Tuesday, July 2, 2013

High-Five for Tie-Dye




My latest installment in MD Family Magazine is an easy and fairly mess-less tie-dye project. Tie-dye instantly takes me back to summer camp art projects and those crazy spin art machines at the mall. Oh, the good ol' days of hair-sprayed wave bangs and neon puff paint. 

This project could also add some fun to your 4th of July prep - the bursts of color remind me of fireworks and these hot summer days will help speed up the ink-dry-time!   For more pictures, check out the latest MD Family Magazine craft installment here.

Hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!

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Materials:
• Pre-washed t-shirt or onesie
• Variety of permanent markers. Sharpie and BIC both make a rainbow
collection
• Plastic Solo cup
• Rubber bands
• Isopropyl alcohol 91%
• Syringe or eye dropper


1. Decide where you want to start your design and slip the cup, wide side up, in-between the layers of the shirt. Stretch the section of the shirt over the mouth of the cup. Secure with 1-2 rubber bands.


 2. Let your kids draw designs on the secured section of the t-shirt. Stick with dots, dashes, hearts and other small designs. Leave white space in between colors to give the ink room to spread. Tip – stick with a similar color family within each circle. When you add the alcohol the colors will run together. If you use clashing colors (ex. red and green) you may end up with brown or muddled colors.



3. Take a syringe full of alcohol and slowly start dropping it onto the design. You’ll see the colors start to run and bleed outwards. Add additional alcohol where needed to make sure the ink spreads evenly and completely.



4. Remove rubber bands carefully (wet color will transfer to skin or clothes) and lay shirt aside in the sunshine to dry momentarily.

5. After a few minutes, move onto the next area of the shirt and continue the above process.

6. When you’re happy with your final design, lay outside to dry completely.


7. Run t-shirts through a HOT cycle of the dryer to set colors before washing.