Freezer Paper Silhouette Stencil

I recently bought myself a Silhouette Portrait machine. I am usually the last person to find out about anything cool and I think in this case I once again have missed years of fun I could have been having using this amazing electronic cutting machine. I thought it was for scrap booking and never really paid attention to the other things it is good for. Anyway, one thing it does really, really well is cut intricate designs onto paper. This is good news for me because I like to make fabric stencils using freezer paper and it is pretty hard for me to cut freezer paper with a lot of accuracy using an x-acto knife because it tends to tear. Having said that, you can do this project without a machine if you have a lot of patience and are a careful cutter. I decided to have my first project be the man very close to my heart: Sherlock Holmes. You could pick any favorite silhouette or outline to stencil. It would also be really cute to make stencils of your children's silhouettes. For an easy way to get a good silhouette from a photograph see our old Christmas post Tiny Silhouettes.

Materials:

• Freezer paper
• iron
• Cricut or Silhouette machine or tiny sharp scissors and x-acto knife
• fabric paint
• fabric to apply the silhouette to. I used a square of cotton.
•  image that you want to use

Steps

1. Trace your image onto freezer paper and cut it out or use a cutting machine. The shiny side will be facing down when you iron it on but up when you print it out so you may need to reverse your design.
2. Iron the freezer paper stencil onto the fabric. It tends to be curly so I tack down edges and work slowly, making sure it is totally flat. After it is on then I go over it a bunch of times to make sure it is totally adhered at every edge.
3. Fill in the stencil with fabric paint. 
4. Let it dry according to the instructions that come with the fabric paint. Mine had to stay untouched overnight, then I heat set it with an iron.
5. Now you may use your stencil. I made a patchwork pillow with mine.You probably have all sorts of other fun ideas!

You may want to check out another silhouette project featuring another detective.
Easy Nancy Drew Lampshade