I've seen so many great Bleach projects and they looked like such fun but I'm kind of a chicken with chemicals that plus me being a big smelly hippy, I don't want them in my house or anywhere near me, but I reluctantly asked the hubby to buy the smallest amount of Bleach. Next up I did the striping with some cheapo Dollar Store Contact paper and let the hubster go crazy with a spray bottle of 50% bleach and 50% water in the Garage with me shouting instructions from the back door!!
As usual not much forethought went into this and it turned out that according to the lovely Emmalemma at The Cute Octopus I needed Hydrogen Peroxide to neutralise the bleach afterwards, nope didn't have that either so I just hand washed with plain water to removes as much as possible then lobbed it in the wash with some painting clothes to soak up any excess bleach.
I wasn't wearing the top anyway and I think it turned out fun, very nu-rave not my usual style at all but it also reminds me of those old t-shirts that changed colours with heat (Hmmm great idea, summer clothes that change colour when people get sweaty armpits whose crazy idea was that?!) C'mon fess up were you one of those kids advertising your sweaty parts? I even think they did Shorts too, the mind boggles as to who would want to advertise a temperate Gusset... ok just answered my own question there ;)
This post by Melissa Esplin at ISLY gives basic instructions and it really is that simple.
Bleach T Tutorial
Here is a more scientific tute on proper Bleach stencilling by Emmalemma
Bleach Stencilling
5 comments :
Ok so if you guys think this is rubbish I am totally going to blame it on the hubby ha ha ha
Neat! The shirt looks great and I'm glad someone read my tutorial :D
I really should do another project like this, it's kinda fun :) I do have the stuff bought to do a nebula/space fabric with bleach, dye, and paint. The only thing standing in my way is finding the time to actually do it!
So neat! I'd love to try this with other color shirts too... would dark green bleach to lime green? Would brown bleach to orange? Oh, the colorful possibilities!
I think the bleached colors depend on the different pigments that got mixed to make the final garment color. So even things that look the same color can bleach to different hues. I know my friend was doing brown shirts once and had two different brands that changed different colors!
ooooh lots of great ideas on bleaching now, after all I have to use the nasty stuff up right?! xoxo
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