Bleach Pen Shirts

Anything 100% cotton you better watch out. I have a new obsession. Really easy. Draw on a shirt with a bleach pen. Like the Tide pens except it is Clorox. This isn't a new idea, but the first time I tried it. I used the entire bleach pen in one afternoon. I was kinda dizzy to say the least. Not really.  

The teal on in the top left was my demo shirt. It already had paint on it. I learned that you have to get it started on something other then your nice shirt. It comes out liquidy like ketchup at first. You would never open up a bottle of ketchup and put it directly on a nice grilled hot dog. Same concept. 

It works best if you use 100% cotton. Synthetic fibers don't bleach as well, or not at all. I tested out a small dot on the underside of the hem to see how well the fabric would work with different shirts. Easy way to test the 60% cotton 40% polyester. It worked on one but not the other.  

I really loved the concept of the palm trees. I pulled the design from a screen printed shirt from American Eagle. But the 100% cotton shirts really accept the bleach. You might want to let it set for a shorter time. Some places said 30 minutes. I wish I had only let this one sit for 10 minutes. You can tell when it starts to bleed. So since the trees' leaves bleached larger with less detail then I wanted I added some paint. Just tulip fabric paint watered down in pink and brown. I thought it added more depth. And at the bottom it says "Nothin could be finer then to be in Carolina." If you don't know, it is from an old song. I am referring to the beaches and state in general, not the school. 

And this one I was inspired by a wall mural I saw on pinterest. And isn't pinterest the best thing in the world? I did take the design to the back of the shirt as well. This shirt has spandex in it. I also got impatient so the bleach made some neat halo effects.