My daughter is very into customizing her look, Tie-Dye is a great way for her to personalize her wardrobe in a mom approved way and salvage some stained white shirts at the same time. I found the easiest Tie Dye Kit, so I could let her create her own masterpiece!
By: Kathryne
My daughter is well into her tween years at this point. A big part of her new found independence has been learning to identify herself as an individual through her clothing. Her discovery has been an interesting one. From loving pink one day to wearing nothing but black and nave blue for three months straight. I was thrilled by the idea of having some color back in our lives.
My daughter received a tie-dye kit for Christmas. The link for the kit is here. We decided to start this project during spring break, because this is a multi-step process and took us a few days to complete. My daughter took on this project mostly on her own. She carefully read the instructions in the kit prior to beginning.
We began by gathering all the white items we wanted to experiment on. Then we prepped our desired area by putting down a plastic table cloth. I have one that I picked up from the dollar store years ago, and we pull it out for all of our messy craft projects. Here is a link for a great one…plastic table cloth.
The next step was to dampen the clothing with water. This allows the die to absorb into the clothing more evenly, you don’t want to soak it just make it slightly wet. Then we added water to our powdered dyes and shook them up in the bottles provided in the set until it was a homogenous solution.
Next we rubber banded our items into our chosen designs. The kit included pictures of different techniques, we selected our colors and got to work. The process was much easier and more forgiving than I had anticipated. Even the 4 year old managed to create a great t-shirt with a little help from his sister.
On this pair of shorts my daughter chose to do a rainbow pattern. The shorts were rolled and then rubber banded between the spots where the colors where to be placed. The rubber bands were also included in the kit.
After allowing the dye to stay on the clothing for a minimum of 8 hours, we left it for 16 hours, it was time to rinse. We chose to rinse them out in the bath until the water ran clear prior to washing them, this step ensures the dyes do not blend or muddy.
Leave a Reply