Tie Dye

Tie Dye

 I tie dyed today with my lovely little firsties and it was so much fun! Every year we tie dye for our field trip and field day. We only did two colors red and blue so they came out red, white, and blue. Yeah, America! Last year I did rainbow tie dye with all different colors but that was a little more difficult. I recommend using a parent volunteer if you want to do multi colors. It is super simple using two colors though. I used Tulip One Step Tie Dye Kit and then Rit Dye when I ran out of the Tulip dye. Having used both I know would recommend using Rit dye, you get more dye. Here are the steps I took to tie dye with my kids:

1. Before you tie dye rubber band all the kids white shirts.  (Make sure each kids names on the shirt.)I rubber banded them from the middle with 5 rubber bands. Make sure you twist the rubber bands around a few times and that it is tight. It makes a sunburst effect that looks great.

2.The day of tie dying call each kid over one at a time to the sink. Have each kid squirt the dye in each section leaving no white areas. Then pat the dye down to make sure it is sinking into the shirt. Place the shirt into a plastic bag and wait for a few hours. One hour is enough but the longer you wait the better!

3. After a few hours take the shirt out of the bag in the sink. Wash the shirt off and then cut the rubber bands off. Then wash again with cold water. Squeeze the shirt to rinse out the dye.

4. Hang the shirt up to dry outside. Once they are dry take them home to place in the dryer with dryer sheet to make sure the dye has fully set in. This step is not necessary but I like to do this so the shirts smell nice and the dye won't run.

5. Have fun wearing your tie dye shirt! :)