Bleach Pen T-shirts: Let's try this again folks! (with a COTTON T-shirt!)

Ok, so Bleach pen T-shirts are REALLY fun and easy to make, but I've learned there are a few things to be mindful of-so if you'd like to learn from my mistakes-take note!

1. On a brand new, 100% cotton shirt (which is what I used this time) the bleach takes REALLY fast, so before I knew it I was racing to the bathroom to wash it off so that all the words wouldn't blend together. I think I did ok, (see picture) but next time I'll be more careful!  I also noticed that I didn't need to go over the words and thicken them as much as I thought, that almost made them smooshing together worse-oh well, lesson for next time! Hopefully my texting obsessed niece enjoys it anyway!

 2. Another thing I noticed working with a few different T-shirts is that you just never know what color it will bleach into. I had a black shirt that when bleached turned orange, and these purple shirts turned bright pink (which I liked, but just sayin!). It might be worthwhile to dig on the internet to find out how that is determined before buying a shirt, or if you're lazy like me-just be open to the surprise!

 3. Ok, so here are the tragic remains of my last attempt /sigh/. So the shirt had Polyester in it (which I should have checked, but well.... the laziness thing!) So after penning my design on with the bleach pen, it sat for 3 hours and the bleach didn't seem to sink in below the LETTERS I wrote only, but around it-weird but true. I may try to salvage this shirt by bleaching the WHOLE SHIRT to the orange color, just because it cost me money for the shirt and I can't return it, but then again I'm not sure how much I care! (that's the beauty of crafting! you get to choose to care or not!:)

So you see friends, I promised to show you my experiments every week, FAILED OR NOT, and here they are!! I'd like to think I'm craft for the "experience" of it, not the perfected result-so as long as it's fun-I'm good, but it's even MORE FUN when it turns out! (which happens occasionally too!)

 

Anyway, on to the first official "pin-a-week" craft day-starting tomorrow with my friend Jenn Hubal! We'll be playing with Mod Podge galore!! Stay tuned!!!