Let's take a field trip from the usual clothing blogs and have a Do-it-Yourself day! I was day-dreaming about screen-printing today, and it inspired me to try a simple alternative. This was a very easy project and is a great way to add a little style to a plain shirt.What You Need:
*Plain T-Shirt
*Regular Sharpie
*Fine-tip Sharpie
*Something flat and hard (a piece of cardboard or a large book would work fine)
*Two paper birds, preferably opposite facing. I cut mine out from a bird calendar, but there are tons of birds images available on Google that you could print and cut out.
1) Lay out your shirt on a flat surface (I just did it on my floor) and stick your cardboard/book inside the shirt under one of the shoulders., The book is important so that way your sharpie won't bleed through to the back of the shirt.
2) Lay out your first bird shape on the sleeve. Use your fine-tip Sharpie to trace the bird onto the shirt. The key here is to use short, light strokes, or even to dot the whole way around. If you try and do long strokes, your pen tip will catch in the fabric.
3) When you are done tracing the bird, use your regular Sharpie to fill in the shape. Now you have a completed bird silhouette.
4) Move the book over to the other shoulder and trace your second bird on the sleeve.
5) Fill it in as well. Now you have two complete bird silhouettes.
6) Now the scary part! Using your fine-tip Sharpie again, gently free-hand some branches for your birdies to sit on. I know free-handing, especially in Sharpie, can be scary and intimidating, but just keep in mind you're drawing branches. All branches are unique and no two are alike, so don't worry if yours end up looking a little odd. If you haven't free-handed branches before, I'd recommend testing it out some on paper beforehand.
7) After you have the basic outlines, go ahead and fill in the branches as well. There, that wasn't so bad, was it?
And you're done!
After a few washes the color will doubtlessly fade a bit, but when that happens just grab your Sharpie and go back over your silhouettes.Overall, this was an extremely cheap project. The shirt was bought up in Alaska at American Eagle, and it had already been marked down several times in addition to the entire store being 20% off. So the shirt was only $2.76. I already had the Sharpies and bird calendar, and the book was just one from my shelf. So yeah, definitely an inexpensive experiment.
