All Bleached Out

Hello all! Today we have a Pinstrosity from Leah, who happens to be a big Doctor Who fan. Judging from everything I see on Pinterest, there are a lot of you out there. Although I'm not a big follower I know the importance of wearing your TV allegiance on your favorite T-Shirt. Leah did this project without any prior directions or bleached t-shirt knowledge and here's what happened.

The Original 

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/91366207/custom-order-for-claudia

 The Pinstrosity 

 For those of you who aren't familiar with Doctor Who, this is their logo.

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/paging_doctor_who.php

So the Pinstrosity has a few minor adjustments, as someone who is OBSESSED with bleached t-shirts, I have a bunch myself, I can tell you there is definitely a trick to it. My instructions are much different than Leah's, here are her's first:

" [Our] Second attempt is the other picture I sent along. (Dr. Who Logo)  Put a cardboard piece inside and used tape to stabilize.  Still a little to much bleach.  The trick to this one was laminating the design with packing tape." She covered her paper design with packing tape so it wouldn't bleed through, always an option if you are using paper. "The Bleach can not bleed through it.  The second tip is to tape the design down with double sided tape.  Make sure you take the tape all the way to the edges.  Or it will bleed under the design kind of like this one.  Also, it only takes 3-4 small misting sprays of bleach, Not the 6-7 sprays my sister did."  

"On the third try I got clean crisp lines and I used just the right amount of bleach and the laminating and double sided take worked like a charm."

  

That was Leah's take on what went wrong, here is how I have found the best way to go about this project,  there are a bunch of different ways to do it, some more time intensive than other, please bear with me through this.  Here are a few of the shirts my hubby and I have done:

I am a HUGE  Philadelphia Phllies Phanatic (yes the spelling is correct here), and so for a game they had last year near where we lived at the time, I made this shirt! For this particular shirt I cut the "P" out, which we will call part A, and the outside that was left (which was already cut into an oval) we will call part B. I laid down part B and sprayed down the exposed shirt that makes up the "P" so that it would turn out white (one of their colors). Then I placed part A back in B (like a puzzle piece) and did the outside splatter. I didn't pin this one down ( read on for pinning instructions) because the piece is bigger and heavier than usual. I ended up holding it down with my hand, creating the pressure against the other cardboard piece underneath that it needed so it wouldn't bleed.

For the back I used reflective house numbers, (the kind you put outside your door to show what number your house is, they are sticky and you can find them in the Home Improvement section at Walmart). I cut out the letter itself, and used the outside piece that was left on the shirt. I then placed it on the shirt,  sticky side down so it wouldn't move and covered the remaining area with cardboard so that I wouldn't bleach out the whole shirt. After all the letters were the white I wanted, I went back and did a spray or two of bleach for the splatter affect. My nozzle on my sprayer went wacky  for a bit which explains the weirdness by the 35, bummer city.

This one and the tree are a little more complex, you will cut out whatever piece it is that you want (so that your design turns out white, or remains the color of the shirt), and then we placed it on the shirt, and took sewing pins and pined the cardboard down about every 1/4 inch around the edges of design (time consuming, but makes a world of difference). You have to make sure the cardboard is snug against the shirt or it will bleed like it did on Leah's. My husband did the Psych shirt above and took the extra time to cut out each pineapple piece and the letters for Psych (one of our favorite shows), and then he added a little Batman piece in the left hand corner (he thinks he IS Batman).

For the tree we cut out the design, and then pinned around the whole thing and did probably 6 sprays total, but we held the bottle probably 15 or so inches away for the Milky Way look.

Tips for success:

*Use cardboard inside the shirt to prevent the design from bleeding through.

*Use moderately thick cardboard for your design, not paper, I think that is where Leah ran into trouble with her first attempt, the paper bleeds through if you don't use packing tape to reinforce the paper.

*We used an exacto knife to cut out our designs, it makes the image crisp, as opposed to using scissors and cardboard which can be tricky.

*Put the bleach in a spray bottle and hold it either closer for a white look, or farther away for splatter or Milky Way affect.

*Don't freak out and go spray crazy if your design doesn't show up in the first thirty seconds, depending on the color of the fabric sometimes it takes longer to work.

So I know this is WAY longer than usual, but this one takes some explaining. Good luck Pinstrosipeeps, let us know your tips and tricks for this one and Happy Wednesday!