What’s your summer wardrobe?? Me, lots of tshirts and jeans, so this year I’ll be prepped with something a little fun:
follow the break for the details…
I’m posting this as part of the Summer Fun Series over at Girl Loves Glam:
I love a bleached shirt – so fun, but just a little different. My kids all have one from Grandma Day Camp a couple of years ago (we got the idea from Under The Sycamore)
And I’ve made a number bleach shirt for my oldest, which Trevor loves:
So, back to the project at hand. I’m kinda out of the loop – – like I just learned about #ootd a few weeks ago. Apparently people on instagram or wherever take a picture of what super cute thing they’re wearing that day and hashtag it “#ootd”, which is “Outfit Of The Day”. Then I see someone at Silver Dollar City wearing a shirt (I think it was black with white letters) that said “#ootd” and now that I was in the loop and knew what that meant, I thought it was a pretty clever shirt. And knew that I needed one for summer.
I thought about just using iron-on vinyl, but I wanted to mix it up a little, so the bleach shirt idea was brought to the forefront. And I’ve got a quick tutorial for you.
You’ll need a t-shirt (I always buy them when they’re on clearance for a dollar or two – you never know when a project might come up!), some bleach, letters (I cut them with my Silhouette but you can buy letter stickers), and a spray bottle.
Like I mentioned, you can just buy some stickers that are letters and stick them on a shirt. I had some contact paper laying around so I cut letters out of it and stuck them on (using transfer tape) – – I put the shirt on so I could tell right where I wanted them (a misplacement could be awkward!). Then I prepped by hanging a couple of plastic bags from a hanger, and shimmying that hanger into the shirt, so the front won’t bleed through to the back:
I mixed a solution of half bleach, half water into a spray bottle. Then sprayed it onto my shirt. The letters look white but that’s just the reflection of the clear contact-paper stickers. You can see how the area around the letters is darker because it’s wet with the bleach/water solution. The color didn’t turn immediately so I wondered if my solution was too watered down – so I sprayed it more than I originally planned. Ooops.
After spraying, it still wasn’t turning – so I set it out in the sun to speed the process along.
And then I kind of forgot about it. Ooops. So it bleached out a little more than I planned – oh well, still fun! When you’re ready to stop the bleaching, just rinse the shirt. And peel off the sticker letters. Then I threw it in the wash for good measure. You can see that the stickers protected what was under them from the bleach, so the original shirt color shows through where the letters were at – pretty cool:
Since it’s a summer project, I thought it’d be fun to take a “summer fun” picture – -nothing says summer like a swing, right?! But bam, photo bomb from a swing-by.
Are you already thinking of fun ways to use this bleach technique?? Maybe kids’ names? the outline of a favorite animal? Possibilities are endless!
And if you want more fun summer ideas, check out these other posts:
very nise project!I like a foto with your cool team!
So cute! I have an idea floating around in my heading out for a bleach shirt and I can’t wait to try it.
Mandy do you spray the back too or just leave it be? Trying to picture in my head what it would look like with s speckled front and solid back.
-Crystal
I sprayed the back slightly, similar to the bottom of the front. Good luck with yours!
Mandy, I’m laughing because this the perfect solution for people like me who have thrown out too many tops because of the spots created while pouring bleach into the washer. Why didn’t I think of this? Cool affect.
I’m with you and the buying plain T-shirts when they are one sale. There are so many fun t-shirt projects to try! definitely need an #ootd shirt. I may need a #ootn one too…. maybe a pajama set? could be cute. I’ve done the bleach effect before. It’s so fun. I used freezer paper to make my stencil the last time.
Mandy, when you washed the shirt, did you wash it alone, w/ colors or w/ whites? May sound like a silly question but I would think the pink would bleed on whites or bleach would bleed out w/ colors. I am SO going to do this!! Thanks for the post! LOVE the photo bomb, so funny!
[email protected]
Sounds like I need to go to Walmart!! I had already prewashed the shirt, so I wasn’t too worried about the pink bleeding. And since I rinsed it with water, I hoped the bleach wouldn’t bleed either. But to be safe, I washed it with towels 🙂
Oops forgot to mention. Not sure if your Wal-Mart is doing this but MY WM has winter shirts on sale for $1!! I got a navy & a grey 3XL & 2XL in mens, mock turtleneck shirts. I figure I can’t even get single color knits on sale for a dollar!! I also found a 0-3 mo onsie for my new GranGirl & a plain white L/S 18 mo. ALL $1 !!!!!! Go check it out! [email protected]
Oh, how awesome! I will definitely have to do it soon. Also, thanks for the savings tips, above poster!
Liz
https://liz-makes.blogspot.com/
Cooool t-shirts, I definitely have to pin one of them!
The ootd was news to me–so I am really put of it! Also, I love a good picture bomb!
love this shirt!!
I’ve never heard of OOTD until I saw your shirt on instagram and thought what does that mean?! Thanks for explaining what it is! haha.
Cute shirt!!
How creative to use the OOTD hashtag! Too fun!!!
Oh my word; you are too cute! I loved your hashtag shirt! That number shirt looks like something you would find in the store too; how fun! Must try with my ‘oops shirts’! Thanks Mandy!
This is too fun, Mandy. Love it. I have very similar OOTDs all summer long. Love the bleach one you did for your son…I may need to do that for my guys as well! 🙂
This is such a cool idea! I love the bleach and the hashtag is sooo cute!
Love this idea! Super cute!
We are so proud to feature this on the Moonlight & Mason Jars link party! Thanks for linking up & congrats!
P.S. Pretty please grab a featured button.
Xo,
Jennifer Pilgrim
The Newlywed Pilgrimage
Such a cute idea. I pretty much live in t-shirts and jeans too so I will have to try this:)