Bleach Shirt Stencil
You want a design on a T-shirt and you want it now! Sometimes the best designs come out of
desperation. Here’s how to put a cool design on a T-shirt ASAP!
You will need: Dark T-shirt, gloves, safety goggles, bleach, spray bottle, piece of cardboard, pen or pencil,
marker, paper, scissors, sink, water, spray-adhesive tack (optional)
1. Prepare.
Put on gloves and safety goggles.
Mix up a batch of 50/50 bleach
to water solution in a spray
bottle. Label it, and draw a skull
and crossbones on the bottle so
nobody mistakenly thinks it contains water. Then put a piece of
cardboard inside the shirt so the
bleach doesn’t bleed through.
2. Design.
Draw a stencil design on paper
and cut it out. Just remember
that it’s going to be a stencil, so it
should be designed so it can be
filled in with color (or bleach).
Bleach can bleed into the shirt,
so keep it simple and be bold.
When you’re done, place the
design on the shirt. I put some
spray-adhesive tack on the back
of the stencil so it would stick to
the shirt a bit.
3. Bleach.
Set your sprayer to a fine mist
and spray the bleach solution
over the stencil. Watch the color
disappear before your eyes.
Photography by Nora Abousteit
4. Rinse.
If you leave the bleach on too long,
it’ll make the fabric disintegrate,
so when it’s getting close to the
right color, dunk the shirt in a
sink full of water and rinse until it
doesn’t smell like bleach. Dry it
out, and you’re good to go — your
T-shirt design is done!
