Naturally, as a graphic designer for iLoveToCreate, I am constantly surrounded by wonderful designs that are awesomely executed using various Tulip® Paint products. It’s astounding the designs that the craft designers execute! They have a lot of experience and technical skill that I truly admire.

So being a somewhat experienced crafter myself, I’d like to think that I’m at their level; however, there are times like yesterday when I realize I have A LOT to learn. Ha ha.

This is how it went down. Tomorrow, I’m attending a gift boutique honoring the Teen Choice Awards and we are going to be featuring Tulip® Fabric Spray Paints in our make and take. We were told that it would be nice if we wore something we wore using the Sprays and I was all about it! My friend picked up a top for me at Target and I got started…

First, I wetted my shirt and dried it for a bit. The next step was to pleat the design (I wanted the cool Shibori pleats that are really popular right now).

After that I started spraying it with various bright colors.

Pretty soon, it was starting to look pretty awesome!

This is what it looked done after all my spraying was done and before I threw it in the wash…looks pretty cool, right?

Well, I threw it in the wash and this is when things go sour. It came out a much paler shade of color and almost muddy. Thinking I could correct the problem, I went over it again with yellow spray. It still looked pretty dingy.

The first think both Pattie Donham and Cheryl Ball asked me was, “Is the shirt 100% cotton?”. Hmmm…needless to say it wasn’t. It is 60% cotton/ 40% polyester. That was the kicker. If I had more experience I would have known that the spray doesn’t work on cotton blends!

So now you have a little insight that I didn’t realize! For the record if you dye or spray a shirt with Tulip® products, ALWAYS make sure it is washed beforehand to remove sizing, ALWAYS make sure to make sure the material is 100% cotton, and ALWAYS make sure to wash and dry it afterward. You can find a lot of this information if you follow the instructions on the box or the label of the product. Go figure, huh?

Well, not all was lost in the end! My friend Allee told me that I should cut the shirt up and make a bracelet and I took her advice! Here is the result:

It turned out super cute. By the way, I did spray the fabric just a bit more with the Tulip Fabric Spray, so it’s a bit more colorful than the drab shirt it started out as! So what do you think? If you are interested, I could show you how to do this project next week on my blog!

Oh, and by the way, I did make a new shirt! I will try to show it as well sometime soon. Maybe I’ll take a pic tomorrow to share. This time it was 100% cotton. I made sure! Check out my updates tomorrow on the iLoveToCreate twitter or facebook page!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa