DIY Custom Baby Grow Series: Fabric Printing Part 2

Here's what I am sure you have all been waiting for! Part 2 of my DIY custom baby grow series where I am looking at fabric printing.

In the last post we looked at how to stamp patterns on to baby grows using mostly rubbers and shapes cut out of rubbers (the white and yellow versions above). Today I am going to show you how I made the lovely green and blue striped version.

This baby grow started life as a plain white sleepsuit as part of a supermarket multipack. I started off by dying a few of them green using a packet of dye and then printed the pattern on the top. I have been specifically instructed by Mr Fox that one of these sleepsuits has to stay plain green so he can have hulk baby (boys!).

How to make it:

You will need:

• Plain white baby grow
• Dylon fabric dye (I used the small packet as I only dyed 3 small suits but you can use the machine version if you wanted to dye more)/ 
• Fabric paint
• Masking tape
• Old clean sponge

Start off by carefully masking off areas of the onesie which you don't want to dye, you might want to mask off the neckline so you don't get dye on it by mistake. You will end up painting the area between the masking tape strips so you can make these as wide or as thin as you like. If you are using a button down onesie like me make sure you get your stripes across matching and you will need to undo it to get all the way to the edge of the button band.

Once you have done this get your sponge, dip it in your fabric paint and dab it onto the onesie between the masking tape. Make sure you get a good coverage and go all the way to the edges of the tape.

Once the paint has dried fully you can remove the strips of tape and seal the fabric paint as per the instructions on the packet. 

As you can see from the picture above I only did stripes on the front body, and a bit down the legs. I had intended to do the whole lot, if you want to do this make sure you allow the body to dry before masking the arms or turning to do the back so that you don't smudge your lovely perfect lines. I actually decided the stripes on the body were striking enough that I didn't need to do any more.

I am really pleased with this one as well. I thought while it was drying it was going to look a bit naff, but actually its really cool. I can definitely see our little boy in this.

I hope you enjoyed these two little posts on jazzing up some store bought plain baby grows. I hope you do give this a go, or that it inspires you to create some designs of your very own. Again I would love to see them so please leave me a link below, or just email me a piccie. Bear in mind as well these techniques can be applied to any item of clothing; t-shirts, pants, hats etc you name it. It would be a great rainy day activity for little kids as well. Let your creativity run wild.