Inspired by Tanie (of cupcake wishes and unicorn dreams) and Sarah (of silence sweetheart)'s DIY efforts, I decided to fulfill my own space prom wardrobe fantasies and gathered the girls for an official crafternoon/science experiment.
First we gathered all the necessary supplies: bleach, gloves, blue RIT dye, glow in the dark and matte fabric paints, old paintbrushes, and a bunch of old clothes. Don't forget the Cadbury eggs for important chocolate snacking moments. Pretty essential for me and my girls.
We all really wanted to make dresses, but you would be surprised how hard pressed you can be to find a perfect black Betsey-esque jersey dress with a kicky little peplum skirt. Okay, maybe that makes sense. We all ended up using either thrifted items or items that had been previously shoved into the back of our closets.
And then we added the bleach. Everyone used their own made-up technique. Some of us brushed, some of us drizzled, and some of us used a spray bottle, all of them resulting in different looks. It wasn't long before we all started screaming, "It's changing! It's changing colors!!!"
The science experiment part of this endeavor? We kind of wanted to know what color things would turn if you spilled bleach on them--the results were mostly in shades of orange. After the bleach treatment we ran all of the garments through the washer.
Mine were pretty 80's looking.
Lana's turned out like a sci-fi superheroine sunrise.
Mary's turned out like REAL SPACELIKE.
And since I believed that more is more, I thought it would be fun to add more bleach. Which (after a rinse and dry) resulted in a totally different set of colors:
And since I believed that more is more, I thought it would be fun to add more bleach. Which (after a rinse and dry) resulted in a totally different set of colors:
The level of fading after two bleach + wash cycles was sufficient so we busted out the dye. We used a royal blue dye, diluted according to the directions on the bottle, and mixed partially with some red wine to achieve a range of shades from smokey blue, deep eggplant, to blood red. (The wine was an especially fun tip from Tanie.)
The house smelled like winos and bleach after all was said and done.
We were impatient so we skipped waiting through yet another wash/dry cycle and went straight to painting on the stars. I thought it would be fun to have the stars glow in the dark, so I got both glowy and non glowy fabric paints. I also figured the glow would be brighter if the (translucent) glow in the dark paint was painted over the matte white paint.
If you look carefully you can see the classy scraps of cardboard we used as disposable paint palettes.
The stars were painted on randomly and everyone had their own technique.
We were impatient so we skipped waiting through yet another wash/dry cycle and went straight to painting on the stars. I thought it would be fun to have the stars glow in the dark, so I got both glowy and non glowy fabric paints. I also figured the glow would be brighter if the (translucent) glow in the dark paint was painted over the matte white paint.
If you look carefully you can see the classy scraps of cardboard we used as disposable paint palettes.
The stars were painted on randomly and everyone had their own technique.
I love the twinkling stars on Mary's! She had the brill idea of using the back end of the paintbrush to get more evenly rounded stars. I freehanded mine and took twice as long as everyone else.
And the final result, after washing out the toxic mix of bleach and wine smells was this:
I felt super duper 90's in it. I suppose that's fitting since we watched all of season one of Clarissa Explains it All while completing this project.
Up next? Finding the perfect dress to ruin with the same process...
