I'm Seeing Stars with Erin

I'm so grateful to have met this super sweet gal! She's a mama that has her peas in a row when it comes to caring for her family(or is that ducks?) She is always coming up with the most clever and fun activities for her kids and family; from whipping up something fun in the kitchen together or even shooting shirts with bleach. I love it!!! So, here she is today as my very own guest to share her latest project.  Erin from A Bird and a Bean...

Erin take it away chicka!!!!

I thought it would be fun to make 4th of July shirts with the kids this year. We go out of town every 4th to visit my husbands family in Racine, Wisconsin. They have a huge parade and lots of parties and fireworks. And I love to be festive - no matter what holiday! He's definitely not super thrilled about us all matching, but he'll live. haha. What a good sport. It was a really fun project. The kids got into it and thought it was great. It does take some serious supervision though. You don't want bleach in any eyes. :) What you need:

*scissors *water guns *spray bottle *bleach *freezer paper *an iron

*colored t-shirts - (100 percent cotton works best) What you do:

*STEP ONE: Cut out stars (or any shape you want) from freezer paper. I just quickly hand-drew a bunch of stars with a light colored marker and then cut them out.

*STEP TWO: Iron the stars onto the shirt. Shiny side down. Medium setting for a good minute works well.

FYI. Do this soon before you make the shirts. If you do this too early the freezer paper doesn't keep a good seal. (I learned this the hard way one of the first times I tried the good ole' freezer paper method. I ironed on my design and then got busy and didn't paint until the next day.....no good. ) :)

*STEP THREE: Put some sort of bag, cardboard or paper inside the shirt so the bleach doesn't bleed through.

*STEP FOUR: Fill the water guns with mostly bleach and a touch of water. Fill the spray bottle with the same fun and dangerous concoction.

*STEP FIVE: Put old art clothes on the kids so as not to ruin cute outfits. (I should have done the same.....the kiddos were ever so careful and stayed completely clean even though they had on art shirts ......and I ruined my pants!! nice - haha) Emphatically warn them that the guns are filled with horrible poison and not to spray anything but the shirts.

*STEP SIX: Go outside and have at it.

I used the mist setting on the spray bottle to do a quick spritz around each star so that it would be sure to stand out. Water guns make more of a line - not a mist, so if you skip this part, the outline of your star might not be very obvious when it's all over.

After I misted the outline.....I let the kidlets do everything else. They actually did a really good job. The two of them had very different techniques. The bird liked wide sweeping lines and the bean liked to keep spraying one spot over and over again. :)

(spray bottle - for misting around the star)

(cute chubby bean hand and a water gun full of bleach - yikes!)

*STEP SEVEN: When the shirts are as light as you like, (about 4 or 5 minutes in the sun did the trick for ours) run inside and soak them in a sink full of water for a few minutes. Peel off the paper stars while you are soaking them. After you have removed all the freezer paper, throw them in the washing machine.

*STEP EIGHT: Be all cute and patriotic in your new shirt!

(uncomfortable getting my picture taken....look away)

(so G.Q. --- do people still say that? Did people ever say that?)

Done and done.

I think the end results kinda look like fireworks. Cool. :)

I also really like the parts of the stars where the bleach seeped through a tiny bit. Looks neat. The freezer paper doesn't stay water proof forever, so eventually the bleach makes it's way in. Be quick.

***HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!***

Ok...see what I mean. I would have ne-ver thought of doing something so wild. She's a brave lady that's for sure!! I'm in love with the results though. Her family is gonna be a huge hit this holiday weekend!! I hope you hop over to Erin's place to see what else she has going on. I promise you'll get lost in her works just like I did.