Get Creative with Tie Dye

Give a big ol' welcome to Erica Marsh Today.  She has a great creative project for you... and this one is no sewing required - unless that is you want to whip up some of our suggested knit tees in no time! 

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Hi, Erica here from Lollipops & Paisley! You’ve seen a lot of stuff I’ve done for my girl. Today, I’m sharing a project with you that my boy chose. A few weeks ago, he was flipping through a 1st workbook I bought and he found the creative section. Several pages were devoted to tie-dying your own shirts. He was fascinated! I promised him that we would do a shirt over spring break.

I already had these bottles from when I tried dying my own yarn. I also had the fabric dye from when I planned on dying bamboo velour. We dug around in closets until we turned up 2 white cotton shirts (you can’t do a project with one child unless you include the other or send her to grandma’s).

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If you can't find a white shirt in your digging, you can always whip one up using some of these great basic tees:

Jocole: Classic Knit Tee

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We stuck cookie sheets inside trash bags to hold our projects. Then we carefully squirted their chosen colors onto the prepped shirts. For Colin’s, he wanted a ‘target’ design. We gathered the shirt in the middle and twisted as we applied rubber bands. Jenna wanted ‘spots,’ so we twisted small areas and applied rubber bands all over.

We let them sit for an hour, then I tossed them in the washer with about a half quart of distilled white vinegar. Once dried, the kids tried them on immediately. They were so proud of their creations! I’m glad I stretched my boundaries and allowed my kids to tie dye some shirts. Now that spring break is over, we have momentos!