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I've never been called a "crafty" person. I can't make houses out of Popsicle sticks, and I CERTAINLY can't use a hot glue gun. But when my precious little daughters asked to make tie dyed shirts this past weekend, of course I had to try. So here's how it all went down. My better half bought the family a tie dye kit and said it would be a fun activity for us to do with our small army worth of children. At first I thought that it sounded like a fun idea for HER to do with the kids, because for one, I don't do well around messes and for two, I didn't want to end up doing worse than a 5 year old and have everyone laughing at me.
So, that part about me and messes by the way is totally true. CLUTTER, I can deal with. I can handle things out of place, and sinks full of dishes, but I get all weird and anxious around people spilling things, like dyes and paints for instance. What I'm telling you here is that tie dying is essentially my worst nightmare come true. But my babies were excited to do it, so what am I gonna do, say no? Luckily someone suggested we take the project outside which was genius. Once I was free from worrying about dyes being spilled on carpets or hardwood floors, I was as free as a bird.
Now for those who've done the whole tie dye thing before, I realize this is all boring and basic stuff for you, but it was all brand new to me, so I'm talking to those people, not you Know-it-alls, nobody asked you. OK, so there are a couple basic patterns you can choose from when you're a beginner. You can either make a spiral, or concentric circles. There ARE more, I realize, but these are the easiest. I chose to make the circle pattern. To do this you basically pic a spot on the shirt, twist it and put a rubber band around it. You do this until your shirt looks like a rubber banded snake. The other common pattern is the spiral which is what all the girls chose to do. To make the spiral pattern, you pick a spot on the shirt and spin it until it looks like a cinnamon roll and then you section it off with rubber bands.
Once the shirts are all divided you can start to dye them. That's when all the action happens. I have to admit I had a lot of fun doing this project and I'm glad I was strong armed into doing it. In fact I had so much fun I did a second shirt. My oldest daughter told me she wanted to be a crabby teenager and hide in her room, so I took the one we saved for her and made an awesome spiral with it. Boom! For the record, that crabby teenager remark is a direct quote from her. She knows the only way I'll allow her to get out of things is if she verbally acknowledges when she's being an emotional teenage stick in the mud. She literally said "Dad, can I be a crabby teenager and ignore everyone in my room?"My method seems to work. But that's a story for another time, We need to talk about the awesome pink tie dye I made!
Again, I don't do a lot of crafts but this is one I will definitely do again. It's like making paper snowflakes when you're a kid. You really never know what it's gonna look like until you unfold it. I love that anticipation and mystery. The only hard part is having to wait the 8 to 24 hours for the colors to set before the big reveal. But it's totally worth it. In the end we ended up with 8 shirts and they all turned out awesome! action shots in the gallery