DIY Fashion Sweatshirt with Bleach

I always feel like I don’t know how to dress for the winter. I hate to be cold and so that means I look for things that are more function than form. I have a few pairs of jeans that I rotate between (why is it so hard to find flattering jeans that don’t cost a fortune?!). And I wear a LOT of sweatshirts. A good (meaning stylish) sweatshirt can be hard to find and I usually just end up picking up multiple basic ones from the men’s department at Target ($8 a piece, yo! It’s a bargain!). But I was starting to feel really blah so I decided to do a DIY fashion makeover on a black sweatshirt. I love how it turned out and it was SO easy.

I, legit, am obsessed with sweatshirts. Every season I pick up a few for every member of my family. I watch for the sales but even at full price, about $8, you can’t go wrong. You know how hard kids are on their clothes. These are perfect for throwing on to go play outside or get rough on the playground at school. A little boy in a pair of jeans with a black sweatshirt? SO cute and cool. I wear them to bed and everywhere else. It’s a wardrobe staple. I grabbed a black one, in large, because I like them to be roomy and extra comfy.I laid the sweatshirt out flat on the ground outside with the sleeves fully extended. If I was better with Photoshop I would have added toenail polish…I forgot to take a photo of it but I use an old, empty water bottle, that I took the label off of and drew a skull and crossbones on for my bleach. This is my bleach bottle. I have had many conversations with my children about this bleach bottle. I made a small hole in the cap and that’s how I dispense the bleach on to my projects. To be honest, it’s real rough and you probably would have laughed if I had gotten a photo. I’m sure there is a better way. But I have my bleach bottle, so the DIYing goes on!

I carefully shook my bleach bottle over the sleeves. I did end up getting some bleach on one of the shoulders – NOTE – if YOU get bleach on another part of the shirt that you weren’t intending on bleaching, do not try to brush it away with your fingers, like a moron. This only smears it and makes the spot bigger when in reality it would have been a cute little dot…I did the front of each sleeve and then had my son help me flip it over. The extra hands helped make sure that the bleached material didn’t touch the parts of the sweatshirts I didn’t want it to. I poured some bleach on the backs of the sleeves and I left it to do it’s things. All in all, I think I left it for about 1/2 hour. I kept my eye on it and when I though it had reached its max color removal, I threw it in the washer. It’s up to you though. You can see from the photo above it is almost a reddish color which looks kind of cool. Maybe I’ll make another one like that.There really is no way to mess this up. I mean, don’t get the bleach in your eye, keep out of reach of children, make SURE you mark your bleach bottle REALLY well. Do you guys remember that scene from the movie Nadia? Not good. Never ever put bleach in a coffee cup. Use bleach at your own risk. I NEVER use bleach on my laundry because I’m afraid of ruining everything. So anywho…once you have washed the bleach out of the sweatshirt and dried it, I like to cut out the ringer in the neck. I find them to be super uncomfortable and constricting. My neck wants to be free, man. I just follow around the neckline with sharp scissors (you can see how I did it to make this muscle shirt). Boom. You’re done. And you have this super awesome warm comfy sweatshirt, with cooler sleeves, to add some style to your winter wardrobe. You know what’s even cooler? When your neighbors are doing construction and have a big graffiti’d up dumpster on your street that you can take photos in front of and seem all urban. You know what’s not cool? When you’re outside taking your photo and then a construction worker comes out to use the outhouse a few feet away from you…Gross. Photo shoot over.I love DIY fashion tutorials, almost as much as I love sweatshirts, and this one couldn’t be easier!

All photos by Dez and Tam.