PAINTING: DIY Galaxy Print Fashion

Over the past few months, I've been seeing galaxy printed or painted clothing and accessory items. The first one I saw were these beautiful Damsel Rainbow Galaxy boots that are a collaboration with Black Milk and Jeffrey Campbell. This quickly lead to seeing the other galaxy print items from Black Milk, including this swimsuit, leggings, and dress. I also came across several skirts. This Nebula skirt from Shadowplaynyc is my favorite. These are all out of my price range for fashion items, so I just longingly adored them for months.


It wasn't until recently while happily (obsessively?) using Pinterest, that I came across a hand painted galaxy DIY for leggings. That started a snowball effect of searching for more DIY galaxy painted fashion items. What's nice about the galaxy or nebula design, is that ever hand painted one is different. Of course by now you've figure out what this post is about...well I hope you have at least. If not, this means I'm going to feature some of those wonderful DIYs that I've come across. To me, this can be a good craft for novices to pros. If you don't like your design, let it dry and paint over it! Ok, on to the fun!


Lets start by making some shoes inspired by the Jeffrey Campbell and Black Milk boots. This is great if you have some old sneakers, flats, heels, or boots that could use a makeover.

These Galaxy Boots by Little Horrors use suede boots, acrylic paints, a sponge, and a paint brush. If you are like me, and don't wear suede, velvet would be a good substitute. It's the texture that grabs onto the paint and helps create the soft look.


If you still want to keep the technique simple, but have (or prefer) a pair of plain dark sneakers, try this Galaxy Vans tutorial by igaby04. This is especially good if your kids want custom sneakers, vs plain black. I know my daughter would love to paint her shoes herself, if I'd let her. Of course, if your a teen to an adult, this will work well for you too! 


Perhaps you have some old heels and some old nail polish. Why not combine them like Madame B Fatale did to create her Galaxy Heels? As all of us nail polish wearers know, the polish in the bottle can become thick and unusable for nails, after some time. It will soak in nicely to fabric shoes. It's worth experimenting with faux-leather shoes too, since nail polish is meant to adhere to the smooth surface of your nails, and faux-leather is normally smooth. These shoes are also coated in glitter, which of course makes this mini galaxy glimmer more!


Time to break out the spray paint and increase the difficulty. Spray paint isn't the easiest paint to work with, but Birds and Beards Love, makes her metallic DIY Galaxy Heels look easy! Her tip "is to spray from half an arms length from the shoe, this will create a light misting of colour and you'll avoid those nasty 'solid' looking blotches." She used a pair of knock off Jeffery Campbell Litas to paint on. She also added some star studs to add more sparkle to her mini galaxy.


We have the shoes covered, and you've learned some techniques that you'll repeat a bit in the next few tutorials. What we need now is other accessories. If you aren't willing to commit to a galaxy pair of shoes for this trend, a piece of jewelry or bag might be better suited to your trend needs.

Back to the nail polishes we go to make this DIY Galaxy Cuff by Pretty Quirky Pants. For a plastic cuff, like the one that was used in the tutorial, nail polish adheres great. If you have a wooden cuff, feel free to use acrylic paints instead. Keep this in mind for necklaces and earrings too!


Have an old black leather or fabric bag laying around, that hasn't gotten much use lately? Well, it's time to give it a makeover. This Galaxy Purse by Syl and Sam, is inspired by the Trifid Nebula, and used fabric paints. I think the texture of the leather really helps soften up the painted galaxy image. This will also work well for wallets, or faux leather bags.


Now you have some awesome shoes, but what about the rest of you? Let's start with a new technique to build your skill set, using bleach. Now bleach isn't something I've ever crafted with. I try to stay away from it as much as possible. I wear a lot of black and a lot of delicate fabrics, for which bleach is my enemy. I highly recommend using it OUTSIDE and wearing your old ratty clothing, that getting bleach on by accident won't matter very much. If you want to do this with your young children, feel free to skip using bleach, and use light colored paint instead!

This Splatter Bleach T-Shirt Makeover by Homemade Mamas is a great start to working with bleach. As you will being using bleach for the next few tutorials, this is something you'll need to learn. This tutorial has a bonus, by showing you how to transform a t-shirt into a racer back tank!


Sscouterr created these DIY Galaxy Leggings using plain black cotton leggings, sprayed bleach, and spray fabric dye. The bleach reacts quickly, as you can see on the video. Layer the spray dye colors to create a blended soft galaxy look. I can see these becoming shimmery with a spray of fabric glitter. This same technique would work great on any clothing item in a similar cotton jersey knit...like T-shirts, jackets, and skirts. Keep that in mind, when pondering what to use these techniques on!


Stacie Grissom on The Fashion Spot created a Christopher Kane inspired Galaxy Shirt. She used an old cotton button up shirt, sprayed bleach, and spray fabric paint to create this on trend blouse. I love how she cut off the sleeves too. This tutorial reminds me of her Galaxy Dress tutorial on her blog Stars for Streetlights. This technique would also work well on dark jeans, shorts, and jackets.


The last clothing DIY I'm sharing is one of my favorites. It's a bodycon DIY Galaxy Skirt by Sammi Jackson. These style skirts always remind me of being a young teen. They are very popular now, so like Sammi, you should be able to easily find an inexpensive one to makeover. If not, you can make yourself a tube skirt from a t-shirt or piece of fabric. Instead of spraying the paint, we're back to sponging it on. Honestly using a sponge to apply the main colors of paint will give you more control than spraying the color. However that's what I'm comfortable with. You might do better with the spray color.


The last thing that I wanted to share was this great Galaxy Nails tutorial by The Daily Nail. If you are familiar with her blog project, she's done a lot of nail designs, and semi-recently started doing video tutorials!!! This makes me very happy, because video nail tutorials makes all of us nail polish wears feel capable of making something extraordinary! 

Comments

  1. i'm currently using space as a theme for a college project and i'm wanting to create my own fabric design, much like the skirt example you have. however, i can't seem to view your video as it says it does not exist. is there any other videos available to view, and if not i was wondering if you have any tips for which dyes to use and which fabrics work best.
    love this post btw!
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice! I really liked that video too. Wish it still worked. Cotton fabrics work best for doing something like this. If you can lay out the fabric you want to work with, you can use spray bottles with different dyes in them to apply the dye, if you are working on a light colored fabric.

      If you want to paint your design, for a base color, use black cotton fabric. You can dye that yourself, using a regular dying method following the directions on the dye package. Personally, I prefer RIT dye. You can use acrylic fabric paint to create the design. It reacts well to water for blending. You can mix in a clear fabric medium to any regular acrylic paint to make it work for fabric, or buy acrylic paint that is already formulated for use on fabrics. Foam brushes work great for applying the paint to fabric, since they can create that cosmic softness easily. Also a spray bottle with water in it will help with blending, by re-moistening the paint while you're still working with it. You'll have to heat set the fabric paint after it dries on the fabric. This can either be done by ironing the fabric, or putting it in the dryer. Tulip makes some glow in the dark dimensional paints that would be great for stars. You can alter the shape of the dimensional paint with a paint brush.

      I don't have any experience with bleach, but several of the tutorials used that 1st on the black fabric before adding the colors, to create sections of brightness.

      Which ever method you chose, I recommend doing your fabric design BEFORE making it into a garment. That way you won't have to worry about fabric shrinkage, which cotton will always do the 1st time it's washed and dried hot.

      If you need some working video tutorials, check out YouTube. Since this is a hot DIY trend, there are lots of ones available. Hope my info helps you!

      Delete
  2. Love this post, thanks for the feature!! :D <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad you do. I love the skirt you made, and how you styled it!

      Delete

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