Well, the title says it all. I LOVED Shiver. Want to know why? Because it made me cry on the very last page. And I never cry. Unless I'm hormonal. But Shiver was just so beautifully written and so well-developed that yup, I cried.
And then Linger came out. And I didn't cry, but I still just straight up loved it. So Maggie Stiefvater was coming to Austin. Oh mah goodness. I had to celebrate!

I spent 3 arduous days laboring over designing and making 2 shirts for me and my friend Stephanie. We had to look rockstar, after all. And of course, we got a ton of comments on them at the signing and asking if I was selling them. Yeah, hah, at like $50 a pop!
AND (the highlight of my night) was when Maggie asked where I got them printed and I was like oh, no no, I made them. She was impressed. I beamed.

Now this process was so long and complicated that I couldn't begin to tell anyone at the signing how I did it. But here's my tutorial of sorts. And I'm sorry for the lack of progress pics, I suck at stopping and thinking "picture time!".

All right, if you have ever used freezer paper stenciling, that's what this is basically.

You'll need:
- freezer paper (found near wax paper in the grocery store)
- an iron
- stenciling sponges (I used the ones without wooden handles)
- acrylic paint (or fabric paint, but I have a preference with acrylics and I used BASICS brand paint)
- X-acto knife (or craft knife)
- pencil
- stencil blanks (Hobby Lobby has them!)
- masking tape

1) First I drew the trees and made them the sizes I wanted.
I actually scanned the drawings, blew them up and printed them off so I could just trace them on to the freezer paper.

2) Draw the trees on the MATTE side of the freezer paper and cut it out.
So it looks like this:


3) Position it and get that iron ready! And iron the sucker! Iron all over, especially the edges. Some tutorials say to iron both sides. I never did that and I had no problems with it.

4) Now, spread some paint out and try to coat the sponge evenly. Then dab the paint on the stencil. Now it's not as important with freezer paper stencils, but be sure to make the motion up and down and not pushing the paint side to side at all.
I've ruined many a good shirt doing that...

5) Let it dry. Why I like acrylic over fabric paint is because fabric paint needs to be heated or something and I don't have the patience for that. Bah.
With stenciling, the acrylic paint layer is really thin so it doesn't take long at all to dry!

6) Peel off the paper. And voila!
Now repeat this a billion times. Or so.


7) For the leaves, I used a plastic stencil blank and just cut them out once (3 different batches of leaves). Instead of ironing it on, just use masking tape to secure them. The leaves part goes really fast.

Also, to get the color/fade effect that's on the cover of Linger, place the first trees higher up and color them the light green, medium in the middle and dark green in the foreground. That's a distance/proportions thing.
Click on the pictures to see a bigger version!


Now did I have Maggie sign the shirt I sprained my index finger's first knuckle on? Yes. Yes, I did.



YAAAAYYY!!!

And so you know what all this leads to...?
MY FIRST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Now I'm a little beginning baby blog, so this is going to be super easy.
Comment on this post to enter. You MUST be a follower to enter.
Just post your name and email. That's it!
And YES! It is open internationally!

(edit) This is for a SIGNED SHIVER!


Want more than one entry? You can do one or all!
- With the comment include what you LOVED about Shiver or Linger OR stroke my ego and tell me what you thought about the shirts! (I'm kidding... kinda...)
- Twitter - RT this contest on Twitter with the hashtag #FYshivergiveaway or @ me (JustlyJennifer) into the RT (and if you do this, please make it easy on me and include your Twitter name with your post...).
- Facebook - Post it on Facebook (and provide a link in the comment).

Contest will end a week from today, August 6th! Yay! I'm excited! :D