I have been seeing cute ideas for using fabric spray paint all over pinterest, but buying the paint seemed a bit costly to me. I decided to try and make my own instead.
I am a hobby artist and have lots of acrylic paint at home and have some textile medium that I use to add to the acrylic paint for painting permanently on fabric. It’s not very expensive and I’ve used my one bottle for 5 years!
I used blue acrylic paint and textile medium.
I put one part textile medium to one part acrylic paint in a squirt bottle I got from the Dollar Tree. Then I added about 4 parts water to that so it would spray well.
Then I took a small t shirt my son’s size and put scrapbook letter stickers I had on it and spelled his name. I slid the front of a cereal box I cut out into the shirt to keep it from leaking through to the back.
Here is a picture of all the supplies, the blow dryer was to speed up drying (I’m impatient).
Then I sprayed the shirt. I stayed pretty far back, about a foot away, and sprayed lightly a few times over the area I wanted to be painted. I didn’t spray too much on at once because I knew it would leak under the stickers.
Then I removed the stickers after it dried. The A had some paint leak under but you can still see it and I kind of liked the effect.
Here it is on my adorable boy 🙂
I like the way it turned out and will be making it in pink and purple for the girls next 🙂 thanks for stopping by!
Johanna
My Crazy Blessed Life! 
This is realy clever and your son looks so cute.
Posted by e1aine | June 19, 2012, 2:55 pmgreat idea!! =)
Posted by Lisa | June 19, 2012, 8:32 pmLove the shirt. Love the hand in the pocket too.
Posted by janetspaulding124@gmail.com | June 20, 2012, 6:48 amI cross stitch and use acrylic paint to color my fabrics. I love the variety of colors. I never use the textile medium since I was told it is to make the paint flexible and I water mine down so much it isn’t like paint anymore, lol. This way of coloring is addictive 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Posted by Tara | June 20, 2012, 8:47 amHi! I’ve been looking for a recipe to make my own fabric spray paint and found yours very helpful. I pinned it on pinterest, but then I thought I remembered something about giving people credit when you do that. How do I give you credit? I want to make sure I do it right because I appreciate you posting this for those of us who needed it! Thanks:)
Posted by Courtney Fair | June 26, 2012, 12:28 amYou can post a link to my site. Thanks!
Posted by crazyblessedlife | June 28, 2012, 10:39 pmNice! I’m going to try this out – thank you!
Posted by Rachel | September 27, 2012, 1:26 pmSo glad I found this! I have been wondering for a few weeks if this very technique is even possible (or if the paint would clog the spray mechanism), and now I have my answer. Although, it seems to create more of a splatter effect than a fine spray… Thank you for the helpful step-by-step pictures!
Posted by Angie | March 22, 2013, 10:04 amDo you use 50/50 paint to medium?
Thanks
Posted by patmay1122 | February 8, 2014, 10:15 pmHello,
I’m curious if this left a texture (stiff) to the shirt or if it acted more like a dye? Thanks!
Posted by Niki | April 15, 2014, 12:54 pmDo you have to do anything special to the shirt before or after? The paint won’t wash out, correct? I’m in charge of crafts for a teen girls camp this summer and thought this would be fun to do with them. I just want to make sure I do it right so I don’t have 100 unhappy campers! Thanks so much!:)
Posted by Susan | June 24, 2014, 8:20 amHow long does the paint keep once mixed?
Posted by lovinmyigi | July 8, 2014, 11:08 pmBrilliant idea! And across the saver too. I was wondering how well it held up in the washing machine? Sometimes with fabric paint they say to throw it in the dryer to heat set it or iron it or just let it dry for a couple of days before washing. I was actually looking up how to make do-it-yourself fabric glitter paint when I came across this. Thank you for sharing your idea
Posted by MaryLou | August 3, 2017, 10:34 amBrilliant idea! And a cost the saver too. I was wondering how well it held up in the washing machine? Sometimes with fabric paint they say to throw it in the dryer to heat set it or iron it or just let it dry for a couple of days before washing. I was actually looking up how to make do-it-yourself fabric glitter paint when I came across this. Thank you for sharing your idea.
Posted by MaryLou | August 3, 2017, 10:36 am