T-shirt design w/bleach = Pretty Cool

[OuTpaTienT]

Hi all. Hope all is well. I recently ran across a cool way to make your own custom t-shirt designs and thought I'd share.

This is the page that I encountered: Using bleach to make t-shirts

The technique looked easy enough, and fun, so I gave it a go. I haven't perfected it yet, obviously, but I was surprised that the first few attempts weren't that bad. Definitely promising with a little more skill.

I find it's easier to forgo the plastic film for making stencils and simply use sticker inkjet paper. That way I can print designs directly onto stickers, easily cut them out with a razor, stick them on the shirt, spray the bleach, then remove the stickers. I'm hoping to expand my range from flames to other items... maybe stuff on fire or whatnot.

And combine this technique with the cheap t-shirt website (that if I remember correctly Scott turned us onto) Cheapestees.com and how can you lose?

[Creatures]

nice, i like it

i guess i have to create some new vector pictures, those should be perfect to print out in several layers and achive some kind of grayscaling, have to try this!

thanks for the idea!

Creatures

[The Real Bingo]

Awesome...need to make a t-shirt with a Ford Mustang pony on it.

[doddsy]

i'd do someting with the lettering. doesn't work for me. jars.

otherwise

[Steve R Jones]

Old styles never die. Can I get some bell bottom jeans with that?

(which when translated means if you lived in the 60's you'd remember doing the bleach thing)

[Whir]

I don't know which to be more surprised at - Out's artistic stylings branching even further, or Creatures actually posting.

[OuTpaTienT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

Old styles never die. Can I get some bell bottom jeans with that?

(which when translated means if you lived in the 60's you'd remember doing the bleach thing)

I was alive for 2 years of the sixties, 1968 and 1969... but I don't remember much of them. I guess most people don't remember much of them, but my excuse was I was one and two years old.

I've used bleach before to do a "reverse tie-dye" effect on t-shirts. And back in the day I had a pair or two of blue jeans with the random bleached pattern on them. But that was always a very uncontrolled, random type of design. Plus most of the time the areas most heavily bleached became delicate and quickly develops holes.

This technique (which I'm sure you are correct, is not new... but I've never been exposed to it before) uses bleach in a controlled fashion. And the material remains strong and for the most part intact. In fact the opposite side of the material (the inside of the shirt) you can't see the design. The bleach is applied in a light mist that just sits atop the material. It doesn't soak in.

One big reason why I'm liking it is because you can make designs that encompass the entire shirt. IOW you're not limited to the 12x12 inch square only on the front or back that the t-shirt printing service is capable of doing.

[Toadman]

Wow I learned how to tie-dye shirts in kindergarten then. Wrap them up with rubber bands and see what comes randomly out as a school project, lol!

Fun stuff

[OuTpaTienT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toadman

Wow I learned how to tie-dye shirts in kindergarten then. Wrap them up with rubber bands and see what comes randomly out as a school project, lol!

Me too. Weeeee! I'm sure we all have.

Not sure what that has to do with this however.

[butch81385]

Originally saw the Koi Fish tutorial last year (I think on StumbleUpon). Seems the tutorial is currently down for maintenance, but this site contains a link for when it comes back up:
WaffleBox | Bleach a Koi Fish onto Your T-Shirt