Fruit of the Spirit T-Shirts

 A couple of weeks ago, I was looking at Pinterest and came across the idea to use a bleach pen to create fun t-shirts.  I thought it was a great idea to do with my grandchildren!  A few days after seeing the bleach pen t-shirt idea, I came across a blog post that talked about how important it is to teach kids that we not only put off bad behavior, we put ON good behavior!  It mentioned the object lesson of taking off a t-shirt and putting on a new one.  While discussing the blog post with Dawn, I thought of combining the two ideas for my out-of-state grandchildren.  I liked the thought of doing this, the fun t-shirts AND the Fruits of the Spirit idea, because it is one way I can have a spiritual influence on my grandchildren even though I'm far away.   It really was an easy project.  I completed all the t-shirts in about 2-3 hours, including waiting for the bleach to work.  Here's how to do it!

In the tutorial post, she talked about putting a cutting board or something in the shirt to keep the bleach from leaking to the other side of the shirt.  I just used waxed paper.  It worked beautifully.  Also the bleach pen I used had two tips.  One end had a "fat" tip and one end had a "skinny" tip.  I liked having the option of the two sizes.  So to start, you slip a piece of waxed paper into the shirt.  You can do an extra step and use chalk to write out your word (and even a design if you want!), or you can just go straight to using the bleach pen.  Start it out on a paper towel to make sure it is flowing well.

I used the fat tip for some shirts and the skinny tip for others.  The LOVE shirt is written with the fat tip, and the photo shows it early in the process of bleaching.  The Gentleness shirt is written with the skinny tip and is farther along in the process.  (I found that the red shirt took the longest of all the colors to bleach all the way.)

The tutorial post notes that bleaching can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours.  Once your bleaching is finished, take out the waxed paper and rinse the shirt very well.  When you have done this with all the shirts, wash and dry them.

This is after the Goodness shirt had been rinsed but not washed. I didn't plan for the "skinny" tip letters to turn out with an unbleached center line... it just happened!  Dawn & I love it!!  It gives the shirt a little extra flare!  :-)

The finished set of Fruit of the Spirit t-shirts!
This really was an enjoyable project!

The grandchildren seemed to like them!
Here are Lij and JG in their favorite colors.


 

Well... Snickers didn't seem too keen on wearing Self-Control. :-D 

Parent Testimony:  "These shirts don't just work for the kids.  It's very hard as a parent to not be convicted of your own lack of Fruit when you are getting overly upset at a child wearing a shirt that is blaring PATIENCE or SELF-CONTROL back at you..."  ;-)