DIY: ASOS Fantasia Sweatshirt

It was my friend Bohmyi's birthday last Friday and she wanted this ASOS sweatshirt.  Since it was online and $50 (plus shipping), I was a bit lazy to run to my parents (I'm a teenager, don't judge) and ask them to get it for her, so I decided to DIY it because my motto - which a friend came up with (props to you) - is "Why buy something when you can  DIY-it?"

Since the sweatshirt is out of stock at the moment (or forever...), I decided to write a post about how to recreate this beautiful sweatshirt.  Please keep in mind that this isn't a quick and easy way to recreate it - it took me hours and hours.  Enjoy!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

• Water to thin out the paint
• A plain white/beige sweater - I got my beige one from Old Navy, though a white one would be more comfortable to wear and would make your life ridiculously easier.
• Some cardboard big enough to stretch out your sweater to make it easier to paint on.  The other sizes are so that you can stretch out the sleeves as you work on them.
• 1 inch and 2 inch foam brushes - I got mine from Michael's and they were ridiculously expensive, so go check out your local dollar store for a cheaper and more reasonable alternative.
• Fabric paint - I got mine from Michael's in the colours (from left to right) Wedding Cake (creamy white), Pool (aqua blue), Greek Tile (indigo-like blue), Purple Yam, and Black Beetle.  If you do end up heading to Michael's to get your fabric paint, be sure to print out their weekly coupon, or pull it up on your smartphone. (Link is for Canadians, switch to the US site to get their version)
• A (fabric) paintbrush
• A paper plate or palette of some sort to hold the paint and water in (not in the photo)
• A large garbage bag to protect your work surface (not in the photo)
• A toothbrush

The first thing you're going to want to do is inspect your sweater for any little things that shouldn't be there, such as tags, embellishments (that can be removed, if they can't, you - unfortunately - didn't get the right sweater) and get rid of them.   Then, iron your sweater to prepare a smooth canvas for the paint to go on.

This step is simply to stretch the sweater out to prevent the paint from bleeding through to the other side (not fun, trust me).

Next, it's time to start painting!  Just painting it with the original texture of the paint would make the sweater extremely rough and uncomfortable to wear, so what we have to do is thin out the paint.  This is honestly just an eyeballing process trying to figure out how much water to put in.  I'd say add about a portion of paint and half of that portion of water.  If you think it's too thick, add some water.  If it's too watery, add some paint.

**If you already have a white sweater, you can skip the next few steps.**

Mix it all up!

Draw an outline from the left armpit area until about the halfway point from the right armpit down to the bottom of the sweater.  I really hope that made sense, but if it didn't, take a look at the photo as reference.

Paint that part white as well as the right sleeve.  If you're worried about the sweater feeling rough against your skin, don't paint the sleeve.

Mix together a bunch of blues and thin it out!  Don't worry about mixing it too well because the blue gradient (that you're going to paint in the next step) will look really cool if it's not all the same colour.

Using a foam brush, paint of the blue gradient in a C shape.  Once you have a "base" colour down, you can go in with one of the blue colours to add a bit of dimension.

Now, you'll have to mix some paint for the main black "interior."

Paint it on using a foam brush!

To add the white splatters that the original sweater has, mix some white paint with some water and dip your toothbrush in it.  If you already know how to do this, you can ignore what I'm going to say right after this sentence, but if you don't, pay attention.  You know how you rinse your toothbrush after using it?  Use that same motion but with the toothbrush pointing downwards to the sweater.  You should get pretty white speckles on your sweater if you're doing it right.  Splatter it all along the blue C and pretty much everywhere.

Now it's time to start on the Mickey!  Draw an outline using the photo of the ASOS sweatshirt as reference.

It turns out that I didn't take photos of  the rest of the Mickey-drawing process, but basically, use some white and black to finish up Mickey's cape thing.  Then, draw his head and hat in white.  Add the details on his face with white and black and the details on his hat in different shades of blue.

Once you're done with the front side (it should look like the photo below), repeat the exact same thing on the back.

Let your sweater air-dry overnight at the very least and iron over the sweatshirt at low-medium heat.  Be sure to only hand wash and air-dry the sweatshirt.  Never, ever stick it in the washing machine or the dryer unless you want your hours of work to go down the drain.  It happened to me and I wanted to cry.  So be careful with your wonderful new sweatshirt!

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and let me know in the comments if you're going to try this out.

Thanks for reading!

- J

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Image from shopsimple.com