DIY Paint splatter t-shirt

Hey, guys! It's been a while since I did a DIY on the blog, so I'm excited to share this tutorial with you today. It's a simple project suitable for a complete DIY newbie, so if you've been meaning to make your first project, but don't know where to start, try this to get the ball rolling.

I've been wanting to experiment with fabric paint for quite some time now, and then one day I got this idea to make a paint splatter t-shirt. I think we all remember this technique from elementary school. You don't need to be an artist to create amazing patterns with this method. So, I bought some paint and went for it.

You will need:

• Plain t-shirt (a light color is best, although they do sell fabric paint for dark colored fabric as well)
• Fabric paint (I used 3 different colors from Dylon: deep pink, yellow, and turquoise)
• Small artist brush (the exact size depends on your preference)
• 1 big trash bag
• 2 plastic bags
• scrap fabric for practice

STEP 1

Prep your crafting area for paint. Cut a big trash bag open and lay it one the ground. The fabric paint does come off easily with water, but who wants to spend extra time cleaning up after. Also, prep your t-shirt by placing one (or 2, depending on the size) plastic bag inside the t-shirt. This prevents the paint from leaking through to the other side of the tee.

STEP 2 (optional)

Practice your splatter technique on a scrap piece of fabric to get you wrist action and tapping action going. Also, this will give you a good idea of how much paint to put on the brush, if you need a thicker brush, or if your happy with the pattern you're creating. I was happy with my platter, although I initially thought the splatter would be bigger. For me, the smaller splashes and dots were ok, but you might want to try out different size brushes.

STEP 3

Once your happy with your technique and splatter size, it's time to splatter on the first layer of paint. I wanted my splatter to cover only one half of the t-shirt front and run diagonally from one shoulder to the opposite corner. 

I used the darkest color first, but you can choose the order yourself. Once your happy with your first layer, let dry. 

Repeat with the other fabric paint colors and once your happy with the design, let it dry completely. Once it's dry, iron it as instructed on the paint label.

I think this t-shirt turned out pretty cool, so I'm dreaming up new ways to use fabric paint. I love wearing my new tee with my overalls. Makes me look bad-ass (or so I think).

Have fun splattering!

xo Hanna

P.S. I developed this tutorial for the Estonian fashion magazine MOOD (it was published in the May issue), and they were kind enough to let me share it with you as well.