messy dress tutorial

In my opinion, every creative and modern gal needs a messy dress- well maybe not every gal- maybe just me? My 35th birthday is this weekend and there will be celebrating which means I need (or want) something new and funky to wear. Since I am on a fashion budget I decided to transform some cheap cotton dresses I found at Target with a little paint and my new favorite toy- the Tulip Fabric Paint Cannon

Before I get started I just have to rave for a minute! Typically I am not "into" the latest and greatest products out there- I not easily impressed and don't like to spend money on trendy supplies. But when something really great comes along and is actually innovative- I get super EXCITED! The Fabric Paint Cannon is part of Tulip's Fashion Graffiti line of products and because I work so much with spray paint and graffiti techniques, I have been waiting YEARS for someone to come up with a product like this! It is a non aerosol spray bottle that has a pump, you can fill it with the Tulip brand of paint (or your own watered down version) and it sprays just like a real spray paint can!

The reasons I am so excited about this product-

a.) it is non toxic and environmentally friendly- yippee!!

b.) you can travel with it- great if you are a teacher.

c.) it gives you the ability to create spray paint look on fabric (with fabric paint)- something that is challenging when working with wearable and not really possible to do with icky spray paint.

d.) you can fill it with your own paint mixture, colors, etc- this I love because you are not limited with color!

Stay tuned in the weeks to come- I will be sharing additional techniques with the Fabric Paint Cannon in later posts!

Ok...back to the project!

I decided to use the Fabric Paint Cannon in a few simple ways to create fun, graffiti inspired, messy dresses for my birthday weekend!

DRESS #1

I started with a plain cotton dress.

Fill the Fabric Paint Cannon with paint- Tulip has a great selection of colors for the Cannon available that you do not have to heat set after painting.

Spray the surface- I went wild with lots of expressive and abstract shapes.

DRESS #2

With the second dress I wanted to try something more complicated and different because it was a dark green fabric. I decided to load my Cannon with bleach so I could pull color out of the dress.

Note- the Cannon is made for paint and this was my own personal experiment- I like to find different ways to use tools :)

Again I sprayed the surface with messy swipes and abstract shapes.

I let the bleach sit and pull out the color until is was almost white-

I immediately washed it out so it would not lighten any further.

While the surface was still wet I went back into the white shapes and lines with paint from the Cannon. I chose to keep the surface damp because I wanted my paint to bleed and keeping it wet will achieve this effect.

I then added layers of scribbles, marks and doodles until I was satisfied with my messy surface!

Both dresses turned out simple, graphic and a little edgy- just my style!

now I'm off to celebrate!