture)
* Fabric paint (i use this in black)
* Hard or Soft brush (works with both) or
* T-Shirt (or your fabric of choosing)
* Piece of Cardboard
* Cutting knife and/or small scissors
* Tape to keep the Stencil in place

The first thing you want to do, is to wash the t-shirt / whatever you want to print on.
I washed the t-shirt before to make sure all the chemicals and whatnot, that may prevent
the paint to stick, are gone. And also incase the fabric is crazy and shrinks after washing.

While your fabric is drying, pick out the picture you want to print.
Im going to print the Hufflepuff badge on the front of the shirt.

Now you have to print out the stencil (picture), and the cutting out begins!

Be sure to place a piece of cardboard under the papers, when cutting, to prevent destroying
the surface. Put the stencil ontop of the clossy side of the contact paper.

Photos!: Like so:

I used tape to keep everything in place on the cardboard, and now you start cutting out the black areas. The stencil has several bridges to
keep the stencil in one piece. This means that the print will have 'spots' without paint, but that will be fixed later.

Photos!: Bridges

To make it all alot easier, I left some parts alone to paint later.

Photos!: Lazycut

Its going to look something like this:

Photos!: TaDa!

Remove all the loose pieces of the contactpaper

Photos!: =)

And now we are going to take that and stick it onto the t-shirt!
Before you do so, place the paper ontop of the fabric to see where you want the print to go! When your'e happy with the postition, you can either
mark the fabric with a pencil (The ones you can erase, with an eraser) or you can begin to peel off the paper, fold down the unsticky side
and fasten the contact paper onto the shirt.

Photos!: Stick!

And you keep that up till the whole paper is firmly sticked onto the t-shirt.

It should look like this

Photos!: Yay!

I noticed that one side had to little space between the cutout and where the contactpaper ended. So to keep the paint away from other parts of the tshirt,
pieces of tape can prevent the paint from smudging.

Now we paint!
You should also use a piece of cardboard, newspaper, or anything else to
prevent the color from bleeding through to the other side!

You can either take a soft brush and go crazy. Its recommended though that you take a stiff-hard brush and sort of jab the paint onto the shirt.
This will make sure the paint really gets into the fabric. But you can just use any brush, it will work well anyway. You can even
do some fingerpainting if you want!

Photos!: Jab jAb jaB!

You should repaint it atleast twice when the first coating has dried, to get it all covered. I repainted it about 3-5 times hehe.

This is where the magic starts, we will reveal the print as we remove the contactpaper!

Photos!: this is my favorite part!

You might rip the contactpaper in all your eagerness and leave pieces of it on the shirt, but you can take a needle and sort of poke under the paper to remove it.

Photos!: Video, Sorry for the bad quality, but i wanted to show what i meant!

At this stage, it will probably look like this;

Photos!: !

As you can see, there are alot of places where it hasnt been painted, like the text and the lines on the H and the f's. Also the badgers
eye and its paws. That will be painted and fixed and should be looking
something like this;

Photos!: picky

Remember that you can always look at the stencil for help on where
to paint =p

You are pretty much ready with the print now!

Photos!: weee

The last step is to iron the print on the reverse side. Be careful to make sure what temperature the shirt can stand. Iron it for about 3 minutes (or check what
the instructions say on the paint you have!)

Congratulations!
You made an awsome-looking tshirt!

Hope you had fun making this and that the tutorial was easy to understand

if not, please contact me and i'll do my best
to help you out ~~and begin a course in grammar~~!

And if you used this tutorial, i'd love to see what you made!
~ Claudia

mmesnape · 01-15-2009, 02:27 AM

Hi! I was reading your tutorial, but your pics aren't opening. Have the pics been deleted?

Luna Laufghudd · 02-22-2009, 04:56 PM

Hiya!
I can see the pictures, maybe its photobucket that's making the trouble?
Also, sometimes Firefox tends to mess it up

SalvioNox · 04-26-2009, 08:52 AM

I have been looking for an good way to make some custom Potter shirts.. Thanks so much for taking the time to put this tutorial together! Can't wait
to make some of my own!