Celebrate a Tie Dye Day

Aug 15, 2012

No, today is not any official Tie Dye Day.  But it can be in your home.  Get ready for artistic fun!

Do you remember tie-dying as a kid?  I remember buckets of dye, rubberbanding shirts, strategically dipping and dunking in various colors of dye . . . and I remember it taking hours.  Not any longer.  I picked up a box of Tulip One-Step Tie-Dye Kit.  And wow, did it make things easy, especially for young kids.  Not to mention, it was a blast!

The How To:

* Start with wet shirts.  I threw mine in the rinse cycle of the washer.

Making a Spiral Pattern with Tie Dye

* Rubberband the shirts in various patterns.  The instruction pamphlet came with several ideas.  I loved the spiral and simple squished one.

* Wear Plastic Gloves.  The kit comes with two sets of gloves.  We needed three, but we always have a plethora of rubber gloves here (don’t ask me why).  
* Protect your working surface.  I used a piece of cardboard covered with a dry cleaning bag.  
* Add water to the ready-to-go bottles and shake until blended.  
* Squeeze the Dy onto the Fabric.  Have fun and let your kids be creative.  If you mix colors, you’ll get new colors.  For the spiral design, try to keep one color in each section and you’ll get a cool effect.  

Using the squeeze bottles was relatively mess-free and lots of fun.  The kit can make 7 shirt, but that would be pushing it if you’re talking adult-sized shirts only.  

* You are supposed to leave them wrapped for 4-6 hours before washing them in hot water.  I would suggest letting them sit over night.  Ours did fade.

The kids were so proud of them!

Wearing “family” tie dye shirts for campfire/camping night.  
This little project is something we’ll definitely be doing again.  The kids really enjoyed dying their shirts and I loved creating something easy, memorable and artistic with them.
Do you like to tie dye?  

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