Embellished Onesie Tutorial

This project was addicting.  I ended up making 10 onesies in all for my little rascal using this freezer paper technique. I can't take credit for "discovering" this method though- I used this freezer paper stencil tutorial and tweaked it a little bit. 

Materials:  fabric paint, sponge brushes, freezer paper (this one comes already cut in letter sized sheets, perfect for crafting), onesie, jersey fabric (I just repurposed an old t-shirt.)
Supplies: iron and Silhouette Cameo *or other die cut cutter.

(((*I've never used a cricut before, so I'm not sure if these instructions will apply.  I know with cricut you can't really create your own logo like I did here, you're limited to what's on the cartridges.  Am I correct?  But I assume you can still cut the cartridge shapes onto freezer paper with the cricut, and the rest of the tutorial will apply.  Any cricut users wanna chime in on this?
**I know most people don't have a cutting machine.  You can go old school and print your design onto the freezer paper and cut it out with an exacto knife, if you're really patient and committed to such a project.  Just make sure the shiny side is down, and you're printing on the matte side. )))

Here's what I did. 
1.  I designed the "I'm This Many" logo using the free software that comes with the cameo.  I used fonts from my computer for the lettering, and clip art of a pointing finger and arrow that I found online and traced with the software so it could be cut.   I made sure the logo was no wider than 6 or 7 inches.  Then I drew a square around the whole logo, as I would be using the negative space as a stencil, and wouldn't want to deal with the whole sheet of freezer paper on a tiny little onesie. (This youtube tutorial helped me figure out the studio software.)

2.  I flipped the image using the mirror function. 
Here is slightly different version I made for my friend's 2 year old.

3.  Settings: I set my silhouette to the "vellum" setting.  I placed the freezer paper on the cutting mat shiny side UP (this is why you need to mirror your image!)  and adjusted the blade to 2, even though it tells you to put it at 1.  It just wouldn't cut through the freezer paper on 1.  I found that cutting on the shiny side resulted in less tearing.

4.  I let the cameo do it's thing, and when it was finished, peeled away the paper from the cutting mat.  Once again, you're creating a stencil, so you just want the negative space and any center pieces (such as the fingers on the hand.)  Discard the rest. 

5.  Place the freezer paper shiny side DOWN onto the onesie, and iron it down (no steam).  It only took a few seconds.  Iron on any center pieces, one by one.  Freezer paper is awesome and forgiving.  If you mess up, peel it off and try again. 

6.  Paint the design however you want to.  It's super satisfying to peel the freezer paper off.  I can never wait until it's dry, and I always end up smudging something. 
 
 7. For the ruffles, I cut up an old t-shirt, and more or less followed this tutorial for attaching the ruffles. I found it helpful to sew a ruffle down, and then always bring the needle back up through an edge of that ruffle before sewing on the next ruffle, that way each ruffle was stitched twice and felt less floppy. I  wanted it to look a little bit like a shrug.  At first, the ruffles were so big that the shirt made Sisi look like a bull fighter. I trimmed them down and it looked a lot cuter.

I happened to find that skirt on sale at old navy for 10.00 after I made the shirt. I couldn't resist, the colors were SO perfect!  All in all, her entire outfit cost me 15.00.  Not bad, eh?
Photoshoot photos by Trista Lerit Photography!