Batik T-shirts

You might be in Christmas craft mode and this is not one of those, so my apologies. I'm in catch up on old projects we have done and I have never posted mode. I do have a rather generic Christmas project post I will try to get up later in the week. (I am really selling this to you, aren't I?!)

Anyway, this idea is one I had listed as one of my 100 Summer ideas and we finally got around to it this fall. I used the instructions from That Artist Woman. I decided it would be more fun to make something the kids could wear than a pillow, so we used cotton t-shirts.

Each boy used a washable fabric pen to draw a picture on their shirt. You can actually skip this step and jump to the next one, especially with older kids.

I traced over the disappearing ink with gel glue (and ours was a bit old, so it didn't flow well, so make sure yours is fresh for better results). I'd suggest for both this part and the painting that you have some sort of barrier between the two layers of shirt. We used cardboard, but wax paper and freezer paper would work well too.

My 5.5 year old was having a hard time drawing on the shirt, so he just drew a picture on paper. I then scanned it in and enlarged it. Then I put it between the shirt layers and just traced it with the glue.

Once you have your pictures or designs drawn on, let the glue fully dry.

Next up - the messy part! I told my boys that these were going to be pajamas shirts, so I didn't care how ugly creatively they painted them. They went to town! Make sure you fully paint over your glue spots so that your design will show up well. (We use regular craft paints. It makes the painted area a bit stiffer than fabric paint, but because they were just pajamas, that wasn't important to me. You can definitely use fabric paint, or else craft paint with a little bit of fabric medium added in.

Let the paint fully dry.

Put your shirt/fabric in warm water to rinse off the glue. You will probably have to swish it around a bit. The glue will soften and will just sort of come off. There may be some spots you have to help remove some by pulling it off.

Admire your design/handiwork when it is all dry!