Awesome 2 stencils T shirts

A couple of weeks ago I got the Texas quoter as change in a restaurant and really liked the cow skull that was on it. I decided to combine this cool tutorialthis cool tutorial and the way I used before to print t shirt to make those cool 2 tone t shirts.

My next instructable would be about creating a 2 tone stencil, but this one's about printing.

Step 1 Materials

What you need to get started:

1. 2 layers stencil - you can buy some designs in a store, or you can make it yourself. I made mine out of Velum cut with a craft knife - it's good material, easy to clean and easy to cut.

2. Spray adhesive - I used Blair 82490Blair 82490 cause it's what I had, but if you are buying this to print t-shirts get one that a little less tacky and isn't permanent.

3. Discharge paste (optional) Discharge paste is bleach in a paste that takes off some of the dye of the fabric, I love printing with it cause it never comes of in the laundry or create a crust on the shirt. However, because it takes dye off, it can only used on non white fabric. If you are printing a white T shirt, you don't need this and can use 2 colors of paint instead.
I use Dharma discharge pasteDharma discharge paste and I'm really happy with it

4. Fabric painting medium - this is basically a glue that make sure that paint stick to fabric. I use Golden GAC 900Golden GAC 900 and I get good results with it.

5. Acrilic paints in colors of your choice

6. a plate or a small container to mix paint in.

7. T shirt (or shirts, dresses, skirts - whatever you want to print on)

8. An iron with a steam option (you will use both steam and non steam option for this.

Comments

[veggiepunk]

i get some card draw my design on put half onto tracing paper remembering to put a point of reffrence in a corner, now draw other half on another piece of card cut out dab with acrylics to achive more of a worn torn effect i use an almost dry paint and smeer across top adding slits and holes

[vulcano911]

What kind of paint did you use?

[cornflaker]

I don't have photoshop installed on this comp, so this is what I managed to do in paint.net: (I removed the background, applied gausian blur with a radius of 4, Applied the posterize filter, Changed the contrast/brightness(contrast 100, brightnes 34)

[Houdinipeter]

that works, but gimp is probably an easier way to photoshop... if you could download onto that computer

[cornflaker]

What??? Paint.Net is SOOOOOO much easier to use then Gimp

[Houdinipeter]

when i said easier i meant easy to turn out good. and idk about phoenix, is it as big a file as CS3? or about the same as gimp?

[cornflaker]

It's actually an online one that runs in your browser (quite good though) and I haven't tried any recent versions of gimp, but it used to have the worst interface ever, you could achieve the same stuff as photoshop but in a much harder way so I don't really know what your talking about there. Paint.NET which is also free however is very easy to use and just makes sense (although it isn't a fully featured but it does have some rather nifty things that not even photoshop has and has support for plugins)

[lilly]

I just found out another took which is called phoenix it's a photoshop like photo editor and I think I like it better then paint or gimp! it looks a lot like photoshop so for photoshop users it's easy to get used to this free program.
http://aviary.com/tools/phoenix#

[danjamker]

How many washes does the paint last for.

[lilly]

I have shirts that I printed 3 years ago and it still look pretty fresh, so basically, if you wash at cold water, a long time.

[Rishnai]

I don't know if that anti-wrinkle thing is true or not, but it seems like it is, especially with the thin-fabric rock and roll band t-shirts that JC Penny sells. I also have a shirt that I swear is scotchgarded or something. I've never been able to permanently stain it. I don't know if anybody else has ever had thi happen. So anyway, make sure you don't have one of those shirts, too.

[camscam]

your cow doesn't have any eyes...

[jackaroo]

it a cow skull and yea it should have eye sockets

[Branden]

In regard to the Discharge Paste, would bleach be a reasonable substitute or will that have an adverse affect?

[lilly]

My husband wears the T-shirt we printed all the time, one of them is about 6 months old and so far - they help up pretty well. I'll have to see what happen in time.

[betweenthelinez]

You have to be careful with bleach. If you use it straight it can damage the fabric. If not immediately, it will, over time, cause the fabric to disintegrate...unless you're after that kind of look.

[Bryia_026]

I've heard that discharge paste will have a similar damaging effect over time unless you use a neutralizing medium (that is also sold by Dharma?)... Does anyone know if this is necessary or has the discharge paste never caused anyone problems eating through fabric?

[lilly]

A friend of mine tired to bleach a whole Karate Suit once, he soaked it in bleach for a couple of hours - when he took it out of the bucket it just disintegrated in his hand! The t-shirt I printed were mostly reused ones - 2 were from salvation army and 4 were left in the hallway by someone who didn't want them anymore. I guess I can risk pure bleach in moderation for those. However the discharge paste is pretty cheap and so much fun to work with.

[lilly]

As a rule - it will work, however, bleach is very watery and thin, it will be impossible to stencil a thick enough layer without the bleach bleeding under and giving you really messy result. I've read about someone mixing bleach with corn starch to thicken it, but I haven't tried it myself. If you give it a shot, let me know how it went. I did tried just dipping a paint brush in the discharge paste and painting the fabric with it and that also worked well (it's a really fast way to make a t shirt if you don't feel like cutting a stencil.

[Williz]

Georgia O'keefe is the artist that made that painting orifinally, right? Good Job looks nice.

[lilly]

Yes, she is one of my favorite artists, the wool skirt that I printed is going to get some needle point flowers on it to match the Georgia O'keefe style. I actually checked the quoter today and it's Almaba not Texas - sorry for the misinformation.

[betweenthelinez]

I'd love to see that when you're done. That should come out looking great!

[lilly]

I swore not to touch it until 2 projects I was working on were done and I finished both this weekend! Ha! I'm so glad I can start owrking on that one next.

[EvilLawnGnome]

I think you mean a "quarter", not a "quoter". You should probably change this to make it easy on people who might be searching for the term "Quarter".

[lilly]

oops - damn that combination of dyslexia, second language and lack of sleep - I've turned so nocturnal lately, I can't do anything before Midnight... I'll change it in a sec.

[mercenario]

Great design, in this video i use a toothbrush :)

[lilly]

That's a really good tutorial - I like the pace of things and explanation about how to cut the stencil. Try the stencil brush, they are not expensive at all, you'll get crisper lines and a more uniform cover.

[quicumque]

Nice instructable. I have been going stencil crazy lately, but I have yet to try discharge paste. I am thinking that a bleach and water solution administered with a spray bottle might work. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

[lilly]

That sounds like a cool idea - let me know if it works.

[HamO]

Very well done, great pix. Thanks for sharing.

[lilly]

You are welcome! I'm glad you like it.

[royalestel]

Hye I like your step names, they're catchy! Where'd you get the idea?

[lilly]

That's what happened when you start typing in the texts at 3:00 AM...

[will litigate for food]

Very cool. The adhesive spray is a great idea. I tried this before, but I taped the stencil on and had a lot of trouble with over spray around the edges.

[lilly]

I used to do it with tape as well and that was so much more work! The spray adhesive basically took away my least favorite part of the project.

[ninepound]

Is there any chance you can combine the two techniques - it appears from one of your finished product pictures that you had - by discharge pasting the first layer, then colour painting the second for detail, or vice versa?

[lilly]

That's just what I did. It would have to be discharge first then paint on the second layer, the fabric medium and the acrylic paint both have glue in them, so it won't work to try and bleach that out. The best color combination I got was discharge paste then Red paint on a black T-shirt. The discharge paste bleach the shirt to a beautiful yellow-cream color and the overall effect is like old communist graphics.