Mar 14, 2014

Diy muslin swaddled prints with a Snorlax

I swear, this is going to be the last one.  I think we've painted and exacto-knifed ourselves out for a while.  I bought a remnant of the muslin that was just too big for a little baby.  So we chopped it in half.  

One for buffalo (post) and one for ..............

Wait for it...........

the Snorlax!!  


For those of you who don't know, a Snorlax is a Pokemon.  Who, is adorable, and if anyone wants to make me one of these, I'd let you, for free even.   (The husband claims that anyone who is younger the 35 probably knows what a Snorlax is.  Interesting stat I think)

The last few months, the husband has been making me watch these classic Anime videos...which some were good, but some were not.  But, how could I forget, that I myself, is/was a slight anime nerd.  I'd forgotten that in high school I would watch Pokemon.  I don't know why, I just liked it, a lot.  The husband has recently informed me that it actually was a game.  I had no idea.  I just liked to watch the cartoons, which, in case you were wondering, have recently been added to Netflix!

Anyways, Hannah and I were brainstorming and we came across said Snorlax.  He could be adorable on a boys blanket right, yes, yes he could and is.  He was a little harder to find an image for.  I actually found a video clip that had him in just the right position and did a Print Screen Shot on the computer.  Then we printed him out and started cutting him out.  Once again, I started the cutting, but Hannah finished it out. 


After testing him out on some cardboard we were ready! We centered him on the blanket and started painting. 


 After getting him applied, we started on the "Zzzzz."  I don't know why, but the Snorlax is always sleeping.  ALWAYS. 



I think he turned out pretty dang cute.  Plus, I've never seen another one like it, which is always a bonus in my mind.


Thanks to Hannah for helping all my muslin swaddling cloth dreams come true!  I probably never would have done it (or watched her do it) if she weren't around!

I posted these before, but here are some tips and instructions on stenciling. 


Some tips that I learned from Hannah on Stenciling. 

1.  Make sure your exacto-knife is sharp and your eyes are even sharper.  You may want to print a few of your patterns so if you mess up one by cutting something wrong.  Hannah even colors one ahead of time just to make sure she knows what she does and doesn't want to cut out. 
2.  When printing on the stencil paper there will only be faint lines.  Make sure to print on some scrap after running the stencil paper through to get all the left over ink that didn't print. Otherwise, you'll go to print something and it will be covered with random lines of buffalo. 


3.  Always cut your stencil out on some surface you don't mind cutting up. 
4.  Always test your stencil on something else before diving into your material.
5.  We like to tape our stencils to the cloth.
6.  Always dab off excess paint before applying to cloth. 
7.  Hold the stencil with one hand to keep it steady.  You'll want to dab your paint brush STRAIGHT up and down to avoid bleeding underneath.
8.  Once you'd applied your paint, pull stencil immediately after. 
9.  You'll want to make sure you didn't get any excess paint on the back of the stencil before laying it down again on your surface.  
10. If you are going to use a stencil multiple times, make sure to stop and let it dry after 10 times or so, depending on the details.  It may be more or less times you can use it, but you'll start to notice it sagging and just not coming out quite as sharp.  I've actually found that after the paint dries it's basically been plasticized and works really well after. 
11. Stand back and be amazed.  You did it. Yes, you are awesome and so is that stencil.  



Here are the basic utensils we used for stenciling. 

Hannah prefers the shorter style paint.  She also really likes her fat stubby paintbrush. (green one.) We used the standard sponge brush on the bison and the short sponge brush.  We use the fine paint brushes on really small detailed work, like on the tiny little "z."  Also, this is her beloved paint tray. 

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