For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, my son decided he wanted a Wisconsin State University shirt for Christmas this year … which posed a bit of a problem because, as those of you who live in this neck of the Midwestern woods know, there is no such school as Wisconsin State.
Apparently there is, or was at some time, a movement afoot to rename UW-Milwaukee Wisconsin State. I don’t think it’s gained much traction, but my son, a UW-Milwaukee student, is still holding out hope.
Anyhoo, since I couldn’t go to the college bookstore and buy a Wisconsin State shirt, I had to make a stencil and create my own. I started by trimming a piece of freezer paper to 8 1/2 by 14 inches, then feeding it through my computer printer and printing the words “Wisconsin State” (in Rockingham Condensed) on the flat/non-shiny side.
I weeded out all the letters with an Xacto knife.
I saved the inside of the O and the A, but the rest of the letters were waste.
(It’s times like this when I wish I had one of those fancy die cutting machines … )
Once I had the letters trimmed, I positioned the stencil.
Then I ironed it onto the shirt.
The shiny side of the freezer paper adhered to the fabric.
I made my own fabric paint out of one part of textile medium and two parts of acrylic craft paint.
Then I pounced the paint on with a stencil brush.
I tried not to go too heavy with the paint because the thicker the paint, the more likely it is to crack.
Plus, I wanted the shirt to have a vintage look, to hint at Wisconsin State’s long and storied history …
Once I had the letters all painted, I peeled up the stencil.
Then I just had to flip the shirt inside out and iron it to heatset the paint.