How To Bleach Gel a T-shirt

I've fallen in love with bleach gel! It is a super easy and quick way to decorate any plain t-shirt.

I've had several friends ask me how to do this so I'm writing this tutorial for them. :)

WARNING! 
      This medium is very "organic" in that it's going to do what it's to do once the bleach is on the fabric. Bubbles will cause odd little blips. The bleach might bleed a bit. The scraping of the tip applicator can cause the gel to thin in some areas of your design. If you prefer crisp, even, perfect designs, this might not be the best medium for you.

Prep Work
1. Gather all your materials. Once the bleach hits the fabric, your clock is ticking. It is not advisable to go looking for something that is buried in your craft room while in the middle of this process!

2. Work area is well ventilated. You are working with bleach which will give off fumes. Open a window or turn on a fan for air movement.

3. Change into clothing that you can get "dirty". By this I mean, put on the old ratty, paint spattered t-shirt and shorts. Wearing clothing that you care about while working with the bleach is only asking for Mr. Murphy to come looking for you.

4. Make sure you have enough bleach gel to do your project. This is not a process that you can stop and pick up again later. Once you start, you work to the finish. (I've been able to do the fronts of 4 shirts with this technique if that helps.)

5. Make sure both your kitchen sink (or bath tub if need be) and washer are not full of stuff! You will need both of these towards the end of this process and you won't be able to deal with emptying them.

Materials needed:

• solid colored, medium weight t-shirt, gently worn is fine
• bleach gel pen (costs about $2.50 at WalMart)
• freezer paper (wax paper can be substituted, see details below)
• chalk fabric marker - preferably high contrast color
• your chosen design to be bleached - MAKE SURE IT'S SIMPLE LINES FOR YOUR FIRST SHIRT!

 
 Step 1
   Prep the t-shirt for bleaching by laying it out flat on your craft area. Place a piece of freezer paper that is slightly larger than your design on the inside of your shirt making sure it covers the area to be bleached plus a little more. Place the paper shiny side up. This side is wax covered which will help keep the bleach from damaging the underside of the shirt.

Now, with an iron set to the appropriate setting for the t-shirt (NO steam!), iron the area to be bleached to secure the waxed side of the freezer paper to the underside of your fabric.

Step 2
   Draw your design onto your fabric using the fabric marker. (My design is based off of some Mehndi tattoos that I love.) I started with my pink chalk marker as my 5 yr old had wandered off with  my white one. Grrr...

Can't draw free hand designs? Do a Google Image search for a design that you like. Print out your design and then trace your design on your shirt using tracing paper which is used like old school carbon paper . I like looking at coloring sheets online because they have simple lines and can easily be made more elaborate by adding in shading or more details.

Step 3
   Shake your gel pen well. Working left to right for a right handed person (opposite for lefties!), begin tracing your design with your gel. It takes practice to get an even line of gel coming out so don't get upset if your first bleached tee isn't perfect!

 Bubbles will occur in your gel. Breathe! It's not the end of the world or shirt! ;)

Step 4
    Set your timer for 5-15 minutes and allow the gel to do its thing. The longer you leave the gel the whiter your design will be.

Detail shot of how the gel can bubble and run together as well as bleed on the fabric.

CAUTION! Be very careful with your first couple of t-shirts. If you use different brands of shirts, they will most likely all bleach differently meaning that they may take more/less time to get the desired result. Leaving the bleach on too long on a lighter weight cotton shirt could cause the bleach to eat through the fabric!

Step 5
    When the timer goes off, carefully carry the shirt by holding the bleached area as flat as possible to the sink/tub. With cool water, rinse the bleach off of the shirt. Don't worry about the water pooling in the sink or tub. At that point, it won't affect the design or shirt.

If your shirt folds over on itself while you are rinsing and another part touches the gel, it can affect that area of the shirt. Be careful! Having an extra set of hands close by might be useful with your first attempts at doing this.

Step 6
    Wash and dry the shirt according to the label on the shirt. Now you have an awesome bleached tee! Also, give your hands a good wash after placing the shirt in the washer. The bleach is going to dry out your hands. A good lotion is also helpful at this point.

Troubleshooting

1. I can't find freezer paper around here! 
      Use the wax paper instead only you won't be able to iron it to the shirt as I did.

2. I want my design to come out super white. What do I do?
      Allow the bleach more time to do its thing. Just understand that this stuff can eat the fabric of the shirt as well as the freezer paper if left on too long. Keep an eye on it!

3. I'm really worried about the bleach spreading to the back of my shirt.
      Find yourself a piece of clean cardboard box i.e. don't use pizza boxes that have oil on them. Cover the cardboard with either wax or freezer paper by taping the edges down on the underside of the cardboard. Slide this piece into the area of the shirt to be bleached.

Time to Start Craftin' for the Season!

I went on a bit of a crafting spree Friday night. Unfortunately, I was dealing with a bout of insomnia and rather than stare at the walls or watch a movie, I put my brain to work. I made 4 mug rugs using bits of holiday from my fabric stash! :D 

What's a mug rug? It's sort of like an over sized coaster (mine is about 5"x9"), big enough for a hot cup of coffee/tea/cider and a yummy snack or two!  I'm going to combine the mug rug with some baked goodies for teacher gifts. (Being a teacher myself, I know that they most likely don't need another mug. I've got a cabinet full most all of them from student gifts.)

Since I'm new to quilting in general, I used a technique called "quilting as you go" or "stitch and press" from this wonderful tutorial from Contented. Only rather than doing a binding edge, I did a backing that I learned to do while costuming in the SCA. :)

(The picture makes it look wonky on the right. Apparently, I took the picture while standing at an angle rather than straight on. :/ )

And here are the other 2 designs!

(I learned that parellel lines make me crazy so I'm not making many more of this particular design. I'm too OCD...)

I like the simpler lines of this one but I did notice that I put one of the inner squares in wrong. Doh!

I stitched up the rugs in 3 different designs in a total of about 4 hours (puttering around did also occur during that time, not continuous sewing!). I only need one more to have enough to gift all of my kids' teachers! YAY!

UPDATE! I finished the last mug rug. I can check something off of my Holiday To Do list! :D

Just flying by...

I know that I've been quiet these past weeks. The start to this school year has not been rough but it has been draining. I'm back up to speed now though so look out for more of my Crafty Me moments!

I stitched up this hoop for a gal in the Ongoing Hoopla swap. I love its simplicity. My husband, who is a huge paper plan fan, has already asked me to stitch up a couple for his office at work. :)

I used the split stitch on the plane and a quick baste stitch for the loop de loop. The outer hoop was painted with acrylic paint. Overall, this was a quick and fun project.

Another bleach gel tee!

I'm really amazed at how fast doing bleach gelled designs is! This past weekend, I did 3 shirts for myself! :)

I have always wanted a shirt with a dragon on it. My problem in trying to find one retail is that the dragon was either too cutesy or too evil looking. Why can't a dragon just be a dragon and not those 2 extremes?

I found the inspiration for this design on line and then added my own bits of flare to it. I drew the design free hand onto my tee and then hit it with the bleach.

I think I'm going to try my hand at spray bleach during the next school holiday since the weather is finally cooling down here.

Experimentation with bleach gel

I've been reading a lot on the Net about the use of bleach gel to decorate t-shirts. It looks so easy and fast so I bought a bleach gel pen, pulled a couple of plain tees out of my dresser and gave it a go!

This craft is crazy fast if you have a pattern in mind when you start the whole process! It took me about 15 minutes plus wash/dry time after the bleaching step. All told, I was able to decorate a shirt from start to finish in about an hour, which means this is PRIME holiday gift material! :D

The green shirt was my first attempt. I just free handed some vine work with fabric chalk and then applied the gel. I really like how it turned out. The swallows was my second shirt and I played around with the brush tip on the wings.

I'm thinking that the kids will be getting bleached tees for their birthdays!  I'm also going to write up a tutorial on it after I get past my current TO CRAFT list (which is over halfway finished!).

Finally

I've been saying that this was coming. With a bit of help, I finally managed to make this happen. Here it is.

Please understand that at this point, I'm hot, sweaty, exhausted and more than a bit pumped up. (Then there's the fact that I really need to have a talk with Mrs. Clairol about my hair but that's another story...)

Here's a VIDEO(!!) of me doing a board break during my karate belt test. I used a reverse elbow. It stings for only a minute or two afterwards but that's it. :)



This was the one break that I was really worried about. Who uses their elbow to smash someone in the face? Well, I can if I need to do so now. Wooohooo!

Challenge, Frustration and Triumph! OH MY!!

Whew....the first full of week of this school year is over. It has been one big blur and I'm so glad to be sitting on my couch at the moment enjoying my Saturday morning. :)

However, I did manage to complete one project! I made a zippered and stenciled laptop cover for a Craftster swap. This project was a challenge, a frustration and a triumph all wrapped into one!

To be honest, I've always had problems with making covers in the past. Somehow, I always made them just slightly too small in some way and this was with the item to be covered in my hands while I was creating the cover itself. This time, I didn't have the laptop to be covered, only it's measurements. This was a major challenge for me. I sat down and seriously thought about my pattern before ever picking up the scissors. I'm glad to say that this one turned out correctly! (This is my laptop in the picture which is close to the same dimensions.)

Then there was the stencil. What a mess! I found my pattern and followed my usual steps. However, as I ironed the fabric that I had bought, I noticed that the fabric had splotches throughout the length. (This fact made me cranky!) I had to go back to the fabric store for more fabric. I found a heavier fabric (a home decor cotton) with just a tiny bit of texture. This second fabric was splotchless and worked up like a charm. The texture in the fabric did cause the stencil not to come out as clean as I would prefer but I still love the end result.

Finally, the zipper, my nemesis. Believe it or not, I put the zipper in correctly on the very first try! WOOOOHOOO! Go me! I actually did a Happy Dance through my kitchen when I realized that I didn't have to take anything apart. LOL

What a learning experience!

Quick and Easy Ghostly Halloween Decorations

I'm back! The new school year is under way so I now have my crafting time (and energy!) back! YAY!

Here's my latest creation!

My family's second favorite holiday is Halloween. (Christmas gets the top spot of course!) My husband loves to come up with new creations to make every year. This year, I decided to get into the festivities a bit more. I found the idea for this little decoration while poking around on Pinterest. These ghosties are so super simple and easy to make. With all of the materials at hand, you can create one yourself in about 5 minutes.

Materials needed:

 
~ 2 white craft felt sheets per ghost to be made
~ 1 black craft felt sheet for faces, this single piece will be enough to make a dozen or so ghost faces
~ craft glue
~ scissors
~ empty mason jars or any jar of similar size (not pictured)
~ sewing machine (you can just as easily hand sew these)
~ black thread
~ vanishing fabric marker (not pictured) or your choice of fabric marker
~ LED flickering faux candles (I found these in the Wedding Decor section at WalMart.)

Step 1
Stack the white felt sheets one on top of the other. Using the vanishing fabric marker, draw out your shape. Cut out your ghost, both sheets of felt at the same time.

I have found that the felt craft sheets are the perfect size for the mason jars. Be sure that the base of your ghost is almost the entire width of your felt and don't slope your pattern line in too much towards the ghostie's arm pits. 

Step 2
Using your sewing machine and black thread, sew around the ghost with a 1/4" seam allowance.

If you prefer not to use a sewing machine, you can just as easily do a simple basting stitch by hand. If you don't want to sew at all, you can glue it! :)

Step 3
Cut the facial features that you want out of the black felt. Glue those onto your ghost.

Step 4
Place an LED light in your jar and place the ghost cozy over the jar. DONE!

You can play around with the pattern, add different facial features or do different sizes and make a whole ghostie family!

NOTE: My husband pointed out that you need to stick your finger (or some other type of pointy item like scissors or an ink pen) up into the arms of the ghost's arms to pull the felt apart to allow the light to shine there. I did and he's right. It looks much better. :)

Happy Halloween!

It's TIME...again.

I've been quiet, very quiet this past week, but not for a lack of wanting to bury myself in my crafts. What I have been doing for the past week and a half is decorating my room, lugging books out of the storage room, writing up lesson plans and attending a mind numbing number of meetings. It's Back To School time!

I start a new school year tomorrow. I'm not really sure where this summer went but Gone it is and I'm now looking at the start of my 20th year of teaching. Well, to be honest, I'm not sure where all of those years have gone either! With as fast as this two thirds of my career flew by, I feel like if I blink, I'll be setting up my retirement. ACK! I'm not old enough to be thinking about retirement, but regardless, it's headed my way.

Oy. As if all of this isn't enough to make a normal person a bit rattled. Then there's the BIG kickers. My son is starting 5th grade. He spent his summer saying "When I'm in middle school, will I...? When I'm in middle school, can I have...?". This did not help at all. My brain is screaming "STOP THIS! I'm not ready to have a kid in middle school!!" but my mouth said "Let's get through the 5th grade first..." Breathe Mom....breathe.

And then, there's my littlest. She starts kindergarten tomorrow morning. She has her bookbag filled with all kinds of supplies. Her lunch bag is prepped. (I'm making them do the night before prep work for their lunches to help save me some time in the mornings.) She has picked out her clothes and shoes. After her shower, she said "I'm going to bed now so I can have a great day tomorrow! Night MOM!"

I sat on the couch and cried.

Tomorrow morning will be rough, filled with exhaustion, chaos of the morning routine, tears and the emotions of watching my kids start a new stage of their lives.

Yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to DQ tomorrow after work. Peanut Butter Parfait Buster here I come!