Tie Dye Adventures
Tie Dye is timeless.
Seriously. I thought tie dye might be a fun glimpse into my college years. I could share an activity from my youth. I learned that what felt "dated" to me was "all new" to them. And they LOVE it. The process was magic.
And they learned a lot along the way :)
So we started with the Jacquard Funky Groovy Tie Dye Kit
They each had a t-shirt and a white tea towel/flour sack which was thin cotton. The Flour Sack Towels
Anika (11) could manage the rubber bands on her own. For Mila (6), I encouraged her to loop the rubber band once, then I cinched each one with a few more loops. Ian (5), pointed to where he wanted the rubber bands and I put them on for him. When they were done, we placed plastic bags in the shade (one for each child). I've dyed before, so I know what happens when projects are close to each other (dye easily puddles and moves to the other project). So we gave each project plenty of room.
The kit came with red, blue, and yellow. And one pair of gloves. I let Anika wear the gloves. She started with the dye. Then I wanted to have fun, too. We planned to jump in the pool afterwards so using a little without gloves would be fine, right?
Wrong. My hands were dyed for days! My fingernails, especially, looked like monster-hands all yellowed and green. Next time, I will get extra gloves :)
Anika and I used the bottles while Mila and Ian told us where to add the colors. We were careful not to let the dye puddle underneath the project (keeping each area the chosen color).
After awhile, mixing became fun too!
The colors were so vivid! And the directions had a lot of illustrations, which Anika appreciated. I asked her to read a lot of them to me, so information reading practice, hurrah.
Oh, one idea was to place marbles or bouncy balls inside the fabric before adding the rubber band, thus creating the bulls-eye effect. Fun stuff. We searched Pinterest and found lots of inspiration :)
We had extra dye when the kids finished. And a couple of four sacks. So I decided to dip-dye. I asked the kids to predict what would happen. I found old containers that I wasn't worried about ruining. I draped the towels over a child-chair (that I also wasn't worried about ruining). And we tucked a few inches into the dye. Science! What might happen and why?
By now our workspace was nice and messy. So I made sure that nothing sat in a puddle of unwanted color (brown) and we left everything to sit. This was hard for the kids because they wanted to open their creations right away. I can understand that! Practice patience :)
And by now my hands were a mess! Oh, you can see the fun directions in this image. Perfect for older children.
We let the projects sit. And sit.
The dip dye started its science-magic.
We looked up how water can travel "up". We let everything stay overnight. The next morning, the blue had traveled up half of the towel! I didn't get a photo of that, sorry.
The kids were amazed. Then I wore the gloves (I learned my lesson the hard way) to snip the rubber bands carefully and rinse excess dye. The kids were thrilled by what they had created. Awesome!
I held their projects up for them to admire, then tossed everything to wash and dry (as instructed). Finally, the shirts were ready to wear.
Each one turned out different. Exactly like the kids who made them :)
These child-led crafts are delightful and rewarding for them. Look what can be made!
I remembered why I wore so much tie-dye in college. It's fun!
Ian loved the activity as much as the girls, so this is definitely fun for boys and girls. The best part is that, every time they wear the shirts, they remind us of happy times. And that never goes out of syle :)
This is not a sponsored post, but the links are affiliate, so if you decide to try your own tie-dye adventure, a small percentage returns to the Forest. Your price remains the same. Thank you!
Happy dying!
I completely forgot! We made these a couple of weeks ago. The kit comes with Soda Ash, which is mixed with warm water to soak the clothing to prepare for the dye. Lots of opportunities to practice patience. I followed the advice to save the soak after taking the clothes out (all in the directions) so I could easily dunk a couple of extra scarves when we had left-over dye.
Figured I should let you know that we followed that step :)
Have fun!
