I’ve been doing a lot of screen printing with freezer paper stencils lately so I thought I would post a tutorial on how easy it is to do. Once you learn how easy it is it becomes pretty addicting. I love grocery shopping bags (even though I have like a million of them) but wanted a larger one. I found this cute canvas bag at Hobby Lobby and wanted to put something cute on it.
All you need for this project is something to screen print on, freezer paper, and exacto blade, screen printing ink, cardboard, and an iron. And a design to screen print of course.
I started by sketching out my design onto some paper. I decided to use a similar sugar skull design as my painted TOMS.
I went over my sketch with Sharpie so it would be easier to trace onto the freezer paper.
Trace the design onto a piece of freezer paper. If you’ve never used freezer paper before, it has one waxy side and one paper side. Make sure you draw on the paper side.
Now it’s time to cut out the stencil. Use an exacto to cut out the small pieces first and then cut the larger ones.
Here’s my completed stencil. I made a few changes to my original design when I started cutting to make it easier. Make sure you save all the small pieces that you cut out so that you can iron them on.
Next iron on your stencil. I find it easiest to start with the largest piece and then add in and iron on the smaller pieces one by one.
Here’s my first stencil on my canvas bag, all ready to paint. Make sure you put a piece of cardboard underneath the stencil to prevent the screen printing ink from bleeding.
I’ve read a lot of tutorials online that recommend that you use fabric paint but I hate the way fabric paint looks when it’s dry. It’s almost like a puff paint sometimes and I’m not a fan. Screen printing ink is a little bit more expensive than fabric paint but it’s so worth it. I picked up these Speedball inks at Hobby Lobby a few isles down from where they sell the fabric paint.
Use a paint brush to apply the screen printing ink to the canvas. Paint thin coats, using as few as possible to get the desired color. For this design, I only used one coat of black ink.
Let it dry for about 5 minutes and then peel off the stencil. You want the ink to set but not to dry completely or the stencil will be hard to pull off.
Here’s my sugar skull on the canvas bag.
And the flowers.
I thought the bag had a lot of negative space so I went back and added a few circle stencils.
Here is the finished product. Let it dry overnight and then heat set using an iron. Make sure you put a cloth between the iron and the bag and heat set for 2 minutes on each side.
