Personalized Painted Aprons

Since I’ve been teaching a lot of classes lately, I thought it would to be nice to have a personalized painted apron to wear. Meanwhile, I made one for my Best Bud Barbara.

I started by cutting out the stencils with my Brother Scan N Cut.  In the Brother Scan N Cut Canvas I chose this font. I’ve added the arrows to show you where the openings are which make it possible to cut without needing to add bridges. Adding bridges are possible, but not as easy as they are to make in the Silhouette software. That’s another post for sure.

I use report covers I purchase from local office supply stores to make the stencils. I really like using this plastic for stencils.

Here are the finished stencils.

Now it was time to paint! I’ve been asked how I get started on projects. How do I attack a blank canvas whether it’s an apron, a silk scarf or a piece of cotton? What I do and what I have my students do in class, is make samples first.

Play, play, play until you come up with something you like. But also realize, sometimes you have to push through and continue when you think it’s not redeemable. On my apron I had to do that. I had decided on the daisy stencil, but I didn’t want to use the colors in my sample. However, when I changed colors I wasn’t sure I liked them. After I had stenciled the first area, I was not happy with it. But this is where the push through comes – you just have to push on through the ugly. The more I worked on it, the better I felt about it. And now I really like it!

I used a combination of textile paints (Setacolor Opaque and ProChem Fabric paints) and other stencils from my stash. I practiced on some canvas pieces to get the feel of how the paint would work on that substrate before moving to the apron. Here are some of the samples I created.

I asked Barbara which of the designs was her favorite and she liked the one with my name on it. For my apron, I wanted to use that daisy stencil I’ve had for years. After the paint had dried for 24 hours, I covered the aprons with a piece of fabric and ironed them to make sure the paint was set.

Here is Barbara sporting her new apron at my class last night at Gilda’s. Doesn’t she look cute?

And again, here are both aprons.

I love personalized items and I see more painting in my future. If you have any questions about my painting process of these aprons, just comment below.

Much more to tell you and so little time. As always, thanks for dropping by.