1. Place the knit sticker under the surface of the item you are painting with the rough side facing upward. Place the painting pad behind the knit sticker.

2. Position the stencil so that the first star is approximately 4" below the neckline. Use the pastel pencil (on dark fabric) to map out your design, before you start painting.

3. Apply spark-l-on paint to all 9 stars as shown in the first picture. Paint is best applied with a small stiff stencil brush. Squeeze the paint onto the edge of the stencil and then brush the paint gently toward the center of each star. In the photograph shown we applied red to the top and 2 base stars. blue to the center star, and the smaller stars were all painted with silver Spark-l-on paint.

4. Once all 9 stars are painted, use the row of small stars on the stencil to apply 2 rows of stars at the base of the tree. Paint these stars alternating with blue and red paint, using the stencil brush. (Shown in the first picture.)

5. Place a fine line tip on both the blue and red Spark-l-on. Using the blue Spark-l-on, paint a line of paint 1/8^th inch away from the edge of all 3 red stars. Once you have created this outline of paint, use your small stencil brush to brush the paint away from the star, pushing the paint with the brush as far as it will go without adding more paint. This creates a starburst effect around each star.

6. Repeat this process using by outlining the 5 silver stars with red paint, then brush outward.

7. With a fine line tip attached, use silver, blue or red paint to paint fine dimensional lines all around each star as shown in the second picture.

8. Complete the patriotic tree by applying red, opal and blue Jewel jems both around and on the star shapes.