Are You Gonna Be My Girl?

For my top competition line this year, I choreographed two songs for my girls to perform.  We did our first at the last competition- in heels and full makeup to "Forget About the Boy" from Thoroughly Modern Millie.  It was a great character piece, and the girls got 1st place overall in their category!  They could have easily done well at our next competition this Sunday doing the same song, but instead I choreographed a hoofer piece to Jet's song "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?".  Instead of heels and cute dresses, my girls are in their flat hoofer taps, jeans and black Tshirts.  I originally wanted them to find shirts with band names on them, such as "The Beatles" or "Pink Floyd", but instead got the idea to make our own shirts with lyrics from the song on them.  I found some comfy black shirts for $8 at Target, made sure they fit my ladies well, and used the power of the internet to help with the rest.

Thus, my morning off found me on my porch with a cup of bleach, paintbrushes, and a rough idea of what I wanted everything to look like!
I followed this tutorial that I have on my Pinterest board, and it proved to be perfect for what I had in mind.

I used chalk to trace my design on each of the shirts before firmly securing them to pieces of cardboard.

Using undiluted household bleach, I painted (roughly) over where my design was, and even painting a bit outside of the lines since the chalk will easily come off when I wash them.
It was a beautiful day to do it outside, and doing it on my porch meant I was free of curious kittens poking their noses in dangerous chemicals.  Plus the sun helped me to immediately see my design!

The one bad thing about this process was I didn't have any tough plastic brushes- I only had some cheaper animal hair ones, and the bleach quickly ate through them.  Oops.

They're looking great so far, and all I have to do is finish letting them bleach in the sun, hand wash them thoroughly, hang them to dry, and they'll be ready to go for this weekend's competition!  I'm excited to show my girls.  I think they'll like them.  I know I do!
This was a super quick and easy process, and I'm sure I'll be using it for more projects in the future!


(Please don't mind how blindingly white my legs are.  I'm a Minnesotan, and it's still early in the spring.  I will rival vampires in paleness until mid-June.  Hopefully.)