Rather than create it ahead of time, I presented him with this plain tee from H&M, and a coupon for one “Original Freezer Paper Stencil.”
 I had thought of several designs for him, and however weird it might be, the one I kept coming back to was to create a true-life, anatomically correct heart. You know? Valentines Day for the Nurse and Chemist in us:) When I told Dave about the idea, he was excited about it! Aren’t we meant to be together?

 I got to work looking for an acceptable image to base the design on. Originally I had planned on one color, but I loved this image, and it convinced me that two would be much more fun.

 I’m an extreme photoshop amateur, but was able to turn the image into stencil-able format using the “Photocopy” filter and erasing all of the excess vessels.

 Using my spanking new exacto knife (oh, life’s little pleasures!) I carefully cut out the red part of the design, being sure to save the two little sections that would float in the design.

 I arranged and ironed the stencil in the center of the chest, lined up with the bottom of the sleeves, with the heart tilted slightly to the right…which I think is how and where it actually sits in the chest.

 Next came the fabric paint. A nice, oxygenated blood red:)

 After waiting for it to dry, I peeled back the stencil and was pleased to see that the design looked pretty true! I almost liked it enough to leave it just like this…but was curious how it would be finished, so I went on.

 I had planned on re-using the first stencil, which I realized was a bad idea once I saw it covered in paint! So, I used it to trace roughly the red, then traced the blue again over the original print out. 

 Once the blue was cut, I positioned and ironed it over the red. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t line up, or wouldn’t stick, but it did both well.

 The blue paint went on, dried…