Blue Willow Pattern Crafts

Do any of you love the blue willow pattern so much that you use it in your crafting? I decided after seeing a Caftan on Instagram, I was going to give it a shot. Turns out, I was destressed for about 25 minutes while I focused solely on my project!

There are many necessary items to any stencil project. First and foremost, you need a stencil you would use for more than one project. They are too expensive to only use once, but I figured starting with a $2.50 white tee shirt would tell me where my skill set was. Next I went out onto Youtube and watched videos by Helen Morris from The Stencil Library in the UK.

I had always been one of those people who could never get the paint to stay inside of the respective lines…now I know why! I was doing it all wrong and didn’t have any of the correct supplies. Below you will find my supplies I used for my project.

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Using stencil brushes is really important. It helps you get an even application of paint and these brushes are all round. You will need one brush for each color of paint. The goal is to work the paint up into the brush, not have so much on the bristles.

The next item I used was the beloved willow pattern stencil. I can’t wait to do furniture with this beauty! I have no room in my house, but maybe in my rental house I could squeeze in a piece!

You will need the 3M adhesive spray to put on the backside of your stencil to hold it in place on your project. You don’t need much. Hold it about a foot away from your stencil and spray it. Basically you want it as sticky as a sticky note…I may have applied a little much, but it worked out with no damage to the stencil.

The paint I purchased was specifically for fabric as I knew I ultimately wanted to do a shirt or caftan like I saw on Instagram. I bought mine off of Amazon. I used two colors for my project. I couldn’t decide on which one I wanted, so I used some of each.

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The ultimate goal is to work the paint up into the brush and have an almost dry brush when you begin your project. After each application of paint you will use a circular motion on the paper towel to work the paint up into the brush.

I sued the same circular motion and dabbing motion on my shirt as I applied the paint. I have to be honest, I really wasn’t sure how this would turn out, but I am fairly pleased. I did place paper inside of my shirt to keep any paint from passing through incase I applied it too hard. By the way, tee shirt material is tough! It stretches and moves easily.

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I don’t know about you, but I think it turned out pretty cool. I am no longer afraid to do this on the linen caftan I bought for the project. And I didn’t end up wasting my $2.50 tee shirt either!

What crafts do you apply the willow pattern in? Would love to hear.