DIY TIE DYE TUTORIAL

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Tie Dye is back, baby! We are definitely excited about it and hope that our DIY Tie Dye Tutorial will give you some fun ideas and help you be successful. The kids had a blast making these shirts with me and are excited to wear them to celebrate Independence Day. We also made some other fun colored shirts and have a tie dye party planned with our cousins.

SUPPLIES NEEDED FOR THIS DIY TIE DYE TUTORIAL:

• Rit All-Purpose Dye
• HOT water
• Rit ColorStay Dye Fixative (Recommended)
• Plastic Squirt Bottles
• Rubber Bands
• Salt
• Baking Rack and Tray
• Measuring Cups and Spoons
• Microwave (Recommended)
• Plastic Gloves
• Plastic Table Cover
• 100% cotton t-shirts, (or no less than 60% cotton)

COLORS:

We used Denim Blue and Cherry Red for our Patriotic shirts. We ended up making them twice (more about that below) and the second time we decided to add Aquamarine which we loved. We wanted to make sure to get it right before we shared this DIY Tie Dye Tutorial with you.

WHERE TO BUY:

You can buy Rit Dye many places such as Hobby Lobby, Target, Walmart etc. Walmart had the best price we have found. Hobby Lobby was close to 5 dollars and Walmart was around $3.50.

We found these squeeze bottles at Hobby Lobby and they worked well. We found larger ones at a restaurant supply store and they are great because they hold more but the dye comes out more quickly so they were a little more difficult to use. Sometimes you can find them at Dollar Tree and Walmart has them in the camping and kitchen departments…sometimes. 🙂

LET’S GET THIS TIE DYE PARTY STARTED:

We used large foil trays from the Dollar Tree with cooling racks on top. You don’t want the shirt to sit in the dye. A plastic bin would also work well, but the plastic might get colored so I chose the foil. We washed them out and were able to reuse them several times. Make sure that you have your table covered with plastic before you get started. We used a plastic table cloth that we got for one dollar at the Dollar Tree.

MATERIAL MATTERS:

We learned (the hard way) that 100% cotton shirts hold the dye the best. We used a couple shirts that were 60% cotton and 40% polyester and they bled more when rinsing at the end. The first time we made the shirts they looked awesome until we washed them and the white parts turned pink! I think this was partly because we didn’t rinse them thoroughly enough and partly because of the material. Here’s a picture before we washed them.

SHIRT PREP:

Start by washing the white shirts to remove any chemicals that may affect the dying process. We just did a quick wash with some laundry detergent in the sink and rinsed them well. One of our shirts was cream colored.

PICK A PATTERN:

You will want to ring out the water but leave the shirts damp. Dry shirts will soak up the dye too quickly and you will have it places you don’t want it. Next decide what design you want to do and get your rubber bands ready. We used some small hair elastics to do spots and larger rubber bands to hold the swirled shirt together and to do stripes. We got our small elastics at walmart but you can find them in the hair section at most stores.

STARS AND STRIPES:

On Emma’s shirt and the baby’s onesie we did small elastics on the top to make spots in hopes that they would look like stars and added bigger rubber bands on the bottom to make stripes.

SWIRL:

Levi wanted a swirl pattern on his shirt so we laid it flat and pinched right in the middle of the shirt and started to twist. Make sure that the sleeves wrap the same direction as you twist. You can get super particular here and make sure everything has nice clean folds and is even, but that’s not how we roll. 😉 We used the largest rubber bands in our bag to hold the swirl together.

SCRUNCH:

On Luke’s shirt we did the top left scrunched and added elastics on an angle starting from the bottom right corner for stripes. I like the scrunch method best and used it on my shirt as well. The first time we did the shirts we just scrunched them without using rubber bands but it is hard to lift and get the bottom without it being tied. A couple big elastics help with that.

STRIPES:

On Lincoln’s shirt we just did stripes and it turned out great. The first time we did just two big colored stripes and left the rest of the shirt white. The second time we added lots more color and it turned out cute as well.

MIXING THE DYE:

One KEY to the dye setting is heat so make sure to use as hot of water as possible. Our bottles were a little hot for the kids hands so we wrapped them in a cloth.

• 2 cups water
• 2 Tbsp. Rit Dye
• 1 Tbsp. salt

Our smaller bottles only held one cup of water so we did one cup water, one Tbsp. Dye and 1/2 Tbsp. salt. Remember you can also custom mix colors just use the same ratio of dye to water.

HELPFUL HINTS:

The tops of our bottles leaked a tiny bit so we held a paper towel around them to catch any drips. Having paper towels or napkins handy is a good idea and make sure to wear gloves! Mixing your dye AFTER you have everything else prepped and ready to go will ensure that it is still hot.

COLOR TIME:

Carefully tip the bottles so they don’t squirt where you don’t want dye. For kids it’s probably easiest to do a scrunch or swirl pattern where the color doesn’t matter too much. We had to be really careful with the stars and stripes pattern. You will have white areas where the shirt is folded or scrunched but we decided we like it better when we left some white areas on the outside as well. Tie dye is meant to be fun so don’t stress too much about it! Just make sure the colors you use mix well together…unless you want brown. 🙂 Make sure you flip your shirt over and get both sides.

For my shirt I scrunched it into a square shape and did horizontal stripes of color.

We did some really colorful shirts too. The kids had a good time picking colors. You can always mix small amounts of dye so you don’t have too much left over. We were able to do all 5 of our red white and blue shirts with 2 cups each of blue and red and one cup of the Aquamarine. We needed 4 cups mixed of Colorstay Dye Fixative.

Once you have the color on your shirt set a timer for 30 minutes. When the 30 minutes is up you will add the Colorstay Dye Fixative. This is optional but helps set the color. Mix 2 cups water and 2 Tbsp Rit Colorstay Dye Fixative. Squirt it over the shirts while still tied and make sure to get both sides. Next you will wrap the shirts in plastic wrap and microwave for 2 minutes to heat set. Place the plastic wrapped shirt on a paper towel to keep any leaks from your microwave.

FYI:

I bought this quick cut plastic wrap randomly and it is amazing! The cutter slides so easily across and cuts it straight. SO much better than trying to rip it on the metal jaws of death. I always end up cutting myself on those. Just me? The struggle is real .

COOL and RINSE:

Carefully remove your shirt from the microwave as it will be super HOT. We set ours in the sink and ripped open the plastic to release the heat. When it is cool you can start rinsing. You want to rinse it REALLY well to get any extra dye off the shirt. We definitely didn’t rinse long enough the first go around.

THE BIG REVEAL:

Once the water runs clear you can remove the rubber bands. This is the most exciting part! With tie dye you never really know what it’s going to look like and it is so fun to see! Some of our small elastics broke from the heat in the microwave but it was fine.

The kids had so much fun making these shirts that they weren’t even mad when I decided I wanted to try again to get the white less pink.

ONE MORE TIP:

I had a few spots that I wanted to be more white on our red white and blue shirts. We still had a little bit of bleeding even with the colorstay dye fixative and the heat, so I took a tiny paintbrush and some bleach and carefully painted the bleach where I wanted it. (DO NOT let kids do this part) If you get it on any blue spots, the bleach will turn it brown so try not to do that. The light pink parts were easily whitened. The bleach only needed to stay on a minute before I rinsed it off really well.

WASHING YOUR TIE DYE SHIRTS:

My Mom suggested vinegar to set the dye as well so after I rinsed the shirts I poured vinegar over them and let them sit for a while in the sink. Then I rinsed and washed as usual. The first time you wash your shirts wash them on cold with an old towel to absorb any remaining dye. The colors are not as vibrant after they dry but we think they still look great!

SHARING IS CARING:

Let us know if you try our DIY TIE DYE TUTORIAL. We love seeing pictures of your creations! We see lots more tie dye in our future.

Little man loves his tie dye onesie.

And just in case you imagined our little photo shoot was easy breezy, it mostly went like this.

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