Boys CAN Wear Pink Series, a Tutorial and a Giveaway!

The idea that pink is a "girl" color is a relatively new concept. For centuries, babies and young children were dressed primarily in white because it was easiest to keep clean with the help of bleach. And dresses were worn by both girl and boys until the age of 6 or 7.

In the early 1900's, manufacturers started to assign colors to genders. And pink was assigned to the boy team. The reason, it was a strong color much more suitable for a boy. Blue was given to the girls because it was dainty and soft. Right around the time of World War I, the colors shifted and blue was given to the boys and gender dressing became the norm with boys being dressed like their fathers and girls, in dresses and pink like their mothers.

The people who made this decision? Manufacturers and retailers.

Welcome to the biggest and most successful marketing campaign ever.

With parents now buying gender specific clothing for their first born, they stand a 50% chance of having to buy new, gender specific clothing for child number two. Pretty good marketing strategy, huh.

Since the baby boomers, children have been coded in their blue and pink and trucks and flowers. There was a brief time in the 70's that girls were dressed more gender neutral and pink was abanded in the name of women's liberation. But that trend didn't last long and pink made it's way back into girls clothing a couple of years later.

So with all that being said,

Truth is, they CAN! It's just a color. It is not an identifier. Color does NOT have a gender.

People dress little girls in blue without questioning what type of person a little girl will become, but dressing a boy in pink makes him "girly" or a "sissy". And why is being a girl a negative thing? It's a terrible view! Sadly, there are little boys who are ashamed to say that pink is their favorite color. They hide it. They love it in secret and tell people a more socially acceptable answer like, blue or red. While girls can proudly exclaim their love of blue or red, or whatever other color they have fallen in love with. It's time to break past the rules that society has fallen into thanks to retailers and manufacturers and dress their boys, in whatever color they like!

Boys CAN wear pink!! And, this month I have a whole list of sewing bloggers lined up to help inspire you to get some pink into your boy's wardrobe.

And sponsors! I have some amazing and generous sponsors for this series. At the end of the month, one winner will be drawn using rafflecopter for one sweet prize package. Curious what's inside?

The prize package includes:
One yard of Stenzo Pit Stop Poplin in pink from Mabel Madison
$25 gift certificate, plus a surprise fat quarter from Phat Quarter Shop
One yard of solid cotton/lycra & one yard of coordinating fabric from Purple Seamstress
One pattern of choice from Paisley Roots
$20 store credit from Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop
One pattern of choice from Patterns for Pirates
One pattern of choice from Mouse House Creations
Bottoms Up Pants Pattern from If Only They Would Nap
One Pattern of choice from Titchy Threads


To enter the giveaway, scroll to the bottom of this post.

I also have a coupon code for Mabel Madison for you. Use the code "PINKBOYS" for 15% off during the month of February!

We also have a sewalong happening on Facebook. Share your guy in his pink gear on the Sew for Boys page with the hashtag #boyscanwearpink. There are no prizes or judging. Just a fun way to show off your work and get inspired by others. :)

I'm kicking off the series with a freezer paper stenciling tutorial for this shirt.

It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

The pattern I used for the shirt itself is Peek-a-Boo's Classic Ringer Tee. After cutting out the pieces and before sewing together, I did a freezer paper stencil to put the design on the front. It's super easy to do!

You'll need to gather a few things. Something to stencil (our shirt), freezer paper, fabric paint, cardboard or something to place under the fabric you are painting to protect the work surface or keep paint bleeding onto the back of the shirt, make up sponge, iron, and electronic cutter or exact-o knife.

I used a Silhouette Cameo to cut out my design. I LOVE my cameo for cutting out freezer paper. I stick the top side of the freezer paper down onto my cutting mat, the matte side, not the glossy plastic side. The glossy side will be up facing you. I find it sticks better this way.

Be sure to flip your design in your software before you cut!

I have an old mat. Lots of old mats actually and none of them are sticky anymore. To make them stick again, I do a really light spray of Elmer's Spray Adhesive to the mat. Do NOT do this on your cutting board, you will have a sticky cutting board. And a really light spray is all it needs. Let it sit for a couple minutes before applying your freezer paper to create a temporary hold. Read the directions on the can.

If you don't have an electronic cutter, you can print off your design and trace it onto the freezer paper and cut it out with an exact-o knife.

After cutting out your design, you need to decide where to place it on your shirt.

To find the center of my shirt, I folded it down the center and ironed a light crease.

Then to keep it straight, I folded up the shirt and ironed, creating a crease where I wanted the top of the design to be.

After you have it marked, place your stencil onto the shirt and iron it into place. Be sure to remember the little shapes inside the letters like B and O. Yep, the middle of the e and a are missing below. They were added. I find it easier to add the middle pieces one at a time, rather than all at once. Then nothing shifts around on you when you aren't looking.

Iron well! The better you iron it down, the less paint you will have bleeding under the edges. Flip it over and iron from the back, also. Really make sure it's ironed well.

After you iron, let it cool a few minutes. Now is a great time to get your paints ready.

I used Tulip Soft Fabric Paint and Anita's Acrylic Craft Paint. I normally use all fabric paint, but I didn't have blue on hand. Some acrylic paints work well for fabrics. Just read labels. For applying the paint, I like to use make up sponges.

Now you may notice that my design does not have the word "can" in it. That is because we are painting in layers. The word "can" is layered on top of "BOYS" and "wear".

Blot the paint onto the fabric. Start lightly. Dip your sponge into the paint, then dab off the excess a bit before applying to your fabric. You want to build the paint up in layers. If you go heavy handed, your paint will bleed under the freezer paper no matter how well you ironed it into place. Go straight up and down with your blotting. You don't want to push the paint under the freezer paper. (notice a theme here?)

Where you change colors, be careful not to get your color into the wrong area.

This is after the first layer of paint. Let it dry between layers, otherwise you are just lifting the paint off the fabric and it will take more layers to get an even coverage.

When you have a nice even layer of paint and, it is dry, carefully peal off the freezer paper.

Beautiful, right! Now, place down the next layer in the design, in our case, the "can".

Again, iron it down well. Be sure to protect the fresh paint from the first layer with a pressing cloth while you iron down the second layer.

Paint the can in. It took LOTS of layers to cover up the blue paint in the first layer.

You can use a hair dryer to dry the paint in between coats if you are impatient like I am.

I got impatient. I used too thick of a coat of paint at times and did have some bleeding under my freezer paper.

 Just take a small paint brush and clean up the edges using the same blue from the first layer.

See, nice and clean now.

Using a pressing cloth, heat set your paint with a hot iron. I iron the back as well, without a cloth.

Now assemble the rest of your shirt and you have a kicking pink shirt for a boy!

Want to make a shirt just like this? It's your lucky day!

Here is the Silhouette file design. This one will only work with Silhouette software.

Don't fret though! Here is the pdf file for those without a Silhouette.

Stop by tomorrow to see our next pink inspired boy's wear!

Giveaway rules:

By entering into the giveaway, you are agreeing to the following rules:

International entries welcome, but winners outside of the US will be responsible for shipping of physical prizes.

You must be 18 or older to enter.

Winner will be notified via email within 24 hours of the end of the giveaway. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be chosen.

Thank you to all of the sponsors!

a Rafflecopter giveaway