Tizzie's Tutorial #2: How To Stencil A Shirt

If you'd like a shirt you designed yourself, or with some text on it, but you can't afford having it screen printed, just stencil one yourself! I'll show you how to make one step by step.


What you need:

- A t-shirt
- Plain adhesive (sticker) paper
- Fabric paint
- A small Paint roller
- Scissors
- X-acto knife
- Printer
- Old news papers or ads

Let's get started!

Step 1. Wash your shirt! This is an important step, to allow the shirt to shrink before you apply shirt. If it's an old shirt you can skip this step.

Step 2. Find a stencil online, or create one yourself. If you'd like to turn a regular picture in photoshop, you can do this by going to: Image > Adjustments > Treshold, and play around with the levels a bit until you got it right.

Step 2

Step 3. Print the stencil on adhesive paper

Step 4. Carefully cut out your stencil with an x-acto knife.

Step 4

Step 5. Get out your shirt, peel off the backing of the adhesive tape, and stick it to your shirt. If your stencil has any "islands", bits in the middle of the stencil that don't need to get painted, stick those to the shirt too.

Step 5

Step 6. Stick some old papers around the shirt, overlapping the edges of the stencil, so you can't get paint anywhere on the shirt where you don't want it. Put some paper in between your shirt too, so you won't get paint on the back if it leaks through.

Step 6

Step 7. Apply paint to your roller, and carefully apply it to your shirt. Don't press too hard, if you do, the paint will leak under the edges. Make sure the paint is spreaded out evenly. When you finished, let the paint dry.

Step 7

Step 8. Apply another layer of paint and let dry again.

Step 8

Step 9. When the second layer is dry, peel the stencil off the shirt. Do this carefully!

Step 9

Step 10. Fixate the paint by ironing over it with a sheet of baking paper in between.

Step 10

Step 11. Take a stupid picture of yourself wearing your brand new shirt, to show how happy you are with the results.

Step 11