My guess is, if you’re here, you already have a pin or two related to freezer paper stencils saved on a board somewhere.
I pinned probably half a dozen versions of freezer paper stencil ideas before I ever actually looked at one; when I finally did, I was hooked. I’ve played around with lots of painting ideas, and the thought of a better stencil to go with my painting ideas was a pretty tempting distraction. My main concern was that 95% of the pins related to stenciling on fabric, whereas I hoped to stencil on canvas. So I thought I’d try to combine the two, and see what happened.
The fabric is actually an old, stretched out shirt. I retired it to my fabric stash a long time ago, since it was so pretty even if it was shapeless. I pulled it out, measured it to fit over the canvas, and cut it up.
First step, I modge-podged the entire canvas.
Next, I laid my fabric down, smoothing and stretching it flat over the front of the canvas. I flipped it onto its face and let it dry a bit, then followed up the back with more MP and got it nicely secured.
I chose to use the Fashion Capital cut from Word Collage in my Cricut for this attempt. Since the fabric is pretty busy, I decided to sort of reverse stencil – I cut out the words, and ironed them down, then painted the whole face of the canvas, over my stencils. For those of you who have not seen freezer paper stencil tutorials before, you lay the shiny side down to cut your image and iron to the fabric – it adheres quite nicely!
For ironing onto the canvas, you need to support the center so the paper adheres. An old high school yearbook fit nicely. 🙂 No worries about it harming your book.
Fully covered:
You can see where I had a few issues with letters peeling up, which was frustrating. I think in the future I need to iron as I go, to keep them secure for the painting. Also, if you re-adhere with the iron after you’ve started to paint and end up with paint on your iron, just wipe it off with a damp cloth while it is still hot. (Guess who learned that from this experience??)
Once the paint dried, I peeled up the letters. Lookee!
Not perfectly done by any means, but not a terrible first attempt either!
To be safe, I tried two techniques at the same time. The second attempt was more of what I think the traditional stencils are like, though again on canvas. It was also what I call my “Happy Accident” because it was completely unplanned for the result it yielded.
I had taken a canvas and painted it a turquoise blue in anticipation of a completely different project. When I started this, I discovered a similar colored fabric in my stash and decided to re-purpose my original idea. I adhered the fabric to the canvas with MP, same as above. Only difference is that I did not MP or secure the back, only the front. I’m calling this Fate.
I even used the same stencil, though this time I used the excess from my words – so I painted the words in, not the background. When I peeled the paper off, I was dismayed to see a LOT of bleed through.
I tried to convince myself that it was a unique look, but the longer I looked, the less I believed my own sales pitch. Sad face. I chalked it up to beginner’s lesson, and laid it aside.
Two nights later, I decided to see if I could salvage the canvas, so I started to peel the fabric off the front. When I saw what was beneath, I was astonished! I showed my husband, who agreed it looked really, really cool!! Check it out!
I never expected that!! I actually love it more than the other one!
Side by side comparison – thoughts?
Other Freezer Paper ideas/tutorials:
I followed your happy accident version and I loved the results! I did a canvas with the word Welcome in 12 different languages (we have a lot of friends who speak Hebrew and Russian so I included those.) By far this has been one of my favorite projects to date! Thank you ?
I would love to see a picture!! 🙂
Megan,
You know I love both of your canvas pictures. Funny how we find our finest work in the midst of what we think are fails!!! I have a question for you .. do you use your cricur to cut your stencil with freezer paper all the time and what setting do you use. I have a few times amd ot seems the paper gets to coming up after the roller goes pver it. Any ideas on how tostop that?
thanks and happy crafting!
Danielle
Danielle,
Thank you! So, I actually will typically use vinyl rather than freezer paper nowadays. The best way to make sure when cutting any stencil on thin material is to make sure your mat is super sticky and you have the “vinyl” setting on your cutting machine! Good luck!
Random question. Can I skip the fabric and put the freezer paper directly on the canvas and then still be able to peel it off? Wasn’t sure if it would peel off the canvas or not.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know how that would work out. I would try a small section, or a smaller canvas first to be sure.