Elmer’s Glue Gel Batik Project #2

Last week, we shared our hand painted glue batik project with you. Today, we have another way to make some beautiful batik fabric.

This method is even easier for younger children, groups of children, or just super busy mamas.

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First, gather your supplies. You’ll need:

• Fabric ~ white works best, anything that can be painted and machine washed; cloth napkins, aprons, canvas totes, t-shirts, etc.
• Elmer’s Glue Gel ~ this was a bit difficult to find in our area, we bought ours at Hobby Lobby (also available online), it might be easier to find during the back-to-school season…so if you find it, stock up  Elmer’s Glue Gel is available through Amazon. A sales associate at our local Ace Hardware also said they could order it and have it shipped to their store (this could possibly save you the shipping fees). I’ve also read that regular white Elmer’s washable glue and Elmer’s glitter glue work, but I haven’t tried either of them personally.
• Acrylic Craft Paint
• Spray Bottles ~ we used small spray bottles from the Dollar Tree, small bottles work better unless you’re painting a lot of fabric
• Wax Paper

Now, cover your work surface with the wax paper and lay the fabric on top. Use the Elmer’s Glue Gel to draw a design on the fabric.

Let the glue dry completely before continuing! We let our designs dry overnight.

Squeeze a little craft paint into the spray bottle. For one cloth napkin we needed about a quarter-sized dollop of paint. Then add water. We used 1/3 cup of water. Gently shake the bottle to mix the paint and water.

You definitely want to spray paint these batiks outdoors! To be safe you want to be out in the open, away from the house, car, etc. Unless of course you want your vehicle to look like a Jackson Pollock masterpiece :).

Now just start spraying. Be sure to cover all the fabric so the white of your glue design will show up. You can use several different colors, just watch that your fabric doesn’t get over-sprayed and turn a muddy brown. We decided to stick with one color for this particular set of napkins, although we have plans to mix it up a little bit with a future project.

(This is yet another use for our reversible, full-coverage kids’ aprons.)

Then, leave your project to dry in the sun.

Once the fabric is completely dry, soak it in warm/hot water for 15 minutes. The glue will start to dissolve. You can help it along by rubbing the fabric together.

Make sure the glue is gone, then hang your project to dry.

Once it has dried completely you need to heat set the paint. Place the item in a clothes dryer for 30 minutes on the highest setting allowed for the type of fabric used. You can also heat set the painted piece using a dry iron and a pressing cloth by laying the pressing cloth over the painted fabric and ironing the painted design for 10 seconds, lift the iron and move it to another section of the painted design. Your iron should be set at the highest setting allowed for the fabric used.

Here are the napkins we’ve finished so far.

Have you made plans to create your own batik project? I’m thinking about t-shirts next, but we still have quite a few napkins to finish first.