Freezer Paper Fabric Design Homemade Hat

The title of this blog post is a little surprising if you have never heard of this genius method to print on fabric. Freezer paper? Design homemade hat? I recently learned how to do this technique I’m calling freezer paper fabric design and am totally hooked! I want to decorate all my shirts and accessories. Here’s how you can do it, too!

Start by using freezer paper. Be sure to buy freezer paper that has a wax finish on only one side. Do not mistake freezer paper for wax or parchment paper. You will be using this paper to make your template.

Design whatever you want whatever size you want using canva.com. I love this website for graphics and font combinations. I put together a little design I wanted to print on a baseball hat.

Then hold your freezer paper up to the computer screen and trace your design on the plain (not waxy) side. You could also print this design onto the freezer paper or use a die-cut machine. I’m cheap you guys; I don’t even have a printer, let alone a Cricut.

After you have traced your design, use a precision knife to cut it out. Be sure to carefully keep track of the little pieces inside letters like “e” and “a.”

Now use the hottest setting on your iron and press the freezer paper template onto your fabric, wax side down. It works best if you have a flat surface. It was tricky for me to do the baseball hat because it was rounded. I alternated between ironing a section, painting, then ironing another section and painting. It is also wise to put a flat piece of cardboard behind the fabric you are ironing.

You can see that I could not get the template to iron flat against the rounded hat no matter what I did. It is not this hard if you just iron flat like on a shirt.

The next step is to paint using a fabric paint or adding fabric medium to any craft paint. I used this fancy metallic set I bought on Amazon – love this stuff!

The last step is to carefully peel away the freezer paper template. If you peel very carefully, you can reuse the same template more than once. You will see down below I made two matching shirts with the same template for my husband and I not too long ago.

If your paint suggests so, you might want to iron the design to set the paint and make it durable through the wash. Be sure to iron when the paint is completely dry, though.

Freezer Paper Fabric Design

I love how the hat turned out! You might notice that I decided against the heart inside the state of Minnesota shape. I like it better without it I think.

You could personalize any fabric; the options are endless! Design shirts for a birthday, decorate a napkin set, make seasonal pillow covers, etc.

Be sure to pin this fun and easy craft! I also made t-shirts with my blog name in a live video on my Facebook page using the freezer paper fabric design method.

So far I’ve also made a shirt for my daughter, Lily, and plan to make another hat that says “mama bear.” It is so much fun; you’ll have to tell me if you give this craft a try!
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