Summer Camp Crafts: How to Tie Dye Shirts

OF COURSE we’re ending this week of fun crafts with tie dyeing! I mean, we’ve come together through the struggles of mosaic stepping stones, made friendship bracelets because we’re BFF’s, made macrame plant holders to bring zen into our homes and bedazzled our pens so office life can be a little more exciting. The only way to end a week of that is to commemorate it with a tie dyed shirt. Bonus points if you use a blank shirt and puff paint it, “Adult Summer Camp Crafts 2021”

Actually, I feel as if I’ve let myself down since I didn’t think of that until just now in writing it 😅 oh well! There’s always time to revisit!

I HIGHLY suggest getting the Tulip One Step Tie Dye kit. This one below is great because there’s lots of dye for lots of projects! I spent more on what you’re about to see in a picture than if I would have just got this kit instead. Lesson learned! I am an Amazon Associate and any qualifying purchase made from this link I will receive a small commission.

Tulip One-Step Tie-Dye Kit 15-Color Party Kit, Standard, Rainbow

Supplies! Obvs you’ll need the tie dye kit. It does come with gloves but I had a box of latex gloves for a home improvement project so I used those instead. I still unfortunately ended up with a blue thumb. My sister used a pair of the gloves in the kit and she also ended up with a dyed finger so it doesn’t matter, you’re likely to end up with a dyed appendage.

I prefer swirl patterns in pretty much all my tie dyed but I did branch out and I got some cool results! First things first you’ll want to get your shirt or whatever you’re dying a bit damp.

Next you’ll either twirl it, or accordion it, scrunch it, diagonal accordion, multiple rubber band spots etc. Below (not finished for this post, stay tuned to see what I did) you’ll see I used a fork to create what become a tight swirl! In other shirts (not pictured in this post) I would swirl from different spots too, maybe at the bottom, then on a shoulder. I just had fun with it!

Once you’re swirled or accordion or whatever you chose you need to secure it. This is done with the rubber bands!

Here I’m attempting to make an American Flag. I accordion-Ed from the bottom up to make stripes, then did the bubble sections to create stars and then accordion again on the right side for more stripes. It turned out great!

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Also once you’ve rubber banded your work you can begin dying it. This kit makes it easy with the squirt bottles! We did have the table cloth down so we could make a mess and then just throw away the table cloth- it was from the dollar tree! Once it’s dyed you’ll wrap it up in plastic or seal in a plastic bag to give the dye a chance to really soak and dye your item.

After about 6 hours you’ll want to take off the plastic and rubber bands and rinse. I rinsed mine in the bathtub while wearing gloves! Then once the water from the shirt runs clear let them hang dry. I let mine dry for a few days and then I washed them all together! Mine did fade slightly from the pictures shown but I really love the results regardless!

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While I think Tie Dye is synonymous with summer I also think Lemonade is too! So today’s drink is a Bullfrog! It’s simply Vodka and Lemonade and this version comes with colored ice cubes and garnished with a lemon slice! For the color cubes I liked using a small cube ice tray. I took a small cup of water and added a few drops of food dye and then I poured that into the ice cube tray! I made pink, purple, blue, and green. I recommend the ice tray below because it also has a top so you can easily stack your trays!

Ice Cube Trays Silicone Molds with Lids Small Ice Cube Molds for Drilled Drinks Whiskeys Cocktails Food Grade BPA free Cubes(2 Pack)

I’ve really enjoyed crafting with y’all this week! It’s always so sad when camp is over but I’ll still be crafting next week! I’ll be taking a short break from I can make that Mondays for next week, but the follow week I’ll be back!!

Xoxo

-Robin