Hey there, everybody!
So sorry I missed my promised Thursday update! Life got extra crazy for a little bit there.
BUT I'M BACK NOW! AND, I'm bringing along what is basically my favorite basic DIY thing in the entire world:
painting shirts.
I love love love to paint shirts! When you paint your own shirts, you know you have something that is completely original. No one else will have to same shirt as you, even if they use the same design. SOMETHING about the shirt is bound to be different!
So, needless to say, anytime I spot a plain shirt in my closet(or my aunt's... or my grandma's... or mom's... you get the point. xD) that no one will miss, I pull out my paint stash and scurry away to plain my
mischief gorgeous new shirt. >:3
Today I'm going to teach you the basics of how I do them through a shirt that is
super simple(probably entirely too simple for a tutorial): a faux peter pan collared shirt! :D
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| Yes, that is an Avengers ruler. You should be jealous. |
First, gather the materials you're going to need. For paint, I generally use acrylic paint mixed with a textile medium like
Anita's Textile Medium. (You could always buy fabric paint specifically, but I really enjoy being able to use whatever color I already have in my acrylic paint collection. :D) You will also need whatever you're going to be painting. Decide what you want to paint on it. If you want to paint something intricate, you might want to create a stencil unless you are comfortable freehanding it. (I make my stencils by drawing out what I want on the shirt onto an empty coke box, then carefully cut out my design with an X-acto knife.) For this shirt, I decided to spice up this gray shirt with a painted on peter pan collar, which I didn't need a stencil for. However, I did need a ruler so I could make sure that it would be decently centered. I also had a pencil to mark my center point.
I fussed with my shirt until it was flat enough for my to measure out the middle, used my ruler to find
the center, then marked it with my pencil. If you want your faux peter pan collar to be perfectly symmetrical, take a piece of printer paper, lay it over the collar of your shirt, trace the curve of the neckline, and then draw out the shape you want your collar to take(You can make it rounded like mine is or pointed or scalloped... Anything you want!). Cut that piece out, use a small paintbrush with a tiny little bit of your fabric paint or acrylic/medium mix and trace it out carefully, then flip the piece of paper over, lay it down on the otherside, and repeat the tracing. Then you will have a symmetrical collar. I didn't go down that road, though. I just kinda... guesstimated after I got my center point.
Before you start painting, let my advise you to put some sort of cardboard inside your shirt so that the paint doesn't leak through to the other side of your shirt. Then, begin to fill in your outline. If it isn't filling in the way you would like it to, you can always do a second coat. Make sure to let it dry completely before you start moving it around. After letting it dry, hang it up for a day or so, then wash it. The part of the shirt you painted might be still until you wash it, which is very uncomfortable... Believe me.
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| Whoops, it was a little lopsided... I fixed it, though! |
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| AND, DONE! TADA! Super cute, right? |
A little paint can spice up anything! ALSO: Fabric Spray Paint is fabulous, if you have the patience to work with it. To create a design with fabric spray paint, I highly recommend creating a stencil, spraying it with a bit of spray craft bond(I use Elmer's Spray Craft Bond), sticking the stencil to your shirt, covering any area of the shirt you don't want accidentally hit with the fabric spray paint, THEN spraying the shirt with the paint(with cardboard inside shirt to prevent bleed through). Carefully. Outside. Believe me on this one. It's a bit messy. Really neat effect, but messy. I made this shirt with the fabric spray paint:
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| Do you see the stag inside the dementor? You'd be surprised how many people completely miss it! |
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Creating the stencil for dementor/stag almost killed my hand. Just a forewarning that loopy stuff and X-acto knives are a mixture for hands that want to go on strike. The writing was not stenciled. My hand definitely would have protested at having to stencil out my overly loopy handwriting. Haha.
But yes! I believe that's all I have for you today! I will be seeing you on Thursday to show you the costumes for the play that I totally scored this weekend at Goodwill! :D See you then!
