Kid Friendly Glue Batik

Since T loves to be hands on and always DOING something I was letting her fool around with fabric recently when screenprinting a bag and some shirts when I remembered reading about glue Batik. I didnt have any glitter glue on hand so I grabbed what we did have- plain white glue.

To make this awesome glue batik springtime skirt you will need a plain white cotton pillowcase, several colors of acrylic paint, elastic to fit your child's waist, water, scissors, paintbrushes and access to a sewing machine and a stack of old newspaper for keeping underneath your project. Also make sure your child has on clothes that are okay to ruin because acrylic paint stays on pretty much forever.

Depending upon how freestyled you want the design and how good your kid is with a glue bottle you can either pencil on designs and then paint over that with glue, or simply freestyle whatever shapes you want onto the pillowcase in glue (as I did- flowers, eggs& butterflies) and then allow your toddler to go at it. For older kids this can be done completely independently.

  After your glue is painted on in designs of your choice, allow the glue to completely dry- then flip the pillowcase over and paint the other side with continuing designs. Allow to dry again. While the second side is drying, prepare your acrylic paints. I wanted pastel colors but only had bold so I blended colors together to make not so bright selections. Be sure to water your paints down. I added equal amounts of paint and water for ours. You want to achieve a sort of watercolor effect with the acrylics.

When your child has painted the first side of the pillowcase, let it dry again and then flip it to paint the second side (be sure to get the edges for them if they're really young) and for a final time, let it hang to dry.  After it's dry it will be sort of stiff and probably look like someone let a toddler at a pillowcase with acrylic paints.  If it doesn't, maybe your child is a more accomplished artist than mine.
Either way, you now want to pop it in the washing machine on a small load and warm water. This will remove a lot of the paint and all of the glue. Then you're going to dry normally and stop to admire your work so far. Yes, even my art contribution looks like a toddler went at a pillowcase with acrylic paints, but it was fun.

 T added lots of dots. and more dots. She's very good at squeezing glue into dots- color me proud.
Next step? Measure your toddler from waist-knee and add an inch to that. Cut your pillowcase to that length, make a very simple seam along the top, thread with elastic and voila!

 If your toddler doesn't look this pleased with themself in their new creation, you probably did something wrong:

 For gender neutral clothing, this would be simple to turn into shorts, too. If you want to know how to make shorts/ capris and don't know how, let me know and I will very happily talk you through it.