Sunday, July 15, 2012

Aren't I Crafty???



When I told Hot Chocolate I was planning to make this shirt, his words said go ahead and give it a go. His eyes said, "this is going to be an effing disaster!" I was pretty worried about it too, but this was a super cheap project so at least I didn't have too much invested in it. 

I started with a $5 perfect tee from Old Navy. If this hadn't worked out I would have just worn the shirt around the house and not worried about losing the $5! I traced the Mustang onto clear contact paper off of one of my favorite Sweatshirts that I have had since about 1995. Now when my trusty sweatshirt finally wears out - meaning more than the one hole it already has - It will live on! 

After I had the mustang on the paper, I cut the mustang out, peeled the backing off and stuck it on the shirt where I thought it would look good. After Peruna was stuck on the shirt I tried it on to make sure it didn't look oddly placed once boobs were added to the equation. 

Amazingly I only had to make a tiny adjustment. Next I popped the tshirt on a cardboard form that I had already from project CRAMP - which I know, I owe you guys pictures from. 

I put about 3:1 ratio of bleach to water in a dollar store spray bottle, took it out too the garage and misted somewhat lightly all around the pony.

Here's where you learn from my mistakes. Take paper towels out there with you because if you don't, you will be using your magic words when the bleach beads up on the waterproof contact paper and starts running and dripping. If it something goes wrong, just go with it though. There is no such thing as perfect in a project like this. 

After that, I took it in and used the hair dryer to force the bleach to pretty much dry and force the colors to develop. I like to do this because you don't really know what it's going to look like until  you dry the bleach. If you do this step you can go back and add more bleach if you need to. 

Once you are happy with the bleaching, pull off the contact paper and you are pretty much done. Just toss it in the wash by itself to keep the bleach from screwing anything else up.