A+ for alliteration with that title right?

When I say “Puffy” what’s the first word that comes to your mind? If you didn’t say “Paint” then perhaps you need a little schoolin:

I don’t know about you but those special effects just BLEW. MY. MIND.

Back in the day I was the puffy paint QUEEN. There was no undershirt in my house that was safe from me when I had a pack of puffy paints in my hand. In fact, perhaps that’s when my crafting fashion obsession began, hmm, must remember to mention ‘puffy paint breakthrough’ to my shrink.

Regardless, all of that neon, graphic shapes & day-glo squiggles definitely hold a special place in my heart & when Tulip Paints came to me with a project to bring back a bit of 80’s crafting style I was more than game!

Tell me she doesn’t have “Kelly Kapowski” written all over her!

Seriously, you have to try out a project using Tulip Dimensional Fabric Paints (aka what we affectionately nicknamed ‘puffy paint’ back in the day) & their Tulip Soft Fabric Paint (an absolute staple in my craft stash). In fact, after I texted my girlfriend a pic of Sam’s new dress she went bananas & insisted we have a ‘Puffy Paint Party’ (with some sort of throwback cocktails of course) ASAP! How much fun would that be??

In the meantime while we wait for our totally awesome party to occur how about I show you how I made Samster’s awesomely rad duds.

Sam’s dress is comprised of two parts, the decorated tank & a skirt made out of a large t-shirt & a few yards of tulle. If you’re not up for sewing however you can achieve the same Lauper-esque look by pairing your painted top with any tutu type skirt.

1. First up, I got inspired. If that video wasn’t enough to get you jazzed then take a look at the ilovetocreate blog, the pictures in there CRACK.ME.UP.

2. I broke my tank design into three sections & began with a checkerboard across the center. I cut a quick square out of some random foam I had lying around & practiced stamping it on a piece of a paper first. Soon enough I had a neon yellow checkerboard that was the perfect background for some random shapes, zig-zags & squiggles. Sound familiar?

Note to self: Find black biker shorts & wear as regular shorts with an oversized cropped tee. Then ignore first note to self.

3. For the ‘peacock feathers’ I started off with a foam cutout just like before except this time I stamped it onto a swirl design of Tulip Dimensional Paint & then onto the tank. As long as you don’t press too hard you should get the same swirl-ish impression. The inside little paisley was one of my favorite things to do with the dimensional paint, I totally had a flashback about how you can outline a design & then fill it in (or vice versa) & the dimensional paints will hold up against eachother. Unless you choose to swirl them which I actually did with the center heart at the end. Add some thin whispy yellow lines around the edge & you can check crazy, neon, peacock-ish design off of your list.

4. The final top section was a throwback technique that I know you’ve done before, I know it! Splatter painting fabric paint. First I messily drew a few diaganol lines across the empty space & then went to town with some quick light sprinkles. Either the Tulip Dimensional Paint or the regular Tulip Soft Fabric Paint would work great for this.

That’s about it for crazy fun part. Aw, I know. Now just the regular fun part. Sewing directions really shouldn’t have to follow puffy paint, it’s just not fair.

I figured out my skirt pieces by laying a dress flat that I both liked the length of & the fit/flare of the skirt on top of the fabric that needed to be cut. (since it was a shirt it was already doubled, if you’re working with yardage you’ll need to either double it or cut two) Next I subtracted the length of the tank & marked that spot on the dress with a clear ruler. After that it’s as simple as carefully cutting around the edges. Sew the side seams right sides together so you now have a tube. I then cut the tulle the same way except I roughly doubled the length so I’d have plenty of room to gather. I wanted pouf! After you gather your tulle tube so it’s the same circumference as your knit one stitch the hem of the tank right on top of the skirt pieces. I then used hem tape to iron some hot pink lace elastic on top of the tank/skirt seam. *Tip* Learn from my mistake, a hot iron & tulle are NOT friends, if you iron it, it will melt. And that will suck.That’s it my friend! I have to say, I LOVED making this dress. Getting crazy with the puffy paint totally took me back to my childhood & I guess that means I’m pretty old too because Sam’s babysitter thought it was ‘totally retro’. Oh well, perhaps this campaign can kickstart a love of puffy paint that will live on forevvverrr!

This is post is sponsored by one of my favorite brands, Tulip. While all of the prior content is 100% my own opinion, creations & dialogue Tulip would like to share the following: Tulip continues to be a craft favorite in households today. In addition to Tulip Soft Paints and Dimensional Fabric paints included in this post, Tulip is known for it’s wide variety of Fashion Glitters, Glam it up Crystals, Fabric Markers and One-Step Tie Dye! Find all your favorite Tulip products by clicking here. In fact, all this summer Tulip is bringing tie dye to the masses with their Tie Dye Your Summer campaign! Visit their Tie Dye Your Summer site at Tie Dye Your Summer. They have so many fun tie dye videos & inspirations as well as an awesome giveaway of a tie dye iPad and party (it really is an amazing prize pack that you’ll want to enter!) Click here to enter this exclusive giveaway!