30 Day Craft Challenge...Day 5

   Before I jump into Day 5, I want to point something out. It is officially August 7th, but I'm only on Day 5. Confusing, eh? I promise you that I have indeed done a craft a day, I'm just not quick enough about getting them posted on here. Some of my crafts are done late at night, after the Monsters go to bed. I love this blog, but not enough to stay up late to actually make a post. I would love to say that I'm going to catch up, and make the post on the day they happen, but that would more then likely be a lie, so I won't do it. Just have faith that the crafts are happening when they should be. Ok? Thanks! 

 For Day 5 we did a little Tie Dying. I've always wanted to try it, but was always afraid my attempt would end up with a t-shirt looking like I had dropped it in mud, which would not be attractive. A few months ago an "E-friend" of mine posted pictures of her and her kiddo's tie dying. Their shirts turned out awesome, and it was exactly the push I needed.

I picked up a Tie Dye kit and some 100% cotton, white T-shirts at Walmart. There is a variety of kit sizes available. Some have 3 colors, some 5 and some with a lot more. We bought the 5 color variety, which Dyes up to 20 shirts, and that is no exaggeration! The nice thing about the kit is it has powder dye already in the bottle, and you get some bags of powder, for a second round. Which worked out perfect for us, since we only had 7 shirts to dye.

 The gloves in the kit suck, to be honest. You might as well Plastic wrap your hands, it might work better. Luckily I have a whole box of gloves for coloring my hair, and being size small they were perfect for the boys.

 Making the actual dye is easy peasy, lemon squeezy (as Dawson would say). Simply add water to the bottles, shake em up and you are good to go. I let David do the bunching and rubber banding of the shirts, since he's better at stuff like that. Then we let the boys go to town! Even Corbin helped out a little bit with this one.

 

I even got in on the action, making as shirt of own. I neglected to buy myself a white shirt, so I used a gray tank top I already had. I figured if it didn't turn out, oh well, at least I tried.

 

After the shirts are dyed, you have to wrap them in plastic wrap for 6-8 hrs, to keep the dye wet. Patience is not my friend. I was NOT happy to have to wait that long. Luckily we had plans that night with some friends, so I was distracted.

The next morning rinsing the shirts was one of the first things I did. I think this was the most time consuming part of the process. You have to rinse and rinse until the water runs clear, which can take a lot of rinsing, squeezing and repeating. Once you the water is clear, you throw the shirts in the washing machine and run them through a cycle. Which means...MORE WAITING! Blah.

In the end, the wait was worth it. They turned out super cute, and I was extremely excited at how good they turned out. Even my Gray tank top turned out pretty awesome! 

 The boys love their shirts. I'm so glad I decided to try this out, finally. Today is actually day 2 of Corbin insisting he wear his shirt, which shows how much he loves it. I can't wait to use the second round of dye to make even more!