How to Make Stretch Fabric Paint

If you need to paint on spandex, you'll want to know how to make stretch fabric paint. This post has all you need to know. Also: Glitter!

Way back in the day - I’m talking mid-1990s here - I used to be both a figure skater AND a professional spandex costumer.

I guess things have come full circle, as the same applies now, again... after 20 years off the ice, and a bit of a break from sewing a while back, as I worked on my cake career and cookbooks.

Anyway.

I bring up the 90s, as some things have changed between now and then... even before considering actual dress styles.

As I mentioned in my “How to Make Sequins and Spangles” post, sequins are nowhere near as popular as they once were, having been almost completely replaced by crystals.

(See my “Everything You Need to Know about Rhinestones” post for more about THAT subject!)

One sad change about the current costuming landscape is the lack of Jones Tones.

Jones Tones

When I was in my teens, Jones Tones was a company out of the US that was making stretch paints.

As someone who didn’t like wearing traditional - usually sequined - dresses, they provided me with endless fun in designing.

There was the ill-fated time that my coach decided I should try to be more girly and artistic, and I did an interpretive/artistic program to “Memory”.

I was terrible, but the dress was pretty. I used the glitter versions to make a shimmery lace-up vest type effect on a navy blue dress... I wish I still had photos.

There was the “Karate Kid” inspired dress I made for my Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story program.

Because Karate and Kung Fu are the same thing, I guess? Super cringe. Anyway...

I used the orange, green, and brown stretch paints to do the large Bonsai tree design across the back.

Once dried, the painted section had a thick, leathery type effect, and it really showed up beautifully.

I’d also use their stretch paint to do the writing up the legs of the fake Blue Skys pants I’d make for friends. Rather than “Blue Skys”, we’d do nicknames or other short statements.

I remember one friend asked for one based on the “No Fear” thing... I can’t remember what we went with. It was something self-deprecating... “No Control”, maybe?

Anyway, they put out some fun stuff. I've got some really old costuming photos included at the very end of this post, for those interested. (I'm talking 2000-2004 ish, old!)

Beyond the stretch paints - both in solid colours and glitter paints - they eventually put out their own line of glitters, as well as glue and foils, for stretchy foil embossing.

(... and hey, I have a post on how you can do THAT - without Jones Tones, too! How to do Stretch Foil Embossing on Spandex.)

Anyway, they ended up going out of business several years ago.

Moving on From Jones Tones

When I heard the news, I bought up stock of whatever I could get my hands on, especially the black stretch paint.

... but that didn’t last forever.

E-6000 put out a product - E6000 Allure Gloss Dimensional Design Adhesive Paint - that looked and acted so much like Jones Tones that I was SURE they’d bought out the product... and things were good.

I tend to use a lot of black stretch paint, especially in wrestling gear. It’s a strong, waterproof, stretchy way to add a bit of something to a design.

Outlining lettering and designs with it really makes a huge difference:

... But all good things come to an end, and the product soon completely disappeared.

Boo.

As with the custom sequin situation... Obviously, I was going to have to figure out how to make it myself!

After some experimentation, I’ve come up with a really decent homemade stretch paint!

How to Make Stretch Fabric Paint

Making homemade stretch paint is actually quite easy, and doesn’t require much in the way of materials or tools.

Materials Needed

- Water-Based Kitchen & Bath Caulk / Sealant - CLEAR.
- Acrylic Craft Paint*
- Small Plastic Cups (for mixing)
- Popsicle Sticks (For mixing)
- Disposable Pastry Bags
- Empty Fabric Paint Bottles (Optional)

* I just use the cheap ~$1 bottles from chain craft stores, you really don't need to use anything fancy for this.

Technique

Mixing Paint

Squeeze some caulking into your mixing cup, leaving room for the paint AND stirring.

Add your desired colour of acrylic craft paint. You want to aim for a ratio of about ⅔ caulk and ⅓ paint. I find that this ratio gives the best stretch / vibrance mix.

With this ratio, you get as much stretch as you could possibly need, without sacrificing richness of colour.

Carefully and gently use a popsicle stick to mix the caulking and paint.

You want to use a gentle technique, as you don’t want to introduce a bunch of air into the mix - you’ll get bubbles.

The mix will go through some weird stages, at times looking almost curdled.

As you mix it, it will eventually become smooth and lighter in colour.

Using the Paint

Once everything is fully mixed together and smooth, you can either paint with it directly from your cup, or transfer it to a pastry bag.

Depending on the project, I like to use a pastry bag for piping the designs on. You can vary the amount of flow, with how much of the tip you cut off.

Alternately, transferring to a pastry bag makes it much easier to get the paint into a fabric paint bottle, if that’s what you’re doing with it.

More on that in a bit.

Don’t worry that your paint isn’t the colour you were expecting to be.

As it dries, the caulking will go clear, and your colour will come through vibrantly.

Note: This is why it’s important to use CLEAR caulking!

Here are some photos of the various stages of the paint as it dries:

Once the paint is fully dry, you can remove it from your stretching apparatus (I just had it pinned to a piece of cardboard).

Stretch it as much as you need, just because you can! 🙂

I'll be addressing how to use the paint further along in this post, but first ... some Glitter!

How to Make Glitter Stretch Paint

Materials Needed

- Water-Based Kitchen & Bath Caulk / Sealant - CLEAR.
- Craft Glitter
- Small Plastic Cups (for mixing)
- Popsicle Sticks (For mixing)
- Disposable Pastry Bags
- Empty Fabric Paint Bottles (Optional)

Technique

Mixing Glitter Stretch Paint

Squeeze some caulking into your mixing cup, leaving some room for stirring.

Add your glitter. Use a fair amount, but you’ll actually need less than you think, once it’s dry!

You’ll want to have glitter suspended in the paint, not glitter held together by the paint, if that makes sense.

Carefully and gently use a popsicle stick to mix the caulking and glitter.

You want to use a gentle technique, as you don’t want to introduce a bunch of air into the mix - you’ll get bubbles.

Using the Stretch Glitter Paint

Once everything is fully mixed together and smooth, you can either paint with it directly from your cup, or transfer it to a pastry bag.

Depending on the project, I like to use a pastry bag for piping the designs on. You can vary the amount of flow, with how much of the tip you cut off.

Don’t worry that your glitter paint isn’t the colour you were expecting to be. As it dries, the caulking will go clear, and your glitter will come through vibrantly.

Note: This is why it’s important to use CLEAR caulking!

Here are some photos of the various stages of the glitter stretch paint as it dries:

Once the paint is fully dry, you can remove it from your stretching apparatus (I just had it pinned to a piece of cardboard).

Stretch it as much as you need, just because you can! 🙂

How to Paint on Spandex

Before painting on spandex, I like to stretch the garment to the wearer’s measurements, or at least close to it.

Not only does this provide for the best look when wearing, but it also provides a nice, smooth surface to work on.

You don’t want the garment wrinkling or moving around as you paint it!

With a Paint Brush

You can use a wet or dry paintbrush to paint your desired design onto the spandex.

Personally, I like to use a wet brush - I’ll keep a little cup of water on hand to keep it wet, every few paint strokes as needed.

Piped with A Pastry Bag

As I mentioned earlier, I like to use a Disposable Pastry Bags for piping.

I’ll usually just cut the tip off and go, but if you're looking for something specific, you can set your bag with a coupler and icing tips, and just pipe it like you would frosting.

Note: If you do this, consider that coupler and tip either disposable or ONLY for fabric paint. I wouldn’t use it for food after piping caulking!

Smoothing Your Piped Designs

Much as you would do when caulking your bathtub, you can use a wet finger to gently smooth out any rough spots in your piped design, or even flatten piped lines out.

This applies to both the basic stretch fabric paint, as well as the glitter paint, by the way.

I like to keep a disposable cup filled with water on hand, to do this.

Be sure to wash your hands when you’re finished!

Using a Fabric Paint Bottle

If you’d like the precision of a fabric paint bottle - and the ability to pipe much finer detail* than you’ll get from a pastry bag, here’s how you do that:

First, mix up your stretch paint as described in an earlier section.

Next, transfer the paint to a pastry bag. This makes it MUCH easier to get the paint into the fabric paint bottle, as it’s much too thick to just funnel in.

Cut a small amount of the tip off your pastry bag, and pipe it directly into the fabric paint bottle.

Some fabric paint bottles come with a super fine “needle” tip, as These Fabric Paint Bottles did.

This fabric paint is quite thick, so I was NOT interested in trying to force it through such a small tip. I meant to remove it before capping the bottle, but forgot.

Oh well, it was easy enough to pull off - using a basic set of pliers - even after the bottle was filled.

The hole left where the needle was big enough to easily allow paint through, while small enough to allow for very fine piped detail.

Pipe your designs out as desired.

Allow the paint to dry fully, undisturbed.

Once the paint is fully dry, you can remove it from your stretching apparatus (I just had it pinned to a piece of cardboard).

Give it a good, just because you can! 🙂

* Note: I don’t recommend using a super fine bottle tip for the stretch glitter paint. If you’re piping glitter paint at all, be sure to use a really fine glitter when mixing it!

Miscellaneous Tips for Painting on Spandex

- If you are doing a project that will require overlapping (such as the bonsai in front of the sun), paint the background (the sun), and let it dry fully before painting the foreground. (The tree).

- Sequins or rhinestones can be embedded into the wet paint to augment the design

- You can mix acrylic paints to achieve custom colours. Mix the paints first, then add to the caulking.

If you’re mixing paints, make more than you think you’ll need it’ll be hard to match, later!

A Note on Garment Storage

Even when set, this paint can stick to itself - and that goes double for when it’s warmed.

I had some wrestling clients a decade ago that didn’t head this warning, balled their gear up, and left it in their hot car. Wrecked the garments.

... so don’t do that!

You’ll want to be careful not to store painted garments in such a way that painted sections are pressed against each other.

I like to use plastic dry cleaner bags to separate garments, or sections of garments, when there’s a LOT of stretch paint in play.

Usually, though, it’s not a huge issue. Due to the nature of the paint style, I usually only use it as a focal point thing - say, a design on the back - rather than as an all-over thing.

A Note on Glitter

Clear, water-based kitchen/bath caulking is good for more than just making stretch paint - it's also a great way to secure glitter to your garment in a way that stretches!

Just stretch your suit and apply the clear kitchen adhesive in whatever pattern you want.

Sprinkle glitter of your choice over the area, and allow it to dry completely before knocking the extra glitter off.

A few words of advice on glitter:

1. They call it "Craft Herpes" for a reason. Be very careful of your working space, when you're using glitter. You'll be finding it for months or YEARS after the fact.

2. If you are using glitter in conjunction with non-glittered hand painting, do the glitter first. Glitter can stick to stretch paint long after it dries.

3. If you are applying glitter to a suit that has mesh on it, block the mesh off with tape, spare fabric, or whatever else you have handy.

The glitter will get into the mesh and pretty much stay there.