Wednesday, July 18, 2012

DIY Bleach Splattered Dress

I teamed up my girl Leah for a fun DIY project this weekend. You may recognize Leah because she was the beautiful bride in this video we shot. Or you may have seen me share photos from The Daily Dry on Instagram. The Daily Dry features a new movie illustration created by Leah and drawn on my white board at work (we're coworkers). We have gone through all the Harry Potters, Twilights, Hunger Games, Johnny Depp movies...the list goes on and on. She's super skilled so check out her illustrations here!

Leah came across this dress on Pinterest and realized it was something she could probably make herself with an old plain dress she had lying around. Of course I had to chime in "We should make a blog post about it!"
What you'll need:

Clothing
Bleach
Gloves
White cloth
Bucket/Bowl

Make sure you use cardboard or tarp to protect the area from bleach spots.
First things first, put on your gloves for protection! Add bleach to a bowl and slowly dip the article of clothing in it, being sure all areas are completely saturated.
You will see the color almost immediately start to change. Once you have it covered in bleach as far up as you'd prefer remove the article from the bleach bowl and lay flat.
Saturate the white cloth in bleach and wring it out at the top of the bleached area. This creates the splattering effect. You can flick the bleach off your gloves onto the fabric as well.
 Make sure the splattered area and the dipped area blend together well.
Let the clothing sit for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how light you want the color to be. Once time is up, rinse thoroughly with water and then wash it in the washing machine as normal. And now you have an awesome DIY bleach splattered dress!
Isn't she cute? :]

xo JA and Leah

17 comments:

  1. Cute! Thanks for the tutorial

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  2. Anonymous9:30 AM

    Very cute! I definitely want to do more bleach-inspired projects.

    I did a similar DIY that I got from Honestly...WTF and I wrote about it today! http://radmagiclove.com/2012/07/18/attempt-3-honestly-wtfs-diy-bleach-tie-dye/

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  3. sooo cute. I've been meaning to play around with bleach!

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  4. love it! and yes, she is so cute. I want to do this now....

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  5. Oh wow! Thanks for sharing!

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  6. so fun! and i noticed her cute necklace too, happen to know where it's from?

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  7. fabulous! i love it;)
    gina

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  8. I absolutely love this idea...the dress looks wonderful!

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  9. this is a great idea! turned out excellent. nice work!

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  10. Alina1:08 PM

    So happy with the almost-result (it's just washing in the washing machine now)! I do recommend doing it on a cotton/ poly blend though, my test piece was an old 100% cotton tee, and it ended up looking like crap, gray and faded. My cotton/poly maxi dress from Old Navy ended up awesome though!

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  11. What an amazing idea!!
    the dress looks great!
    - I have a feeling my sister would love this too
    and her birthdays coming up soon..

    Georgia :) x

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  12. Anonymous2:33 AM

    This remindd me that I definitely want to try bleach dyeing. I also linked to this post on my blog: http://nocreationwithoutchaos.wordpress.com/

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  13. This is adorable, I love the fit of the dress and how it turned out!

    -Courtney
    Www.alwaysrooney.com

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  14. Anonymous11:29 PM

    Looks fantastic!!

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  15. I have a very tight budget for my new dress so this amazing deal on this dress was beyond perfect! Everyone found it stunning, I highly recommend it.

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  16. I let mine sit for an hour an it didn't turn out as light as these pictures. Should I try bleaching it again or will it ruin the fabric too much?

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  17. It probably has some polyester in it which won't bleach as well. It is important to neutralize the bleach which is not being done here. Otherwise the garment will continue to rot over time and will not last long at all. Once you are at the level of bleaching that you like, don't rinse in water. Put the garment in a bucket with one part white vinegar to 3 parts water. Let soak. This will neutralized the bleaching action. Without doing this the bleach will continue to eat away at the garment. I learned this the hard way.

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Thanks for the comment! I read them all and reply when I can. Please be sure your blogger account is linked to your e-mail so I can do so! (Tutorial on how to do that here: http://tinyurl.com/c6gh9fk) xo JA