Image Splattered Shirts

I'm always looking for fun, relatively easy projects to do with the girls.  This project proved not only to be a fun project, but it doubles as a fun & creative gift.  Thank you, Reanna Manthe, for the idea!

Supplies:

• Shirt
• Computer & Printer
• Card Stock
• Freezer Paper
• Pencil & Scissors
• Double-Sided Tape or Iron
• Squirt Bottle
• Bleach & Water
• Cardboard

Step 1: Buy your shirts....  I picked ours up at Wal-Mart for under $4/each.  I'm a big fan of the girls fitted V-neck shirts and the bright colors are super fun!

Step 2: Pick your image.... I collected ours from the images on Microsoft Word and Google Images.  Profile images turn out best on the finished product.

Step 3: Print your image on cardstock.... You're going to have to decide what size works best for your shirt.  We made child sized shirts, and I found that printing two images per page made the images the appropriate size.  When your picture is how you want it, but it out carefully.  *You do not have to print out your images!  You can draw the image freehand, or trace an existing image.  However, to make the next step easier, I recommend having your image on card stock.

Step 4: Trace your image on freezer paper.... Once your image is traced, carefully cut it out.

Step 5: Carefully place double-sided tape on the shiny side of the freezer paper, paying special attention to narrow spots.... Freezer paper can be ironed directly onto the shirt {shiny side down}.  However, through the experience of others I learned that this does not guarantee your spray solution will not seep under the image.

Step 6: Stick or iron your image to the shirt shiny side down.

Step 7: Place a piece of cardboard inside the shirt so the bleach solution does not seep through....{I used an empty Swiffer Duster refills box. Bonus: it had a plastic coating on the inside of the box, which made it easy to reuse for all my shirt!}

Step 8: Spray image with bleach solution.... In a spray bottle, make a solution 70% bleach, 30% water.  The trick to getting a splatter affect {see the pink elephant shirt below} is use the mist setting, pressing the trigger gently and moving your hand quickly from side-to-side.  *If the kids are doing the spraying, I highly recommend having them practice using colored water on a piece of paper.  Only one of the six shirts we tried did not turn out, and I believe it is because I used the full-blast setting on the spray bottle and it over powered the image and leaked under the paper.  Less is more when you're spraying the shirt.  You want to get enough around the image so when you remove the freezer paper the image will show through, but not too much so that they spatters don't show.  I highly recommend spraying in the shirts laying in the grass.

Step 9: Remove image.... After spraying I waited about a minute, then gently blotted the freezer paper with a paper towel {so it didn't drip when I removed it} and carefully pulled it off.

And that's it!  Allow shirts to dry, wash and enjoy.

Before....

 

 

....After