No Dye Tie-Dye

While camping this last week, Brinkley missed a Tie-Dye birthday party.  So I decided that it would be a fun activity for us to do with Jacob, while we were up here camping.  I headed to the Dollar Tree for t-shirts (gray for Jacob and white for the girls), then went on Pinterest for instructions.  I didn’t really want to use real Rit Dye.  Too messy and too much of a pain, so I researched other options.  One idea I found was to let the kids color with Sharpies.  After you wash it, the colors kind of bleed together. 

http://stayathomeeducator.com/no-dye-tie-dye/

I thought that would be cute for younger kids, but I figured mine could handle something a little more complicated.  That’s when I stumbled across this:

http://ricochetandaway.blogspot.com/2012/06/diy-no-dye-tie-dye.html

Love it!  It worked so well and was so easy.  Miss Ricochet and Away! let her kids use spray bottles to paint their shirts.  I thought that was a great idea, but didn’t want to buy 10 spray bottles.  I just let my kids use sponge brushes and that worked really well.  We had the best time doing this.  The kids wore their shirts to the rodeo and were really excited about them.  So excited in fact, that when we found more shirts at another Dollar Tree in Heber City, we decided to do it again!  I even got in on the action and Tie-Dyed an old white camping t-shirt.

We learned a few things though.  When the shirts dry, the color fades, so the second time, we really saturated the shirts.  Plus we added extra paint to the water for a more vibrant color.  This time we also did socks.  I don’t know that the socks were my favorite, but the kids liked them. 

Just a tip, if anyone decides to do their own.  After the shirts dry and you unroll them, put them in a good hot dryer for at least 15 minutes to heat seal the color into the shirts. 

Yay!  So much fun!!