Bleached Valentine's Day Shirts

In an effort to better ignore some housework that really needs to get done around here, I decided the boys needed some Valentine's Day shirts. Manly Valentine's Day shirts. Because we are all about the manliness around here. I had recently seen bleach-design shirts somewhere online (sorry, I can't remember where), so I thought I'd try it out.

First, I found a very manly heart design online and tweaked it a bit in Photoshop. Regular hearts? Not so manly. Hearts on fire? Very manly. Then I printed them on some vellum. (Why vellum? I think paper would just soak up the bleach; vellum doesn't.)


Next, I put some aluminum foil in the shirt so the bleach wouldn't go through to the other layer. For Joshie's shirt I decided just to put a small heart on the upper left side. (Side note: I bought these shirts at Goodwill for $2 each. Sweet. It wasn't until I got home that I realized that Joshie's shirt was actually a girl shirt. No matter. I cut off the label and viola! It's now a boy shirt. Yes, I'm magic.)


Time for the magic bleach pen.


I lurrrve bleach pens. Quite possibly one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.

No, I'm not exaggerating.

Using the fine end of the bleach pen I traced the pattern.


Okay, so now I kinda have to backtrack a little. Because the pictures of Spencer's shirt are better at this point. So here's Spencer's shirt.


Instead of just putting the heart smack dab in the middle, I decided to have it kind of going off the side. (Thus the odd angle of the shirt.)

And here's his heart, completely traced with bleach. BTW, if you're a righty like me, start on the left or it gets tricky to trace everything without getting bleach on yourself. (I learned that the hard way on Josh's heart.)


So once the heart is all bleached, carefully place it on the shirt and gently press it down. Yes, the bleach will squish a bit, but don't worry - you want that. Leave it on there for a minute or two.


Then carefully peel the vellum off the shirt, making sure not to smudge any bleach. If you see any lines that are a bit too thin or just don't have enough bleach just carefully go over them with the bleach pen.


I let the shirts sit and dry for several hours until they looked like this.


You could probably get by with just an hour or so. Or maybe even dry the bleach with a hair dryer. But I got sidetracked with laundry and other (secret) Valentine's crafts.

So once the bleach had dried I threw the shirts into the washing machine with some old towels and washed and then dried then normally. They came out like this.


I think it looks super-cool! I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't want a shirt like that? It's Valentiney and manly all in one. Spencer was very excited. (Model pictures to come tomorrow.)

I don't think Josh's turned out quite as well, mainly because I think there was too much detail for the small size.


But I still think it looks cool. Kinda like a heart with a lion's mane, which perfectly fits Josh's demeanor, so there you go. He wasn't as excited as Spencer was, but he's two and that's a good enough reason right there.

Okay, I totally want one of these shirts now. Think I could find a red maternity shirt a Goodwill tomorrow?