The Boom of an Old, Boring T-shirt

I took an old, stained T-shirt to try out some hand-painting and here's what came out...
Big part of the credit and the inspiration goes to Natasha. I thank her for sharing wonderful ideas and spreading great creative energy :)

Materijals:
- an old, (maybe stained) T-shirt
- scissors
- contour markers and textile paint of desirable color
- brushes
- iron and ironing board
- needle and thread
- bits and pieces for the finishing touch (beads, ribbons, fabric flowers...)
- cardboard to make the pattern
- some old newspaper to avoid staining the back of the T-shirt.

Procedure:
Choose a picture you like on the internet (in this case a silhouette is more appropriate and easier to work with), print it out and paste onto a cardboard. Cut out the contours, making sure that you remove the inside part of the picture which you want to paint. You can see a similar pattern here.

Before you start painting, make sure the T-shirt is clean and ironed. Put several layers of newspaper inside the T-shirt to protect it from staining. Place the cardboard pattern on your T-shirt. Using a larger brush, paint the inside of your contours. Secure the pattern by placing some heavy objects on its edges so it doesn't move while you paint. Remove the cardboard pattern carefully when finished. Using contour markers, freehand, write your favourite words, quotes, parts of song lyrics... Let it dry for at least 6 hours, lying on a flat surface. When it's dry, iron the picture and the letters to fix the paint. Press it for about 3 min. (or for as long as the instructions on the paint/markers say.

Finally, attach some details like ribbons, flowers or beads to make the picture more vivid.

In this project I removed the sleeves of the T-shirt and sewed the openings by hand. I also painted the neck opening using a thinner brush.

More about this kind of work on my blog