Bleach Pen Art

I have been MIA lately.  I was really sick for about 4 days and now am playing catch up.  =)

I came up with this idea on my own a long time ago, but saw it recently on pinterest and it reminded me I had some shirts I wanted to do.   

A few years ago, I accidentally spilled bleach on my jeans.  Instead of tossing them, I made it "pretty" by turning the white blob into a heart.  The jeans still live today! 

My washer is getting old and the area around the bleach intake is rusty.  The rust sometimes drips onto my clothes...ugh!   I had this grey tank top with an ugly rust stain on it, so I used the good ol' bleach pen to hide it.  Hopefully the rustoleum spray paint, on the washer rust, will prevent more ruined clothes in the future! The tank turned out cute with the group of stars on it.

I am a sports fan, but I don't have a lot of money to buy tons the official sportswear at the stores.  I bought this black/white/grey (Chicago White Sox colors) tank at Walmart for $4 and decided to bleach pen the logo of my baseball team onto it.

I found the team logo online and printed it out on computer paper.  I them used an exact-o knife to create a stencil out of it.  

Make sure to place something in between the front and back of the shirt to prevent it from soaking through to the other side.  I just used a magazine, because it also created a firm work space on my lap (I did this while watching TV). 

Each fabric will be different in the amount of time the bleach needs to sit on it.  Newer fabric seems to take longer to color change.  Once it has lightened to a good degree, rinse the bleach paste off immediately.  After it is rinsed all the way off, I then run it through a regular laundry cycle to make sure its all washed off.    I'm sure I will be doing more of these in the future!