Bleach Shirts

Creeper face!!!

All right, I was hoping to have some better pics before I posted this, buuuuut it doesn't look like that will happen for awhile... So I guess we'll just go with what we've got and possibly update the pictures later :)


Anyway... Karl and I worked on these really cool bleach shirts the other night, and I really wanted to share the instructions, so here they are!

Supplies:

• Black Cotton T-shirt
• Bleach
• Water
• Clean Spray Bottle
• Freezer Paper (if you need some, come to my house, we have WAY too much)
• Scissors or X-acto Knife
• Iron (you know, the one you use to get wrinkles out of your clothes)
• Plastic Grocery Bags 

1. First things first, choose the design you want!  Once you have that, you can either draw or print it onto the freezer paper (hint: cut out a piece of freezer paper to as close to A4 size as possible if you want to use a printer, and make sure it prints on the papery side!).

2. Once you have the design on the papery side of the freezer paper, use either the scissors or the x-acto knife (depending on how fancy and detailed your pattern is) to cut out your pattern.  Keep in mind that you can either cut out pieces of a solid paper like a stencil (this is how we did the "baby loading" shirt) and the cut outs will be orange, or cut out blocky pieces that will look like black floating in a mist of orange (like the creeper face at the top of the page).  That doesn't really make much sense, so hopefully you're smart and can figure these things out, lol!

3. Now that you have your pattern, position it where you want it, waxy side down, on the t-shirt (another hint, make sure the t-shirt is as wrinkle free as possible).  Use the iron on a low heat setting to stick the pattern to your shirt.

Yay! Your shirt is ready for the fun part!  

4. For this step, make sure you're not wearing any clothes you like!  Make a solution of 1 part bleach to 1 part water and fill the spray bottle with it.

5. Carefully place your shirt on a "safe" surface (one that can handle being bleached--outside is a good option, but we used the kitchen floor) and CAREFULLY (if you move the shirt around too much the pattern can get detached!) line the inside of the shirt with the plastic grocery bags.  This will keep the bleach from bleeding through to the back of the shirt.

6. Now for the fun part!  Spray your shirt with the bleach solution!  You might have to experiment a little to decide what you like.  You can spray a fine mist or let big drops fall on the shirt.  You can also spray just a little for a lighter look, or saturate things a little more for a more solid look.  After you've sprayed the shirt, watch it start to change colors!

7. When your shirt looks like it's about the color you want, rinse it immediately.  Some people say you should stick the shirts in the washer as soon as you rinse them, but we just hung them up to dry.  As soon as they are dry (whether you decide to wash them or just rinse them) they are ready to go, and you have a unique, one of a kind shirt to make all your friends jealous! lol!
 

Here are the shirts while they were drying, they look a lot cooler dry

Yeah, I know, you've all seen this shirt, but I needed a better example pic! lol

Here's the template I made for the baby loading shirt :) I can email the actual document if anyone wants it

For Halloween I want to make one with a jack-o-lantern face on my belly!  We'll see if I ever get around to that though, haha.  Anyway, I hope someone else gets as big a kick out of this as we did :)