I was in search of some cute knit fabrics to sew up samples of an upcoming free pattern release (stay tuned in the next week or so for that one), my local fabric store had nothing, and being the incredibly impatient woman that I am, I decided to print some.

I absolutely love the handmade vibe of these fabric prints, and the technique would lend itself beautifully to geometric prints with triangles and or stripes, arrows, lighting bolts, dots or just about anything you can dream up. I settled on watermelons and pineapples.

And the process itself is relatively quick and simple.

What you will need:

• The free printable (download it here)
• Craft foam
• utility knife & cutting board
• craft glue
• glass jar
• a paintbrush and pallet
• DecoArt SoSoft fabric paint in your choice of colour (this is available in Lincraft in Australia, but is available online too)
• Pre-washed and dried fabric

First thing to do is grab your design (either download it here, or draw one up yourself) then transfer it to your craft foam:

I used the very unscientific method of using a sharp pencil and pressing down hard then tracing the indentations in the craft foam 🙂

Next thing is to cut your design out and glue it to the side of your glass jar using craft glue

I used 2 layers of craft foam (the craft foam I had was quite thin) I just glued them together before cutting the design out.

I used a paint brush to apply the paint to the stamp – it seemed like the tidiest way to do it –  then just roll your paint laden stamp across your fabric applying even pressure as you go. Re-load your stamp and repeat as desired.

After you have re-loaded your stamp a few times, you will find that you can do 2 or even 3 impressions between reloading with paint. This makes the process a bit faster.

I stumbled across the glass jar idea by happy accident (it was the only thing I had in the house suitable for gluing a stamp to) but was so impressed with the results. The jar gives you great control over where you are placing the stamp, because you can see through it, and it is also easy to get even pressure across the whole stamp as you roll it. You just have to make sure you are rolling straight.

My daughter arrived home from school while I was still working on this project and wanted to have a go. Not wanting her to have a go on my fabric (selfish I know), I let her choose something out of her wardrobe and design a stamp to go on it. She chose a red cotton romper and designed this cute little strawberry. I was really impressed with her work, so I couldn’t help but include the pic:

So there you go – fabric printing easy enough for a 5 year old to do (I did all the cutting and gluing 🙂 )

If you have a go at this, be sure to grab some pics and hashtag them #SEW4BUB I would love to see your creations!

As always, thanks for reading.

Liz xx