Wednesday 6 August 2014

Craft For the Craic - August Challenge - A craft Item never used before.


 Hello and welcome to my card-making and craft blog.


My post today is my DT make for the new challenge which started on Friday 1st of August and runs for the month on the  Craft for the Craic challenge Blog.  The theme, as the title suggests, is to use an craft  item never used before. 

I did struggle with this as most of the craft items I buy are opend as soon as purchased. Then I hit on the idea of trying the 'bleach dyeing' fabric technique using some acrylic stamps to apply the images.  This is something I've wanted to try for ages and I had even  bought a couple of cheapie t-shirts ( approx 6€ each) so the expense was not too great if the project failed.

I must point out that not all fabrics are suitable for bleach -dyeing  and can be damaged in the process, so be careful and maybe up-cycle an old t-shirt or buy an inexpensive one to test on. Wash your stamps as soon as you can to prevent any breakdown in the acrylic and dry thoroughly.

You will need:
ordinary bleach
some kitchen roll, folded into a rectangle,
a shallow dish
your chosen stamp
a piece of strong card
to place inside the t-shirt to prevent
he bleach soaking through to the back

Extra items you may want
cotton buds
coloured ink pads with ink
suitable for stamping on  fabric.


To begin, please protect the surface you are working on, as bleach is pretty unforgiving when it spills or splashes (trust me I know).

I used the folded kitchen paper in the shallow dish and soaked in enough bleach to create a 'stamping' pad. Don't make this too wet as you can get drips and smudged images on your fabric.

From a hand-drawn skull image I cut out the negative shape that I used as a mask and made sure to retain the eyes to mask this part of the image and keep it free from bleach.  I should have used stronger card for this, as during the stamping process the copy-paper soaked  in a little extra bleach and some of my stamping is not as sharp as I would have liked.

I was doing well with the stamping when disaster struck. I hit the OPEN bottle of bleach and only caught it after the spill had left a large splodge of bleach on the sleeve left sleeve.I tried to mop it all up quickly, but the bleach was working fast. So I had no choice but to carry on and as a finish I splashed some bleach on the right sleeve. :-)

I used the cotton-buds dipped in bleach to draw the outline of the image to define the shape and dripped and made some splashes Happenstance !  It didn't look too bad.  Sort of grungy, cinco de mayo type of look.  I like it !!

When you are finished, leave the bleach for about 30 mins to dry and neutralise and then you can wash the garment.




The completed article.


You could also use the inks suitable for a sort of second stage stamping to introduce colour into the areas you've bleached . This is what I did with my second attempt with the pale  pink t-shirt.
The second try at the bleach-dyeing with a lighter coloured t-shirt didn't  show up well, so I hunted out some of my ink-pads and checked that the ink was suitable for use on Fabrics.



I used the same stamp to bleach out the  Butterfly image and then stamped the image again with the colours. I treated the images with a couple of colours to see how it looked and the colours seemed blend fine.  When the ink is dry, iron the garment  to set the colour and prevent the colour washing out in the wash. I used an old clean tea-cloth on top to prevent the ink staining the iron.


Colours blending well.

At the    Craft for the Craic  challenge we are looking for your Never Used Before Craft Item  and this was a first for me.  I am definately going to use this technique again to jazz up some tired tops and look around for some stamping ink pads to increase the colours I can stamp on the fabric.  With supervision, this looks like a great art activity for kids.

I hope you give it a go and have some fun.


Remember to pop along to the  Craft for the Craic blog and see the makes from the other DT members. Take time to check out the challenge rules and get crafting and get your entry in.

Thank you for stopping by to visit and read my blog.  Your time and comments a truly appreciated.

Angela x