Thought I would put last year’s stencil to good use and made my son a Zombie Invasion Tee! Want to make one too?
Zombie Invasion Tee
Materials:
– stencil
– t-shirt
– freezer paper
– scissors or x-acto knife
– iron
– fabric spray paint
Instructions:
1. Cut out two 8.5 x 11 pieces of freezer paper and carefully print out zombie image on the paper side (NOT wax side). As you can see with my papers, this might be trickier than it sounds. Try to flatten out your papers as much as possible before you feed them through the printer.
2. Cut out the shapes with either scissors or an x-acto knife. If you’re careful, you can use both the positive and negative stencil cutouts. In this project, we’ll be using the black cutout pieces.
3. Iron the cutouts into place on front and back of shirt. Prep your work area with newspaper or scrap interfacing. That spray paint goes everywhere! Place cardboard in between the t-shirt to prevent any bleeding.
4. Apply light, even sprays to the t-shirt, making sure to start and finish off the edges of the tee. If you focus mainly on the bottom of the t-shirt, you’ll only get residual spray on the top, creating a nice gradient effect. Repeat on back. Follow manufacturer’s instructions for drying times.
5. Peel off freezer paper and go kick some zombie butt!
Hints:
– Do not apply too much spray paint. This is actually the second t-shirt I had to make because I went a little crazy with the spray nozzle and let the zombie cutouts get too saturated. The paint will bleed through the freezer paper if you don’t go easy!
– If you are worried that maybe you were a little trigger happy with the spray paint, you can pull off the cutouts before everything is completely dry. Your hands will be black for days (if only you could see my hands as I type this!) but you’ll prevent them from bleeding too much.
– If your kid is kinda disturbed by these flesh eating zombies, you can always just tell him they’re angry people waiting in line for some crappy 3D movie. 🙂
dot says
Awesome work! Will be linking on Dabbled.org 🙂
dot
bumblev says
Thanks Dot!
Alison says
Do you mean Resident Evil 3D? 😉
This is AWESOME! I’m tempted to make one myself but my skills with both exacto knife and paint are… sub-par.
bumblev says
Heh, waiting in line for that movie would definitely piss me off! 🙂
Patricia Valdez-Harrison says
Love it
bumblev says
Love you! 🙂
Anne says
This is awesome!! I linked to your tutorial on Craft Gossip Sewing:
http://sewing.craftgossip.com/tutorial-no-sew-zombie-invasion-tee-for-halloween/2010/10/23/
–Anne
bumblev says
Thanks Anne!
Haley D. says
Thanks for this great tutorial! This technique could be so much fun with so many different stencils. My kids will love it.
bumblev says
I kept on thinking about other stencils I could use this with too! I have a great recycling logo my husband made up a few years ago that will definitely come out next Earth Day.
HonestNiceWoman says
This is an awesome project! There could be so many versatile uses for this. I also love that you can do a positive or negative effect with this! Thanks for sharing!
~Kelly
bumblev says
I know! I messed up the first one and was able to use the second stencil to finish this tutorial.
Anke says
Awesome, thanks so much for sharing! I’ll make a t-shirt for the next “Thrill the World” event 🙂
Dawn says
This is great. I love the negative idea. I think it will be nice to do a dancing ballerina on a pink shirt for a little girl. So many ideas. Thank you for this helpful info.
bumblev says
Glad I could be of help, Dawn!
Amber says
Just wanted to let you know that you have written that you use “wax” paper. If you use wax paper, both sides are wax. What you need to use is freezer paper. 😉
bumblev says
Oh my, you are absolutely right, Amber! I edited the tutorial to say “freezer.” Thank you!
Heather says
This is great… I want one for myself!! 🙂
bumblev says
Heh, I made the design for myself first! 😀