While in quarantine I've picked up Tie Dyeing as a new hobby. My nephew enjoys being crafty and artistic as much as I do, so we've been having a great time making our tie dye creations. We've even started doing some reverse tie dye with bleach which is so crazy easy, yet so cool and a fun way to personalize items.
I ordered a bunch of tie dye supplies off of Amazon and have had some great experiences with them. Michaels also has a great selection and they are offering curbside pickup.
These Tulip Tie Dye kits come individually or in a set and are so easy to use. Just add water, shake, and apply. I have even ordered extra dye tablets to reuse the bottles.
I ordered a bunch of shirt and sweatshirts from Amazon and Target for the both of us and we've tried a bunch of different methods to get different tie dye prints.
This was done with the random scrunch method. Just randomly scrunch your tee in different areas and add rubber bands to hold the shape. Then just apply dye as you regularly would.
My nephew made this one with the swirl method. We swirled the t-shirt, tied rubber bands in a starburst shape, then applied the dye in a swirl pattern as well instead of dying each individual section.
These reverse tie dye sweatshirts were done with bleach. We started with the swirl pattern, added rubber bands, and then sprayed diluted bleach. We let that sit for an hour and then washed as usual.
Make sure you first wash any new t-shirts and sweatshirts to make sure that they will absorb the dye. I also found that polyester doesn't really like to take in dye the same that cotton does so I recommend using cotton only. I had a romper completely reject the black dye I added to it, which was such a bummer because it was looking so neat!
Also, make sure your t-shirt is damp when adding the dye so it can spread. The same applies to the bleach dye process, although, I will say that I bleached a sweatshirt that I forgot to dampen first and I used the no splash bleach and I ended up with a super cool spiderweb type design so don't be afraid to experiment.
This is the swirl pattern with rubber bands already added and ready for dye. You can apply dye in a spiral pattern or add dye to each individual section which will result in different patterns.
This is the random scrunch method done with one color of dye only.
I like to let them sit in a ziplock overnight before washing in the morning for the most vivid colors and best results. Have you tie dyed anything? How did it turn out?
