It’s the last Day of School! I managed to finish my teacher gifts (late) last night and love how they turned out. I thought I would quickly share one of my favourite ways to make t-shirts.

I do love using heat transfer vinyl, but if I want a more distressed look to my design or I just run out of vinyl, I stencil my design on with acrylic paint. Acrylic craft paint is permanent on fabric as long as you heat-set it. I just make sure to give it a good press with a hot iron and it holds up in the wash just fine. I sometimes add just a tiny splash of water to thin the paint if I find it is too thick. Don’t worry if the paint seems a bit stiff when the design dries, I find it softens up after you wash it.

I cut my design out on adhesive vinyl using my Cricut machine. It is a bit time consuming to weed and place the vinyl, but the adhesive vinyl works great as a stencil.

Next time you run out of HTV give this method a try!