The following tutorial will show you how to use stencils to print a design on a shirt using Freezer Paper. I've printed on shirts using cardstock, overhead tracetate transparency sheets, laminated sheets of plastic, cereal box cardboard, foam board, etc... and using Freezer Paper generally gets the best print because you physically mold the plastic edge of the paper to the shirt so theres next to no space for any underspray or for some excess paint to leak outside the cut boundary. Another benefit of freezer paper is that you can avoid bridges in a stencil (ie: the thick line holding together the middle of an O) and I elaborate more on that issue in this tutorial.

For use as an example for this tutorial, I'm going to be printing the basic Black Flag logo/design for my friend Rachel. I took the basic design, modified it to fit the size I wanted it (see the Printing Out A Stencil tutorial) and also took out the majority of the text are so as to not waste alot of ink when printing the design from my printer.

1) coupon catalogs from the newspaper 2) scissors 3) white Speedball brand screen printing ink 4) foam brushes (one + two inches) 5) masking tape 6) a regular ball-point pen

7) my X-Acto knife kit 8) Black Flag stencil aligned and taped 9) a tasty beverage 10) Reynolds Freezer paper 11) 14/16 size blank black t-shirt 12) a regular electric household iron

I printed out the design to be about 15 inches tall or so which obviously doesn't fit on a regular sheet of printer paper so I had to print it out on two pieces of paper, align the new pieces, and then tape them together. (exhibit 8). Once you have your stencil ready, you have to transfer the design onto some Freezer Paper. I used Reynolds Plastic-Coated Freezer Paper; Its about 3 dollars for a roll of 25 ft. They also have 50 and 75 feet rolls.


Take some of the freezer paper off the roll, and hold your stencil up to the piece you have rolled out. Tear or cut with scissors (exhibit 2) off a little bit over (about one or two inches of excess paper) off the roll just to be safe. You don't want to get paint/ink on areas of the shirt you dont want to.


Freezer Paper has two sides, a paper side and a plastic coated side. The plastic-coated side is the side thats going to be facing down on the t-shirt when you mold the paper to the shirt. Take the design you printed out, printed side up and lay the plastic side of the freezer paper over it, so that the paper side of the Freezer Paper is facing up. Use some of your tape (exhibit 5) and tape the paper to the stencil.


Trace the design you have in pencil or pen (exhibit 6), lightly on the paper side of the Freezer Paper: You can also take the non-printed side of the design you printed and use a gluestick or rubber cement and glue it to the paper side of the Freezer Paper and later cut through both, but in my experiences, it doesnt really work so well. When you heat the paper up with an iron, it doesnt fuse as well and some paint leaks out.


When you're done tracing, place the stencil over a pile of the newsprint/catalogs that you have (exhibit 1) so you dont cut up your table. If you have a cutting board you can use that too but I don't and its easier to just put all those ads to good use this way. Cut the design out with your razorblade or an x-acto knife. (I personally use a small X-Acto Knife Set that you can find at Staples. (exhibit 7) Its a thin gift set, maybe 6x2x1 inches in dimension which makes it really easy to slip into your breast pocket or messenger bag) Be careful when you cut so you dont cut outside your designated area, or even cut yourself. Take your time, and take it easy. Freezer Paper is very easy to cut through, especially with a sharp blade.


Lay the cut Freezer Paper stencil on the shirt (exhibit 11) where you want it to go. The general rule when it comes to positioning a design on a shirt goes as follows: if you take the four fingers of your hand (all but the thumb) and press them up against the seam of the collar of your t-shirt, where your pinkee finger ends, that's where the top of your design should go. Basically speaking, the spacing between the collar and the design should be about the height of four fingers. Most shirts (depending on where you got the shirt or how you've treated the shirt since you got it) have a crease from the collar to the bottom of the shirt down the center of the shirt. This is, for the most part, a centerline for the shirt. Line the center of your design up to that line and your shirt is in good shape. Obviously if you want your design to go in a special place or whatever, then you dont need these rules, but they are always good to know for future reference. If you have a complex design with lots of little bridges and islands all over the place, you can tape the stencil to the shirt. Its really your choice.


Take your iron (exhibit 12) out, plug it in, and turn it on. I generally set my iron to a higher setting like cotton or polyester, since most shirts nowadays are a 50/50 poly/cotton blend. It seems to work for me, just watch the iron, you dont want to melt the plastic on the other side of the shirt for using it to long. Generally I believe 30 seconds of ironing the design on does the trick.

This next part requires a little patience. Freezer Paper is one of the best materials to use for stencils because you can take out the bridges in your stencil. A bridge is the little line that connects the ares in the middle of the letters B and A in this design. The areas in the middle are called islands so it makes sense. bridges, islands, land, all that stuff. Anyway. once you're done ironing your design take your x-acto and very lightly cut off the bridge of the design. Dont cut too hard otherwise you'll cut the shirt and don't cut too rough because then you'll drag the island out of place.


Once you're done cutting off your bridges, take your iron out again and re-iron over the areas you've just cut off. Once you're done with re-ironing your design onto the shirt, set the iron aside and get your ink (exhibit 3) and foam brushes (exhibit 4) ready. For this project, I'm using Speedball brand screen-printing ink and some cheap foam brushes from a craft store. I only used the 1in brush for this project particularly because it was working fine for me and I didn't want to have to wash out a second brush if the one was working fine already. Some art supply stores carry screen-printing ink, otherwise you can find it on ebay and on some screen printing supply websites.


Dip your brush into your container of ink and apply it sparingly to the shirt. Too much and it gets too thick and it will leak out onto other areas of the shirt. Too little and it will look too thin. Too little is better since you can always touch the shirt up later on. The consistancy of the ink thickens quickly so you're gonna have to apply the ink in short sets. Apply the ink over all of the areas on your shirt, and wait for it to dry a little bit. Cover over all of the areas on your shirt and when you're satisfied with the brightness of the design, carefully peel off the Freezer Paper from the shirt. if you've covered all the area of your stencil design with ink and its still not bright enough for you, you can use a hair dryer to dry the ink and then apply a second coat. If any ink has leaked past the stencil borders, a small paint brush and a cup of hot water will help get rid of most of that area. Paint thinner works better than water but most people dont have paint thinner laying around. Use the liquid sparingly otherwise it'll make the shirt look worse.



Speedball is a water-based ink and therefor doesn't need to be heatset. It will dry on its own. i generally like to put a piece of paper over my design and iron out the top of my finished stencil just to flatten it out if the ink dries on the shirt while the shirt isn't flat. if you get a plastisol ink, then you'd have to heatset your design. Generally this can be done by turning on your oven to 400 degrees, waiting for it to reach that temperature, turning off the oven, and putting the shirt into the cooling oven for either ten minutes or until its cool, whichever comes first.

provided you can't get screenprinting ink, you could do the same process with non-water soluble acrylic paint or fabric paint. the print may not look very opaque (as in the white may look greyish if printed on a black shirt), but you can just wait for the paint to dry and apply a second coat. do so until you get the desired brightness of whatever color you're printing.