mrsbully

Tie-Dying is EASY!!

Well I went camping over the fourth of July and we decided to tie-dye...

Tie-Dying is pretty easy and its always fun to see how your items turn out!!

You can get white t-shirts in packs or 3,5,6, or 8 fairly cheap, and I have done boys underwear, socks, sheets, etc. just use your imagination!  Once you have your items you need to fold them depending on how you want them to look.  You can get ideas on Youtube, and pinterest, here is one link I used, it shows how to dye a ying yang sign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2qcR2GVMag. So Step one fold your shirts:.
 So Step one fold your shirts:

There are so many different ways to get different designs!

For the most Part we use kits like this that we purchase at Walmart, but can be purchased at craft stores.

The Tulip Kit includes bottles to mix the dye in, the dye, rubber-bands, and gloves (but I use different gloves)  The last time I purchased a few of these kits and saved the bottles, so this time I was able to purchase just the tulip dye at Walmart.

I needed some additional colors that were not available in the Tulip brand so I had to purchase a few Rit dyes, located in the laundry aisle at Walmart.

Don't forget to wear gloves and if you don't want stained hands, get thick gloves and toss the ones from the kit!

Once you are done with each item you can wrap it in saran wrap (which is a pain to take off) or you can put it in garbage bags and tie (I zip tie) between each item,I can fit about three shirts per bag.

After your items sit in bags for 8 or more hours (the longer you let them soak the more the color holds) than throw them all in the washer without soap, and than dry.  Do not FREAK OUT when the washer looks like this, it will be fine!

Alright all the hard work is done, time to check out some of your masterpieces(insert excited face here)!

My daughter will not take a nice picture for me sorry guys!

Check out these rainbow friendship shirts! I will start the rainbow at the bottom of the shits next time that way the highest point lands before the sleeves, but I still love them!

There will be items that don't turn out...

It is okay, you can redo them!

Just fold those items back up and start over!

This shirt was one that I folded up on a cut up swim noodle, I believe its call shabori?, but I love the vertical lines it made, but the rest of the shirt ended up with no other color!  So note to self when doing that fold on the noodle make sure the die absorbs in all of the fabric.  What I did to fix it was just tie it up to add horizontal lines and now I like the final look!

So just get some shirts, they can be white or colored and get your tie dye on!  There are many different designs to try, I have done hearts and Ying Yangs, so don't be afraid! You won't regret it and you will have some pretty neat, one of a kind items.