Crafting with Kids – Silk Screen Craft Aprons

We are about half way through the summer. Camps are close to wrapped up, friends are on vacations, and my kids are starting to get bored!

So, yesterday, we entertained ourselves with some crafts and made some silk screen craft aprons – so we can look cute when we do all of our future crafts!

I already had the paint and I had picked up the silk screen pattern from Martha Stewart Crafts at Michael's a few weeks ago. I fell in love with the lace doily pattern and knew we could come with a project to do with it. I had purchased the aprons forever ago for another project that never happened (how many of those do we all have?). They are canvas and can easily be found at craft stores.

At the time I purchased the silk screen, they were out of the spatula tool meant to go with it. But no worries, after some trial and error, we found that we had some old small kitchen spatulas that worked just fine.

To use the silk screen, spread the paint to cover the entire silk screen. It has a sticky back, but still make sure to have it steady and not to pull too hard so that it causes wrinkles.

Once it is full covered, carefully removed the silk screen. We did a few test runs on some random scraps to get a sense of how much paint to use before we actually applied it to the aprons.

When we changed colors, we rinsed the silk screen and spatula off in the sink and dried it will paper towels. It was easy enough for our (almost) 11 year old to do it. She actually used one of those scrapers used to clean Pampered Chef stones and it worked great.

She was so happy with the result, she chose to leave just one sunny yellow design in the center. But Sunshine and I layered multiple ones. We applied all the patterns in one color first and then gave it time to dry.

Then we went back in with the second color. Sunshine did pink first then brown, I did brown first and then pink with similar results.

And here is Sunshine modeling her finished apron. Cute right?

I actually really loved this project and found it much easier to work with than a stencil for fabric – especially with all of the detail of the pattern.

I am thinking it would be a perfect project for a pillow or even curtains. I even love the idea of white on black fabric. This pattern reminds me of the stencil I used here - wouldn't they go well together in the same room?

And it was a perfect project for my girls to do to keep busy – and now they have cute aprons for future crafts!

Thanks for reading!