Creating a perfectly hand-painted crib sheet is tedious but satisfying!

So, I have my son’s summer vacation going on and he is too small to be sent to a summer camp. A typical day starts for me at 7am and so does it for my son. Keeping him occupied from then on is a full time job and in the middle of all this I need to find the time to complete two crib sheet orders that I received. Crib sheet projects are elaborate and time consuming, but fun too if you love painting. I have 10 days from now and I need to create two perfectly painted, spotless crib sheets of size 57″ x 33″. Join me in the process.

Today I washed the rich, pure white cotton fabric that I sourced for the sheets. Washing is a pre-requisite in fabric painting as it washes away all the starch on fabric which could prevent the paint from bonding with the fabric. The other plus point of pre-washing fabrics before selling is that it will take care of issues such as shrinkage, color run etc, giving you a better peace of mind when you sell your products.

Now, the designs have to be transferred to the large fabric. Design transfers can be done in multiple ways. I use Mona Lisa charcoal paper which I source from the US. They transfer the designs with a very non-intrusive light blue color onto the fabric and also ensure there are no smudge marks while tracing. Normal carbon marks that appear on fabric while tracing are too dark and often hard to remove, but charcoal paper marks can be easily washed off with water helping you achieve a neat finish. I also use a Martha Stewart Stylus, which is a rounded knib that allows you to draw over your original drawings again and again for tracing, without tearing it.

Then once the design is transferred, I first paint all the design outlines. Then start painting in all colors one by one… starting with the earth colors first – greens and the browns, then the warm colours – yellows, reds etc and then the cold colors. If an area looks too dark and muddy, then I use streaks of white to brighten it up a bit.

If you want to experiment a bit with various colors, you can refer to some popular color charts in https://kuler.adobe.com/

After the painting is done, I let it dry for 24 hours and then iron on the reverse side for a few minutes with medium heat setting to fix the paints.