DIY: Galaxy Print Leggings/Skirt

Top: Urban Outfitters via eBay, £4 | Skirt: DIY | Platforms: Urban Outfitters Sale + Discount, £30 | Body Harness: Miss Selfridge, £1

If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen that yesterday I dabbled in a little bit of DIY and made this galaxy print skirt. You also might have read a few posts ago my lust for Black Milk galaxy print leggings, but I'm a little dubious of splashing out £60 on them! Before I committed to purchasing a beautiful pair by Black Milk, I decided to give it a go myself! I must say they were ever so simple to make, so I've decided to share a step-by-step guide so you can also make your own galaxy print.


You will need:

• Leggings/Skirt/T-Shirt - a black garment you want to transform.
• Househould toilet bleach
• An empty cleaner spray bottle
• Water (not pictured)
• White acrylic paint
• Paintbrush
• Binbag (to cover & protect the area in where you work)

1. Firstly add some household toilet bleach to the empty spray bottle. Remember to take care and wear rubber clothes and old clothes when working with bleach (although I didn't because I like living life on the edge, HA!). Then add about 2/3 water to the bottle, I always prefer to dilute my bleach because I don't want the bleach burning through the clothes. Replace the lid of the spray bottle and make sure the locked cap is on, then shake to mix up the solution.

2. Lay out your garment on the binbag or in a place which will not be affected by the bleach. For example, I hung my garments in the shower so the bleach didn't ruin any of the surroundings... if anything it gave it a quick clean! Then get spraying! Make sure you do spray some close and some from far away so your 'galaxies' do not look too clustered.


3. Where you have sprayed should start turning into an orange rust colour. Remember to spray both sides and the insides of legs and sides of the skirt so the print doesn't look uneven. I left my garment hanging for around 10 minutes to let the bleach do it's job. After 10 minutes rinse your garment in cold water to get rid of the bleach. You can either do this by hand or put your washing machine on the rinse cycle whilst you have a cup of tea!

4. If you don't feel as if there is enough bleached patches on your garment then repeat the previous processes and add some more, but make sure you re-rinse it again thoroughly. Once you are happy with your garment hang it out to dry.


5. Once your item is fully dried, lay it out on the black bin bag again. It's time to get messy with the paint! You can use fabric paint if you wish, but if you're like me and you've worked with acrylic paint you will know there is NO getting it out of your clothes if you should have an accident. You can use more than one colour paint here (with the skirt I only used white, whereas with the leggings I used blue, yellow, purple & white). Grab your paintbrush, preferably a thick brush, and dab it into the paint then dab onto your leggings. Build up more solid blocks of colour where you want clusters of stars and galaxies. The more random the placing the better as it will look more natural. You can build up different colours of course, like I have done in the leggings but make sure you leave the white until last!


6. Once you have dabbed on your colours including the white, take the white paint again and use your paintbrush to flick at your garment. This will create individual stars! If any streak just use your finger to dab it in, so it looks like a cluster. Leave to dry before repeating with the back of your garment...and voila! There we have it, easy peasy galaxy prints! Take that Black Milk!


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, as I really enjoyed making these prints. They're a great way to turn a mudane piece of clothing into something exciting with stuff you happen to have lying around the house anyway.