Disney Bleached Silhouette T-shirts

Preparing clothing for our Disneyland trip, I found quite a few of these bleached silhouette shirts during my Googling of “make Disney t-shirts”. My efforts didn’t quite turn out as well as those on the interwebs, but I think I got pretty close, and would be near perfect if I had another go.

I wanted four different shades of blue for the different family members, but turquoise wasn’t on offer for the eldest, so she and I chose the same colour. If I did it again, I would get this one for everyone. The blue is different from other t-shirts that you see in the park, so it is easy to spot your family members. I got Fruit of the Loom shirts from eBay, with a ladies cut, v neck style for me. 

I made a template by tracing a silhouette from my computer screen. I sized down a bit for the children’s shirts. No exact sizing. I cut the template from paper, and then cardboard (lesson learned: the bleach soaks under a paper template, cardboard needed).

We took the shirts outside and laid a baking tray or large plate face down inside each one, we weighed down the templates with garden pebbles and gave the shirts a few squirts with a spray bottle filled with a 50/50 mixture of bleach and water. There is a bit of a fine line to walk here: too many squirts and the bleach soaks the shirt so that the outline isn’t as sharp. My shirt has very few squirts, just enough to catch each edge of the outline.

We needed to take the templates off straight away and rinse the shirts in cold water. I then threw them in a 30 degree wash – alone – to get the last of the bleach out.

The colour of the shirt makes a difference to how the finished shirt will look. The navy came out orange and the two other shades of blue bleached to white.  This is another reason why I would choose all the same colour if I did it again. Little one really wanted navy, even though I tried to tell her how much hotter she would be in a dark colour.

We wore these together on Day 2. The Dad shirt didn’t work so well, we did that one first and the bleach was too wet, making the outline terrible. The patches are where the pebbles held the bleach to the shirt too. He had already categorically stated that he was not going to wear matching outfits, so I wasn’t going to re-do it with a new shirt. I thought, at best, he might wear it for pyjamas. The power of Disney was so strong that he was looking forward to his matching shirt, but it was too small for him, so I wore it for pyjamas. In other outtakes: little one had to have her shirt re-done. How about listening when your mother and big sister are both yelling “Stop! Stop spraying!”, but instead you keep on spraying, soaking the whole front of the shirt with bleach. Then you cry because your Mickey silhouette looks like a cat's bum and your mother has to order you a new one from eBay so you can try again. Thank goodness we were making these more than a week before we left so we had time. Big sis was a bit jealous, because the final shirt came out the best. But she is a sweet girl and didn't fuss for a new one.

One final special touch went into my shirt. When I was a toddler, my father went to Disneyland and brought me back this name patch. I have never used it, and considering how ruthless I am about clearing things out, it is a bit of a miracle that it survived. Almost 40 years later, the patch returned to Disneyland on my sleeve.