The first Star Wars* premiered May 25, 1977. I have a VERY clear memory of my parents coming home from a double date with our family friends after seeing it in the theater. I knew they saw Star Wars first to make sure it was "appropriate" for 5-year-old Jenn and my kid brother. My mom bursts through the door, gushing about the brilliance of the storytelling, the symbolism and excitement. I'm reasonably sure I actually tugged on her sleeve as I yelled "So do we get to see it??"
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 When someone on Etsy asked if I could make 12 Mike Wakowski shirts for their team to wear in a race, I was SUPER excited! (I also gave them a really great price break for ordering 12.) Luckily - they were willing to let me post their picture so that you could see my bleach art shirts in action!
I've been promising my friends that I would post bleach-art instructions. The holiday break finally offered me an opportunity to do just that. (If we're being honest here, I must admit that it's the LAST day of my two week break and I'm just now doing this project. Procrastination and I go WAY back and have a rather co-dependent relationship.) This project is an "upcycle" project. A friend of mine gave me this shirt because it had bleach stains on it anyway. Don't you hate it when that happens? Now, you'll know exactly what you can do the next time that happens!  Original bleach spots clearly visible - but no worries because they will soon be part of the art!  Sometimes I use sticky shelf paper and sometimes I use stencil plastic. In this case, I drew the butterflies freehand on the sticky paper (before it was sticky, of course) after searching the web for some images. Once I'd looked at a few butterfly silhouettes, I felt confident enough to draw a few. (This is when my ADHD comes in handy - good enough for me, baby!)  Butterfly stickers pre-spray... Then it's time to cut out my butterflies and stick them on the shirt (avoiding the bleach areas because I want the butterflies to be the color of the shirt). Before spraying, take these tips into consideration: - I converted a few cookie trays into bleach trays that I keep outside because I like to have a cookie tray between the front and back of my shirts. It would have been great to get a picture of that for you...but trust me, it's there. - Always spray outside and be aware of the wind. (Oh - and only wear your "bleach clothes" for obvious reasons.) - I enjoy having wrinkles in my shirts because I think part of the charm is that every pattern is a little bit different. - My bleach/water ratio is about 50/50 and after each spraying session, I squirt regular water through the sprayer (from a regular glass) to clear out the bleach and prolong the life of my sprayer. - I've had much better luck with the 99-cent sprayers from the hardware stores. (Those pricey $4 sprayers didn't work nearly as well for me. Go figure.) 
Ta-dah! Easy peasy, right? Feel free to ask any questions you have and have fun - don't stress out because it's a cheap hobby and as long as you don't spray bleach-water while wearing nice clothes, you shouldn't be out very much money. I'd love to see pictures of any shirts you create so let me know if you take the plunge!
Kudos to Real Simple for the pumpkin pi shirt idea. My son liked it, but instead of taping a pi symbol on an orange shirt he asked if I could bleach-art it. You know what, kiddo....I think I can! Then I came up with cotton on a cap because...of course...whipped cream. Yum. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was missing out on the whole mathematical geek world AND I remembered that last year, on March 14th, I got super excited about this year's Pi Day. Specifically - this year's Pi Day at 9:26 a.m. and p.m. Because that will be the most awesome moment in Pi Day history, as far as I'm concerned. 3-14-15 9:26 AWESOME!!!!!!!! (I could get into the nano seconds I suppose, but that's sort of beyond my math cred.) Here are a couple of my artistically-rendered Pi Shirts - for your favorite mathematician or someone who just appreciates a lovely mathematical symbol representing a cool never-ending number. Get ready to fly your Nerd Flag, folks!  I've decided that I simply adore creating animal shirts. (Of course, it's not as if I dislike my Disney and Harry Potter adventures...) I'm hoping that people who love their dogs, cats, and horses will discover my shirts and enjoy showing their love for their animals by wearing them. What other animals should I make? Any dog breeds you'd like to see in my shop?
 DisneyBounding as Princess Leia I believe I previously mentioned that I love to DisneyBound? Well...when one is spraying bleach, one must make sure that one does not ruin one's work clothes. (So far, so good - which is actually quite shocking for me.) Even better, a wanna-be-Jedi can pretend to be Princess Leia as she sprays bleach on unsuspecting shirts. By the way - I've stretched my art towards the dark side with Darth Vadar and Boba Fett (or Jango Fett...whichever you prefer) shirts. So just click on the pictures below and you'll go straight to my Etsy store where you can purchase these Dark Side works of art.
I grew up with a Chihuahua named Bambi and my husband grew up with a Miniature Schnauzer named Judge. When my husband pointed out that Schnauzers don't shed, I agreed to get Watson, our first Schnauzer. A little more than a year ago, we lost Watson (I still cry when I think about it) and adopted Henry - our current Schnauzer. We foster pups from a local animal shelter before they are ready to be adopted and Henry is a wonderful big brother to them. Do you have a favorite breed? If so - let me know and I'll make you a shirt! Right now I have Bichon Frise, Boxer, Chihuahua, Vizsla, and (of course) Schnauzer up for sale in my Dog Breed Section! 
 You remember me talking about how I like to Disney Bound, right? [Nod your head...] Great! So we're on the same page with how cool that TOTALLY is, I'm quite sure. Speaking of TOTALLY COOL - here I am in EPCOT, wearing a hand-painted shirt done up in the Elsa coronation dress pattern, wearing a snowflake necklace (of course) and a silver headband (because....you know...a crown). And I'm standing in front of the Norway stave church. So...seeing as I have SO MUCH COOL oozing out of me I decided to share it with my first non-bleach-art shirt. I recreated this pattern on a turquoise t-shirt and put it up in my Etsy store so that everyone else can Disney Bound as Elsa while wearing comfortable 100% cotton. Because right now in Austin, Texas it is NOT frozen. It's 102 degrees. Anyway - here's the shirt: 
 Have you seen Brave? If not - GO WATCH IT NOW.
Seriously. I'll wait. Ok, are you back? Isn't it the best thing you've ever seen? I love it because the true love in that movie is all about the love between a mom and daughter. PLUS - the mother had dark hair (with stylish grey streaks) and green eyes while her daughter had red hair and blue eyes. I know, right? (Or...as I learned from my daughter's texts: IKR?) In honor of this amazing film, I wanted to create matching momma/daughter shirts and my awesome first born totally agreed to wear a matching shirt. AND she let me post our picture! I wanted to create my very own celtic-ish decoration for the bottom. Now that I look at it, it sort of seems like an odd treble clef. |
I'm JennIn 1st Grade I fell in love with the Star Wars saga. Archives
August 2015
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