One day, I was spending quality hours searching Pinterest for DIY ideas and came across this awesome one: Bleach Pen T-shirts!
So I thunk, I can do this! And so I did.
First, gather your materials.
As you can see, I have a shirt that is 100% cotton (very very important!!) that I found at a thrift store for $1.50, a piece of wax paper, something solid to use as a drawing surface and a Clorox Bleach Pen for Whites (also important!!).
First, some good tips:
1. In order to do this project, you'll definitely need a shirt or fabric that is natural such as cotton. It cannot be a 50/50 blend of cotton/whatever. I'm told it just won't accept the bleach.
2. Use a fresh Clorox Bleach Pen, and make sure it's for whites. Importanty. Also, shake that pen up. Shake it. Shake it. Are you shaking it?
3. This is bleach, people. Use ventilation and don't get into your eyeballs and other logicky stuff.
4. This project takes time. From start to finish, it was a good 2.5 hours. So, clearly you can't just rush this thing. Or, if you do, you'll be shaking your fist at the universe.
Moving on.
So, you've got your stuff all laid out, right? Like so:
What your eyes don't see, unless you've got X-ray vision, is that I've inserted the mat in betwixt the front of the shirt and the back of the shirt (basically I just slipped it inside on the side I wanted my design) and then laid the sheet of wax paper on top of the mat. You could probably use a book or whatever. I just grabbed the first thing I saw. Also, I'm told you can use Freezer Paper and iron it to the inside of the shirt. Whatev. I just used my wax paper because it was handy. The point is, you don't want the bleach to bleed through to the back of your shirt.
Let us begin.
Actually, wait. I forgot a key ingredient to this! You need a design. So, I trolled the Googles and found a dandelion image that looked quasi-easy to recreate using a messy bleach pen.
And thus, I began.
And there is my design. This is in the early stages, very wet and very smelly. I'll tell you that drawing with a bleach pen isn't all that easy. I noticed that some people used chalk first to make their design and then used the bleach pen over it. I like to live on the edge like a rock star, so I just went with it. Some of it looks uber goopy and lumpy, but I figured it would only enhance my design. I let it sit like this for at least 20 minutes, just to make sure that the bleach would do its job. I watched an episode of Monk whilst waiting. You may choose to do something else.
After a chunk of time floated by, I was ready to rinse off the bleach. I just carefully carried my shirt with the wax paper still inside to my kitchen sink and ran cold water over the design. Now, here is where I'll tell you that I experienced that the bleach was hard to rinse off so I used a paper towel to help the process. I tried to work fast so that no residual bleach would land anywhere else. It wasn't too difficult.
Here is the shirt with the bleach rinsed off.
As you can see, it worked! I immediately chucked the shirt into a cold wash cycle and then dried it like normal. I even was bold and daring and just added this shirt to a load that was needing laundering. Needing laundering. Those words sound weird together. Needing laundering. Needing laundering. Weird.
Anyways. Here is the finished product.
BOOM. Also, I know you're thinking the shirt color looks all weird compared to the other pictures- it only looks that way because I took the first set of pictures at night and the last picture was taken during the day. Natural lighting. Way different than light from a lamp.
And there you have it. My bleach pen shirt with dandelions!
