Tie Dye T-shirts

Tie dye is apparently back in again. So we thought we would make some of our own.

Things you will need:

Plastic table cloth
Assorted white t-shirts, pre-washed
Rubber bands
Gloves
Various dye colours – we bought both of these kits from K-mart which gave us 10 colours
Zip lock bags or plastic wrap
White vinegar
Bucket

Instructions:

We followed the instructions in the K-mart kit. This meant we dyed dry T-shirts rather than damp ones as per the videos below, which use a Tulip dyes instead.

Cover your work surface in a plastic table cloth.

Take the T-shirts and fold, twist or scrunch to achieve the desired pattern (see videos below). Secure with rubber bands.

Fill the dye bottle up with water up to the marked line. Replace the cap securely and shake until dye is completely dissolved.

Wearing gloves, squirt the various dyes onto your T-shirt in the combination you desire. The more dye you use the less white space you will have on your finished T-shirt. Once finished, cover your dyed T-shirt in plastic wrap or into a zip lock bag. Wait 24 hours.

After 24 hours. Take a bucket and half fill with white vinegar, then top up with water. Remove you T-shirt from the plastic, remove the rubber bands and see how the tie dye turned out. Submerge in white vinegar solution for 30 minutes to help the fabric retain the dye.

Wash the T-shirts separate from other clothes in the washing machine.

Spiral tie dye:

Heart tie dye:

Bulls eye tie dye:

Stripes:

What the kids can do:

While I did most of the folding, twisting and scrunching, Miss 6 did one of her shirts according to her own design. She also did some of the dying, but lost interest half way through. She found the 24 hour wait pretty frustrating, but was really proud at the end that she had tie dyed her own T-shirts. She wore one each day for the whole following week.

We did most of the dying during Mr 21 months’ midday nap, so he did not hep with the dying. The probably prevented a bunch of mess. We did make him some tie dye T-shirts to wear though.

I was a bit disappointed that some colours did not take very well, in particular the pink and the yellow. Perhaps we should have used a more premium kit (e.g a Tulip one) to achieve better results. But overall we had a lot of fun doing this activity and are enjoying modelling our new tie dye T-shirts.