A Tutorial

Hi guys! So remember I said there was a surprise for my friend Brennan's birthday, but I couldn't tell you what? Well, his birthday is over, so now I can.

 

His mom asked me to make him this, since he's gotten into bull riding in the last few years. Funny thing, I threw it in a Wal-mart sack for him and told him it was some fabric from my mom to his.

He delivered his own present.

 

Anyway, I thought it might be kind of fun to show you guys how to make these yourself. Lot's of people have asked me how to do it, and it's actually super easy. I know there are lots of tutorials online for how to do this, but I've had trouble with them, so I thought I'd put my two cents out there on how to do it.

 

So here we go.

 

 

 

What you will need:

 

A t-shirt. I've used brown, black, purple, and pink and they all bled just fine. I prefer black, just for my style, but any color should work as long as it's fairly dark.

The brand that seems to fade out the best is Jerzees, 100% cotton. Others work okay, but these get the brightest colors. You can get them at Hobby Lobby, and JoAnne Fabrics.

 

A bleach pen and bleach. A typical Clorox pen that you can get at Walmart works fine. For bleach I use Clorox, or the generic version. It just has to be bleach.  

Scissors, Chalk, an Iron, Trash bag, Paper Cup, A small sponge paintbrush, a spray bottle, and a permanent marker. .

Parchment Paper. You can get this stuff the same place you get sandwich bags and Reynolds wrap etc., for your kitchen. It's papery on one side and kind of slick on the other.

 

 

Step One:

Trace our your design on the paper side of the parchment paper. You can print out your picture and trace it, or you can do it freehand. Be sure you make things big. Small lines and shapes will soak up and turn to blobs. Try to keep the details simple. (If you look at the first pic, I had to make the bull's tail and the nail holes in the horseshoe thicker than my original picture, so they would show up)

 

Step 2.

Cut out your design. There are two ways to do this. If you want the design to be black, like the bull rider shirt, you will cut out the actual design as a whole. So for my example pictures, I would carefully cut out each letter and save them.

If you want the design to be bleached, you will cut out the outline, like this

 

Keep the centers of your letters- like the circle in the p and d.

 

Step 3.

Position your design. For the front or back I want the top of the design to be my hand width from the collar, and about three fingers from the sides.

 

Once you know where you want it, iron it down. You should have the iron set at a medium heat, and just slide it over the whole thing. Don't leave it too long, but keep going over it until you can run your hand over the paper and no edges peel up. Pay special attention to points, and little pieces, like the circles in your P's and D's. They like to peel up and get smudged around. For those it's best to set the iron straight down on top of them and not slide it at all.

 

Step 4.

Put the trash bag inside your shirt. If you forget this you'll have bleach soaking through it all over. Don't put it in first cause you'll melt it with the iron and ruin your moms trash bags and make her mad. You want the whole area you'll be bleaching to have plastic under it. I usually tug it through the sleeves and collar as much as I can, then smooth it down to the bottom and I've had no trouble with bleach soaking through. Make sure your bag is dry though, cause that spreads in the shirt and makes a mess with the bleach.

 

Step 5.

This is when you bleach the shirt. There are three ways I've done this. 1. If you want the shirt to have orange around the design, you'll take your spray bottle and put straight bleach in it. You spray around the design. Try not to douse the paper too much, because it can soak through, but a little wont hurt it. In areas with lots of details and lines, go easy on the spraying, so they don't soak under the paper.

2. For making the design orange you put the bleach in your cup, and sponge it into the stencil.

Make sure you get the bleach up to all the edges, and around all the corners. Doing stencils you can go pretty heavy on the bleach because you've got a lot of paper between each space, and it doesn't usually soak that far.

3. Using a pen, you can do narrower words, or make drawings. Careful, because if you squeeze too hard they splatter all over. Don't let your letters get too close together. You just write it on however you want. You can also use chalk to draw it on first, to be sure you like the spacing and such, then just bleach over the top of it.

 

 

Step 6. This is where things get tricky. If you used straight bleach, it's going to take a little longer to fade out, especially if you sprayed it on. Depending on the shirt you get, and how much bleach used, it could take anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. At first you'll panic and think it's too dark, but don't stop it yet. That bright orange will wash out and you'll have a barely there design when you're finished. Wait a little longer. Bleach that you put on with a brush fades out slightly faster than that, and bleach pen only takes maybe five minutes. Make sure all of your design is faded first. The first letter or shape you did will be dark way before the last. Wait until the last one is faded out before stopping the bleach.

When you feel like you're bright enough, peel off your stencil. It comes right off usually, but if it sticks, just make sure not to touch the bleached spots with your fingers cause they will smudge your fingerprints around as you peel.

 

You can see that the edges of my penned words are flowing, so I'm going to throw them in the shower.

 

Step 7. Run COLD shower water on it, and leave the bag inside. Scrub it, rub all the bleach pen off. Wring it out. Run it under the water. Get that thing totally soaked. Dump the water off of it so the bleach doesn't sit on it. Then you can take the bag out and scrub it some more. Wring it out. Douse it again. Some color might come out into the water. That's fine. When it quits you should be safe.

 

 

Step 8. This is the cleaning up stage. Most people say to hang the shirt up and let it air dry, but I've thrown the last four I've made into the dryer and they were just fine. If you are doing a design on the front and back, do the front first, dry it TOTALLY, then do the same procedure on the back. The dryer makes multiple step shirts a lot quicker. If it's dry and you see a spot that didn't fade like you wanted, you can go back over with your pen or a paint brush and soak it up some more. These shirts aren't a one time thing. Your trash bags won't be ruined, you can give them back to mom. Rinse out the brush and spray bottle and everything is back to normal.

 

You can do all kinds of things with them. Different fonts. I drew a castle for one. I bleached a hat. Put your favorite lyrics on one. If you accidentally splatter on it (like someone did on their Hunger Games t-shirt) splatter all over the whole thing. No one will know Take it to the fair. Win ribbons on them. Win lots of ribbons on them. Get them sent on to the State fair. Have fun!