Sponge-Painted Shirt
This is an easy design that children or adults can easily accomplish that ends up looking like it was store-bought.

Materials:

• T-shirt (washed at least once)
• Acrylic paint
• Textile Medium (found in any craft store)
• sponge (flat or regular)
• Brown paper bag

Procedure:

1. Cut the sponge into a rectangle about 1 inch by 3 inches. Cut another piece of sponge into a star of desired size.
2. Mix the Textile Medium with the paint according to package directions.\par Lay out the t-shirt on a flat surface and place the brown bag inside the shirt, making sure it will be under the entire work surface.
3. Wet the sponges and squeeze out the excess water. With a paint brush, apply red paint to sponge. Using the armpits as a guideline, sponge in the top red stripe, applying more paint as necessary.
4. Skip about an inch and sponge in the bottom red line.
5. Wash out the sponge and apply blue paint. About 1 inch from the top of the top red line, sponge in the bottom of the large blue stripe. Continue sponging in, making the blue wider until it is to your liking. Wash out sponge.
6. When the blue is mostly dry, apply white paint (or off-white if working on a white t-shirt) to the sponge and sponge in the 2 white stripes. Wash the sponge. Wet the star sponge and apply the white paint to that. Sponge in stars to blue field as desired.
7. Continue to follow package directions to heat-set design when it is dry, and follow washing directions.

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