Tie-Dye!

Today's activity was tie-dying. We had So. Much. Fun.

We just bought a kit from our local craft store. I know there are more earth-friendly ways to dye but for our first go at this, I went the simplest/cheapest route possible. 

Thankfully, we had plenty of white shirts and pants lying around. A couple had logos on them from different camps the Things have done, but Thing 1 had this extra tank top we decided to throw in as well. 

The Things did most of the work themselves which, as I've said before, is hard for me to not control. But they did a GREAT job. Thing 2, who is six, needed a little guidance but 7 1/2 year old Thing 1 took complete control of her shirts.

We followed tips from this photo to create the different patterns. 

And while the instructions said you could put the dye on dry clothing, I found that it absorbed much easier and quicker on wet, so we quickly gave everything a dunk in some water. 

Thing 1 going to town. We laid out garbage bags on our counter to make for easy clean-up.

I love how vibrant the colors are.

The Things wanted to make a shirt for Dad (the yellow, blue, and green) - they insisted he would NOT want pink or purple on his shirt. 

After we got everything well-coated with the dye we wrapped our shirts up tightly in plastic wrap and set them out on our patio to dry for about seven hours. We got everything unwrapped, rinsed them in the sink until the liquid ran clear, removed the rubber bands with scissors, and then ran them through a hot water cycle to rid any remaining dye.

The end result! (I photographed the back of the shirts so you could fully see the designs.)

SO cool and the Things LOVED every minute of it. This is definitely a project we will be doing again and again! (And a great use for ALL of those camp t-shirts we end up with!)