Painting on Fabric

Painting on Fabric

a Lil Blue Boo tutorial

Boo and I did some fabric painting this weekend! She made a cute rainbow applique top and I transformed a stained t-shirt into a bright, fun top!

Let's get started!

We started with this Setacolor transparent fabric paint starter kit:

Setacolor paint set

Other materials we used:

Freezer Paper
Light colored knit or woven fabric (or an old t-shirt)
Disappearing ink pen

Other items needed

First, I cut out freezer paper and ironed it to the back of my white knit to stabilize it for Boo to paint on (waxy side to wrong side of fabric).

Cut and iron freezer paper on to fabric

I used a disappearing ink pen to sketch out a rainbow shape for a guide:

disappearing ink to sketch

I mixed each paint color with a bit of water and spritzed the fabric a little to dampen it so the color would flow onto the fabric easier:

Dampen fabric

The artist at work:

Paint with diluted color

After the entire rainbow was painted.....

Beautimus!

.....we sprinkled it with a little table salt and spritzed it with a light mist of water again to get a "crystal" look....

Table salt and water spritz

.....and then laid it in the sun to dry (with a guard dog):

Laid in the sun to dry (dog optional)

The artist added some light blue paint to some more fabric for clouds:

Boo, the Cloud Maker

Once the fabric was dry I removed the freezer paper from the back and ironed both sides of the fabric for 2-3 minutes to set the paint:

Iron both sides once dry

To make the rainbow applique I ironed paper-backed fusible adhesive to the back of the painted fabric and then sketched out the rainbow and clouds on the paper:

Making the applique

I cut out shapes and ironed them to activate the fusible adhesive paper:

Cut out shapes and activated fusible web

I used my sewing machine to secure the appliques and add decorative stitching:

Sew on aplique

The artist happy with her work:

Rainbows in action

I did some painting of my own inspired by this landscape painting I did last year using an old t-shirt:

Leftover paint shouldn't go to waste!

I dampened the entire t-shirt and painted in horizontal lines across the entire shirt:

Few brush strokes

I just kept adding color until I was happy with the look. Then I sprinkled it with salt and left it to dry in the sun.

Let the color spread

Turned out totally cool and unique!

Dig it!