Happy Camper Bleach Stencil T-Shirts

There has been a pin floating around a while on Pinterest for these super cute bleach stenciled t-shirtswith the names Josh and Kate. Here it is from Homemaker: http://jameehomemaker.blogspot.com/2010/02/bleach-stenciled-t-shirts.html

I looked at it and thought, "Hummm. I can do that. I can do it better." So started my mission to make "Happy Camper" shirts for the boys.

We are BIG campers. Last year we set a record of six trips for the season. With my husband's schedule and the fact that we have a kindergartner at a year-round school, that's pretty good. A few years ago, I made shirts for all the campers in our group (including my husband, my sister and brother-in-law and me). They were cute, but I used an iron-on that you run through the printer. They didn't wash up all that well.

Enter the new camping season. I needed something better, so I set out to make some bleach stenciled shirts.

In the original tutorial, the letters were cut out with a Cricut and layed out on the shirts. I decided to use the outside of the Cricut cut-out to make a true stencil. For this step, it helps to have a Gypsy (http://www.cricut.com/gypsy/), so you can lay out your design before you cut it.

I designed this super cute cut-out that says Happy Camper using a campfire and a tent for the 'A's, a tree for the 'Y' and a fishing pole for one of the 'P's. For scrapbooking, you would use the inside of the cut-out for your layout. For this project, I threw out this part and used the outside - making a true stencil.

I used white cardstock, so the color wouldn't run on my shirts. Then placed a plastic grocery bag and a piece of cardboard inside the shirt (to keep the bleach from getting on the back of the shirts). I layed the stencil on the shirt and using a spray bottle full of bleach, I went for it.

You can see I got a little carried away on got a bit of bleach on the sleeve, but it just adds character. Right?

Here's how they came out, with my happy campers modelling them. Well, not exactly modelling them, but they sure are rocking them while fishing with Dad and Pops.

I'm already planning baseball T's for next summer. I'm dying to try out freezer paper stencils. Happy Camper on the front and a number with our last name on the back. Parker has already claimed 8. His lucky number and student number at school. Cute. Right?

Totally Inspired

So, my friend, KS got me hooked on pinterest.com. It's pretty freaking awesome, if you haven't checked it out. Anyway, there are so many amazing DIY pins on there that I'm inspired to blog about some of my own. I've been pretty lax as of late in posting on my blog, but I'm hoping this new inspiration keeps me going.

I'm going to start with my latest DIY project and will later document some of my older ones.

For Father's Day, I decided I wanted to make the hubs a new tire cover for our camper. If you've been camping with us lately, you'll know that the whole fam wears these silly "Happy Camper" t-shirts (stay tuned for a future post on how I altered mine).

I was inspired by a sticker my sis-in-law gave my husband for Christmas a couple years ago. It's based on the Colorado license plate.

I picked up some vinyl at the local fabric store, a leather needle for my machine and some heavy duty thread. You can use a Sharpie to write on the back of the fabric and it won't show through. I typed up the letters "HAPPY CAMPER" and printed them off on my computer. After cutting them out and tracing them (backwards) on the vinyl, I cut out each letter, pinned them in place and stitched them down. Since I don't usually sew on anything other than cotton fabric, it took a bit of adjusting to get the machine to sew correctly.

The old tire cover measured 24 inches in diameter, so I worked with a circle cut about 25 inches. I added the sides and a small track for tightening it around the tire.

Here's the final product. We'll be the most styling campers on our next trip in a couple weeks.