Supplies Needed 

-Exacto Knife (tip: use stainless steel blades for best results)
-Fabric Paint (I use speedball ink but it sucks if you know of a better fabric paint use it)
-T-shirt (I use AAA brand because they are cheap and durable)
-A smooth flat board (you need this to but the shirt on, it keeps the shirt flat)
-Cutting mat (you should already have one of these if you are a stencil artist)
-Packing tape ( any type of clear tape will do)
-Blow dryer (just speed the process up)
-Peel and stick clear laminate (I buy this a staples for $8.00 a roll, this is my new best friend)
-Paint brush (any paint brush will do)
-rolling pin 



STEP 1 PRINT YOUR DESIGN

Ok so I use printshop to print my stuff out but use whatever you are comfortable with, I print my text out in coloring book mode to save ink, in this case I also printed the picture out in coloring book mode because it is an easy stencil to cut, no need to waste the ink. 


STEP 2 TAPE YOUR DESIGN TO THE LAMINATE

-So now you must cut out your design and tape it to the laminate, tape it to the plastic side of the laminate, not the paper peel off side. I also first tape the laminate to my cutting mat on the sides because the laminate likes to role back up on you. 



STEP 3 DESIGNATE THE PIECES TO SAVE

-as you can see below in this step I mark everything I am going to save with red. You can throw away all the white sections.

See how when I cut out the stars there are two parts, the paper part with the tape and red on it and the laminate part, save the laminate part and throw the red part away. 

STEP 4 START CUTTING AND PEEL OFF THE PAPER

-when cutting the laminate wants to roll back up, that is fine, nothing is wrong this is normal. Next you will need to peel the paper you taped on the laminate off, leaving only the laminate. After you do this and untape the laminate from the cutting mat as well, you stencil will roll up on you, again this is normal. 


STEP 5 REPEAT STEPS 1 THROUGH 4 FOR YOUR TEXT STENCIL

-so yeah, just repeat these steps on your text stencils. 

-cut the text down to size. Next cut yourself a piece of laminate.

-remember to mark the piece to save with red, see how I save the laminate piece that I cut out and throw away the red piece or taped paper. 

-I always cut the piece I am going to save first so that I don’t lose them. 

Here is what it looks like when it is all cut out, and to the side of it is all your trash.

-remember next you must peel off the paper you taped on to the laminate and it will look like this, and it will roll up also.

STEP 6 SET UP THE T-SHIRT

-put the shirt on the flat board, on the inside. (as displayed below) then fold the sleeves and any other parts that stick out under the board to make the shirt semi tight on the board. 


STEP 7 PEEL AND STICK YOUR DESIGN

-so now you must peel the plastic laminate film from its paper backing much like a stick, this is tricky because you could tear the edges of film detailed designs so be careful, don’t rush, it doesn’t pay off to be in a hurry, next I usually eyeball the center of the shirt and stick it on, sometimes I will measure, but there is not need to here. Role over the laminate with a rolling pin once it is on the shirt to smooth it down to the shirt. 


STEP 8 PUT THE ISLANDS ON

-I know this is going to suck but you must next peel of each individual island that you saved and stick it where it goes on the shirt, then role over it with the rolling pin one final time to make sure everything is set and tight to the shirt. 

STEP 9 START PAINTING

-get the brush and start painting, make sure you paint in one direction and make it look uniform.


STEP 10 PEEL THE LAMINATE OFF THE SHIRT

- Start peeling the laminate off the shirt, you should start peeling it off before it dries but if you are afraid you will get paint from the laminate on the shirt and you don’t trust your skill level just wait till it dries BUT DO NOT USE A BLOW DRYER it will cause the plastic to melt on the shirt. Peel off the islands last and use your exacto knife to get them off, it’s the easies way. 

STEP 11 DRY YOUR SHIRT

- use a blow dryer to dry your shirt, speedball ink dries pretty fast but again, like I said, speedball ink sucks ass, but I cannot find anything else that is so easy to use. 


STEP 12 ENJOY YOUR SHIRT

-there you have it folks, that’s how HARDDRIVE stencils his shirts, it is a lot of work I know this shirt probably took about an hour and a half to make but it was pretty simple as well. Have fun, try it out and tell me what you think, any suggestions would be great as well, especially if you have any ideas about good fabric ink to use. ENJOY!