While I've never seen myself as particularly crafty, I am and probably always will be a sucker for a good DIY. When I saw this tutorial via Sarah Von a few months ago, I immediately Evernoted it (is there a proper verb for that?), with vague plans to use it for holiday gifts this year. Enter me, a week before Christmas and realizing that I was mostly broke for gift-money, frantically attempting to come up with ideas. After properly acknowledging the technological godsend that is Evernote, I found the tutorial again, and with a few modifications a whole new gift was born: personalized tote bags.
Based on the reactions of my friends, these babies are perfect last-minute gifts for the high school or college student, as the supplies are not too expensive (Check out Wal-Mart for multipacks of the bags. Score!), they are easy to mass-produce while customizing, and they all turned out fairly cute!
First, you need to collect materials: you'll need some bags to paint, fabric paint in your choice of colors, a few of those foam paint-brush things, an iron, freezer paper, and an Exacto-knife (I begged this from my father). Where I live at least, freezer paper is difficult to find! After hitting up several grocery stores and being met with blank looks, I did some googling and realized that it's generally used for wrapping meat post-hunting. With this tidbit in mind, I headed to Wal-Mart and, after some lively conversation with some hunting fellows in the sporting goods section, finally found it. So if you want to try this out, save yourself the exploring and just pick it up at Wal-Mart.
I started by just doodling possible letter designs onto computer paper, and then freehanded them onto the non-plastic side of the freezer paper. If you'd prefer a crisper look, it's also possible to design this on your computer and then print it out onto 8.5x11 pieces of freezer paper. Because I wanted specific designs/letters for my bags, I chose not to bother with that.
A bit of advice: though all of my bags turned out fairly well, I found the block letter designs (like the B and J above) far easier to deal with than the cursive lettering--all of the little curves and negative spaces in the letters were quite annoying to deal with when it came to the ironing. So keep that in mind!
Next, place your design onto a damageable surface (a wooden cutting board is excellent), and use your Exacto-knife to carve out the design. This being my first time using the knife, I found it easiest to treat it like an exceptionally sharp pencil, making long smooth cuts. You also may find yourself changing the shape of the design slightly as the Exacto cuts through it-- this is fine, as none of your pencil marks will get onto the fabric anyway. Trying too hard to fix cutting mistakes will result in the final result looking messier, so be sure to "think twice, cut once"!
After cutting out the designs, iron your bag to remove as many wrinkles as possible, and then place your design (shiny side down) where you'd like it on the bag. Iron it down on medium-high heat-- I was originally worried about it getting too sealed onto the bag, but this didn't happen at all.
Now comes the fun part: painting in the letters. As a kid who was never particularly good at staying in the lines in coloring books, I can assure you that there isn't much precision required here. Sponge the paint on until you like the color density, avoiding any major paint puddles. That's really it- if you want to try multiple colors, glitter paint, anything else, go for it! So long as you have ironed the design on properly and avoid spilling paint onto the uncovered parts of the bag, you're golden.
After letting them sit overnight to dry, peel off the stencils and voila! This is such an easy project to put together, and the last step of pulling away the paper to reveal the final product is so much fun. This method of stenciling and painting can definitely be used for other fabrics, and I encourage you to try it out!
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