Since I found this Instructable I wanted to dye a shirt like that. But I didn't have any letters and I didn't want to cut them by hand and the ones I found in the stores were too expensive. Then I remembered an instructable about how to put a lace pattern on stepping stones. And I thought that might work on a shirt as well.

And it did! After the first successful dyeing i dug out some more shirts out of my drawers and experimented a little.
And I think the results are pretty cool so I wanted to show you :-)

Don't let yourself be fooled by the date and time on some of the photos. Every time I replace the batteries in my camera it changes the date to somewhen in the past. I'm to lazy to change it back all the time so I just leave it. I took the pictures this week.

Step 1: Needed Things

Well you need something to dye like a t-shirt, a top or a tote-bag...

You also need
bleach
a sprayer (or a bowl. why a bowl? you'll find out!)
a bucket of water
a doily
cardboard for between the fabric

I recommend to wear rubber gloves (don't want to bleach you hands do you?)
Bleach is bad for your skin but even worse for your eyes! As you are gonna spray around with it I recommend protective glasses also (better save than sorry).

I bought 3 doilies at the thrift shop for 50ct each.
Two of them seem to be handmade but one isn't.
I used that one first, in case it would be ruined afterwards. I didn't want to take a risk on the handmade ones.
But it turned out that I worried for nothing. After the bleaching the doilies looked like new, nice clean and white.

Step 2: Preparations

Put the cardboard between the layers of fabric so the bleach can't seep through.
Put on gloves
Put the bleach into the sprayer bottle
Put the doily on the fabric

If you want you can put a frame around the doily like I did on picture 2 (you might have to pin it down a little). I just cut a circle out of a plastic bag.

cover everything you don't want to be bleached. it's a good idea to wear old clothes or an apron. I mean it!

Step 3: Bleaching

Spray the bleach onto the shirt and the doily
Wait till the bleaching process starts
Take the doily of the fabric (carefully!)

Wait till the shirt has bleached to the desired shade
Take cardboard out
Rinse shirt
Hang shirt to dry

OR:
Wait till all the bleach has completely soaked into the shirt.
Take cardboard out
Hang shirt up and just let it bleach

Important: Before you wear the shirt again, rinse and wash it thoroughly to get all the bleach out!

Step 4: Another Possibility

You can also do it a different way:

Put some bleach into the bowl (I told you you would find out :-)
Soak doily in the bleach
Wring doily a little so it doesn't drip
Put doily on the fabric (carefully! Every spot you touch with it will be bleached)
Wait a little, let the bleach soak into the fabric
Take doily away
Wait some more till you like the result
Rinse and wash shirt

Step 5: Cleaning Up

rinse everything that had contact with bleach in the bucket
shirt (at first!!!), doilies, bowl, sprayer bottle, gloves...
you can discard the water now or use it to clean something ( like you garden furniture or so )

Step 6: Some More (bad) Examples

I love experimenting!

1) I tried another way to put the bleach on the shirt instead of spraying it. Bad idea...

2) I used a gray shirt and a stencil for drawing I had lying around
I waited - nothing happened
I let it dry - still nothing
apparently the color of the gray shirt doesn't bleach that well...no idea why...