red panda onesie.

 red pandas are by far the cutest animal ever made. i challenge anyone out there to prove me wrong. to celebrate their unreasonable level of cuteness, i put one on the cutest piece of clothing out there--a newborn sized onesie.

it all started when my sister came to visit last weekend and we dyed a bunch of plain white onesies. we used rit dye and let them soak in the dye bath for around five hours. this was to try for really saturated colors, because babies should have a little less pastel in their lives.

i was pretty pleased with the results. and the orangish-red of the top onesie just looked red panda colored. it was fate. so, i made a quick and simple graphic red panda design and used this as a chance to try out freezer paper stenciling.

the process is pretty straight forward and fairly quick. i followed this tutorial, and i would guess the whole thing took under an hour. it's hard to say though, as there was at least one saturday morning donut break involved. 

here it is after i removed the stencil. i only used a stencil for the white portion. the black eyes and nose i painted on freehand with a small brush. i could easily have made a second stencil for those portions, but i was too lazy. eight and a half months pregnant and post saturday morning donut will do that to you.

i still can't get over the adorableness of the finished product. i think my brain will explode with cuteness when baby sharp wears this.

if you want to make your own, you can download a pdf template here. it's sized to fit nicely on a newborn sized onesie, but could easily be scaled for larger applications. if you make something, post a link to share it! i'd love to see it.