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My Tie-Dye T-Shirt

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 by Alyice

Have you ever tie-dyed a shirt before? Simply Spray was gracious enough to send me a sample of their product to test out on the basis that my daughter would create some of her graffiti art with it.

She has an idea brewing, but until it comes to fruition I thought it would be fun to give the product a try myself. So while shopping the other day, I asked my daughter for an idea.

She said, “I think it would be cool to create a tie-dye/hippie t-shirt that says ‘Costume’ across the front. Then I can wear it to school for Halloween.”

“And if we use glow-in-the-dark puff paint, it can glow when we go to the Haunted House this year, under those special lights,” I replied excitedly.

So we bought some foam letters and shapes to use as stencils, some glow-in-the-dark puffy paint, and two $4 white t-shirts and went home.

After arriving home, I washed and dried the t-shirts. Then I laid one of the t-shirts out on my table and commenced to lay out our design.

To create the vest, I put a small t-shirt board inside a large t-shirt. Then I pulled the t-shirt to fit the board and used masking tape to hold the excess material on the back of the t-shirt board.

Next, I laid the foam shapes in place, and sprayed the paint. Once dried, I removed all foam pieces, except the letters. Then I cut two pieces of freezer paper and adhered them to the top and bottom of the t-shirt, leaving ample room to spray a bold rectangle over the word “costume”.

Once dry, I removed the letters. Then I used black puffy paint to trace the objects and glow-in-the-dark puffy paint to outline the word and to create drips over the design. I also created a drip outline around the vest.

She thought the t-shirt was okay, but it wasn’t what she wanted so this t-shirt is going to find a good home via one of her friends, or perhaps one of her cousins. Then it’s back to the drawing board.

Only next time, I’ll let her create the tie-dyed t-shirt—and choose a more flattering shirt, too..

Good thing this was just a practice shirt! And thankfully Halloween is still 60 days away—plenty of time for her to “get it right”.

While I may not be a great tie-dye, t-shirt designer, I can say this much. I had FUN playing with Simply Spray. It was easy to use, it didn’t make a huge mess, there are no fumes, and it is essentially odorless—which is fantastic since I usually have allergic reactions to chemicals, and I had none, not a migraine, not burning skin, nothing!

Oh, and a bit of warning here, the spray drips when you first squeeze the trigger so make sure you start your spray on a scrap piece of material (as suggested per instructions), then continue holding down the trigger as you move the spray over the t-shirt. And if there is an area you don’t want the spray to touch, cover it with freezer paper.

Keep Creating

Disclosure: I received a review sample of Simply Spray, which may be ordered at www.simplyspray.com

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How To Create A Quickie Collage

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 by Alyice

Just a quick post today to share how cute my daughter’s collage turned out.

It was so simple to create, too.

First she cut out letters from a magazine. Then she wrote down a few words on a scrap piece of paper, and cut them out individually.

Next she asked me to pull up a photo I took of a monkey at the zoo and print it out for her. She then traced the monkey and colored it in with black ink. Next she cut it out, leaving just a little bit of white around the edges.

Then she found a kid on a skateboard, traced the image, colored it in, and cut it out.

Next she glued everything to a blank piece of paper and colored around the images and text with different colored markers. She purposely left some of the area rugged as she was going for a graffiti look.

When it was done, we scanned it and added a concrete texture and a black border in Paint Shop Pro.

What she’ll do with it is anybody’s guess.

As a mom, it was just fun watching her play with art.

Keep Creating

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Design Your Own Shoes

Sunday, June 20th, 2010 by Alyice

When my daughter was in elementary school she came home from school one day with the soles of her shoes all marked up with a permanent black marker.

When I asked her why she did that she said, “My friends were writing on the tops of their shoes and I wanted to do it too, but I knew dad would get mad so I wrote on the bottom of my shoes instead.”

“Smart cookie,” I thought to myself.

Fast forward a few years and my daughter is once again drawing on her shoes.

Aren’t they cute?!

She took a $10 pair of white canvas sneakers from Wal-mart, a few waterproof permanent markers, and an $8 can of Kiwi Select All Protector Spray.

The spray repels water and stains so her artwork should be safe for quite some time. (You can buy the same can for $7 on Amazon.)

Keep Creating

Posted in Art How-Tos Children | 2 Comments »

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AlyiceEdrich.com
I'm a freelance writer, mixed media artist, SMVA, and the owner of The Dabbling Mum.

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