Bleach Dyed Serenity Shirt

If you look at any kind of crafty or Do it yourself websites you have probably come across bleach dyed t-shirts. The basic idea is to use a dark colored shirt and create a design using bleach to lighten the shirt instead of dye to darken a light shirt. It's a pretty simple process and one that I've been meaning to try for a while.


The first thing that you need to do is decide what kind of a design you want. If you do a quick internet search you will find all kinds of ideas but from what I've seen there are three basic types. The most common uses a stencil and sprays bleach around the design so it remains black but the area behind it is bleached out. (My design is a variation of this.) The second is using a brush or bleach pen to paint a more detailed design. The last style I've seen uses bleach to create tie dye type designs.

Materials:

Dark Colored T-shirt

Bleach

Paintbrush/ Spray bottle to apply bleach

Cardboard to slide inside shirt

Optional Materials:

Freezer Paper for making stencils

Iron and ironing board

Fabric Paint

Step One: To make a stencil using freezer paper all you need to do is transfer the design to the paper side and cut it out. I used a silhouette of the Serenity from Firefly to make a shirt for my husband. I actually used both the positive and negative part of the stencil so hang on to the outside after it's cut.

Step Two: Wash and Iron shirt so the front is smooth. (I actually skipped the washing and for the most part it was fine. It did cause a small issue with the design that I'll show later.)

Step Three: Decide where you want your design and iron the stencil to the shirt. Just place it with the waxy side down and hold the iron over the design for about 20 seconds.

Step Four: Put a layer of cardboard inside the side to keep the bleach from soaking through to the back. Apply Bleach using either a brush or spray bottle.

I kept things pretty simple since this was my first attempt but I get the impression from other designs I've seen that you can go back and add layers to create lighter areas. I used a fairly large brush but in retrospect I kind of wish I had tried a smaller one because I think it might have let the brush strokes show and created slightly more variation in color.

Step Five: Let the design sit for a few minutes to give the bleach a chance to work, then rinse to stop the reaction.

Other tutorials I looked at listed anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. Just keep an eye on it so you can see when the color reaches a place you like. If you leave it to long it will totally bleach and turn the shirt white. When you are happy with the look wash the shirt in cool water to remove the bleach. Just a quick rinse in the sink should be enough but I washed this one in the machine with some old towels just in case the bleach spread.

Depending on your design you could stop there but I wanted to add a second layer using fabric paint.

Step Six: Iron on the other part of the stencil trying to line it up as best you can with the bleached line.

 

You can see here that because I didn't wash the shirt first everything shrunk a bit and it was impossible for me to line things up right but I did my best.

Step Seven: Fill in stencil with fabric paint. I used Tulip Soft Fabric Paint in Platinum.

Step Eight: Remove the stencil and check out your final design.