Decorating shirts is popular for a lot of students, and even some adults! I always see student teams wearing they’re customized puff paints shirts and I think they’re great! One technique I’ve been seeing more and more on these shirts is Splatter Paint. Splatter paint is a fun way of decorating your kid’s t shirts and it creates really cool designs, though if you like to control a design this is not the decorating technique for you.
What You’ll Need
The first thing you need is a t shirt or item of clothing to splatter paint, the t shirt can be any color you want. The next thing you’ll need to splatter paint clothes is paint. If you want the paint to stick up from the clothes a little, I would suggest using puff paint. Puff paint is designed to dry on top of fabric vs. soak in and become part of the fabric. I personally love puff paint, but if you want a flatter design there are many different fabric paints out there. There’s even glitter paints if you want to add a little sparkle to your splatter paint t shirts. Ask the people at your local craft store for recommendations or suggestions for paints.
How to Splatter Paint T Shirts
First take a piece of cardboard and lay it inside the t shirt. This will keep colors from bleeding through to the other side of the clothing so you can have one decorated side, or decorate both sides. Lay the shirt and cardboard combo down flat. You’ll also want to put on an old ratting shirt you don’t care about so you don’t ruin your clothes. Then grab your paints and pick a technique. Remember you can switch up and use multiple colors in your design.
#1
This first technique is a more concentrated and controlled way of splatter painting. Squirt some paint onto a paper plate, then dip your paint brush, or a paint stick, or even a Popsicle stick, into the paint. Then aim and flick your wrist and watch the paint splatter! You could also flick the paint off the brush/stick using your finger.
#2
The second way to splatter paint clothes is not as controlled and can potentially be messy so lay down some newspaper or do this in a spot where you don’t care if you make a mess. Instead of using a paint brush, this time you are just going to use the bottle. Make sure the bottle has a squeeze top, like a squeeze ketchup bottle, or else this won’t work. Take a step back, aim, then start squeezing the paint and swing your arm towards the clothing. Make sure you don’t accidentally fling the bottle.
Once your happy with what you’ve created, let it dry and then flip over and decorate the other side if you want to. Dry times my vary based on the type of paint you used and any overlapping paints may also affect drying time.
Now you have a fun and creative piece of splatter paint clothing to show off to the world! And your not just limited to your clothes, you can splatter paint sheets, shoes, banners, whatever you want!
If you want to learn more check out these other splatter paint related resources:
Michelle’s Blog – How To: Splatter Paint A Shirt
ScrapHacker – Splatter Paint D.I.Y ideas