Learn How To Tie-Dye Clothing – Fun Summer Craft

ByChristine @ theDIYdreamer

Learn how to tie-dye clothing with this tutorial. Also see how to bleach colored cotton t-shirts for a fun tie dye look.

Stack of clothing that was tie-dyed.

Have you ever tie-dyed before?  If you haven’t.. you should really try it.  It’s really FUN and addictive.

My sister and I tie-dyed t-shirts last week (it was for a parade and we wanted all the kids to match).  

We had never tie-dyed anything before, we were kinda nervous about it.  I think we watched over 4 videos before we actually attempted it.

Once you start, you just can’t stop… it’s super fun and EASY (no need to be nervous about it)! 

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Stack of tie-dye t-shirts.

Learning how to tie-dye

We bought a tie-dye kit and followed the instructions.  What’s nice about the kit was that the powder was already in the bottles, we just had to add water and shake.

P.S. We also tie dyed a onesie/bodysuit for my nephew! If you want to know how to tie dye onesies, follow the same steps.

How to tie-dye t-shirts and How to tie-dye onesies

Step 1: We laid the shirts flat on the table and selected a section of the t-shirts and pulled up and added rubber bands 2 inches apart.  You should totally check out YouTube for examples.  We really enjoyed the tutorial from I Love To Create.

Step 2: We headed outside and placed our t-shirt tubes on a garbage bag (next time we will place the garbage bags on a flat surface and not on the ground).

Twisted t-shirts with elastics.

Step 3: We put on some rubber gloves and started dying the t-shirts. We applied a different color of dye per elastic section on each t-shirt.

Applying purple dye on a section of a t-shirt.
Twisted t-shirt with dye.
T-shirt with dye in four sections.

Step 4: After we were done dying the t-shirts, we wrapped them up in plastic wrap.

Twists dyed t-shirt on a a sheet of plastic.

Step 5: We let them sit for 8 hours.

T-Shirts wrapped in plastic.

Step 6: We removed the plastic wrap and cut the rubber bands with scissors.

Cutting elastics from the twisted t-shirt with scissors.
Twisted t-shirt without elastics.

Step 7: Once the rubber bands were removed, we rinsed the t-shirts (wear gloves!!).. to remove the extra dye.

I would recommend you rinse the t-shirts in the sink and not in a bin… you’ll be surprised at the amount of dye that will come out during rinsing.

T-shirt soaking in a bin of water.

Step 8: We then set the washing machine to HOT and put it at the biggest load.

6 different designs of tie-dye t-shirts.

Here are my girls sporting their new tie-dye t-shirts along with their cousin Charles.

Children wearing tie-dyed clothing.

What do you think?? I just LOVE them!!

Stack of tie-dye t-shirts.

I’m planning on picking up some white tank tops to tie-dye too :)

How to Tie Dye Black

If you have been wondering how to tie dye a black shirt, it’s actually quite simple.. you use bleach to tie dye it! Bleach gives black a cool orange tie dye look, it’s really nice.

Check out how we used bleach to tie dye different colors.

How to Bleach Tie Dye

We been having a great time bleaching colored cotton t-shirts for a fun tie dye look.

Black t-shirt with bleached tie-dye.
Heathered blue t-shirt with bleach tie-dye.

We used a mixture of half water and half bleach. We followed these reverse tie dye step, without adding colored dye at the end.

Heathered Blue with bleach tie-dye marble effect:

Heathered blue t-shirt with bleach tie-dye.

Black with bleach tie-dye:

Black t-shirt with bleach tie-dye.
Black tank top with bleach tie-dye.

Purple with bleach tie-dye marble effect:

Purple t-shirt with marble bleach tie-dye.

Pink with bleach tie-dye accordion effect:

Pink t-shirt with accordion bleach tie-dye.

Powder blue with bleach tie-dye:

Powder blue t-shirt with bleach tie-dye.

Khaki green with bleach tie-dye marble effect:

Khaki green t-shirt with bleach tie-dye.

Can you tell we have fun tie-dyeing? We loved how each color revealed it’s own color.

Have a GREAT day!

Christine

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39 Comments

  3. The colors you chose are beautiful, and so are the shirts! I think I might have done some once at a summer camp, but they didn’t turn out so well!

  6. OH your girls are SO adorable with those ultra cool shirts! We had a party and did these but the kids went a little nutty and put too much dye thus getting blackish brown shirts! LOL

  31. What a fun project. this made me think of one of my favorite shirt when I was young, yeah, it was tie-dyed! we will be featuring this at the blog tomorrow, by the way.

    thanks for sharing this with us at the Crafty Saturday Party, Christine. I can’t wait to see what you have for us this week.

    Hugs,
    Lelanie@to-sew-with-love.com

  34. I’ve never tie died before. But my daughter went to a birthday party where they did that. She had tons of fun. I love the colors you did.
    Thanks for sharing at Terrific Tuesdays.
    Rachel
    adventuresofadiymom.blogspot.com

  36. I love this project so much that I’ll be featuring it at tonight’s Make it Great party. I hope you’ll stop by to grab a featured button from the sidebar and link up again!

  37. Very fun craft!
    I should do that with my girls!
    I remember doing that was I was a teen and we had a ball!
    Thanks for linking up this weeek!
    Stacey of Embracing Change

  39. Pingback: DIY Gift and Craft Ideas: Fun Crafts to Create this Summer

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