A new twist on Tie Dye

I love doing fun crafty things. I love doing tie-dye stuff. I think it's a throwback to VBS or church camp or something like that. It's always been something I enjoyed.

Last year, I learned how to make these Mickey tie-dye shirts. I made FOURTEEN of them for our cruise (our family, and some friends). Took for.ev.er because I had to sew the mickey shape, pull it tight, wrap it with rubber bands, etc etc. But they looked good!

I found a new technique that I wanted to try. It is originally called Batiking (I think) and it involves putting something on the shirt that is dye-resistant, then doing the dye. Originally it involved wax I believe...can't even imagine what a mess that would be!

Anyways, I found directions (on Pinterest) to use this blue-gel glue. Apparently, the blue-gel elmers is the way to go. I cannot attest to how any other glue would work, but I can tell you the blue-gel elmers worked!

As with half the things I do, I decided to do a Mickey shape. Why not, right? This was going to be a birthday gift for one of our little friends.

I had a friend/client pick up some of those auto-emblems for me on their last Disney trip and I've never stuck it on the car. I've found it is very handy for tracing on shirts!

In this case, I did a bead of glue all the way around the face of the emblem,

then flipped it over in the center of my dry shirt to make a transfer of the shape....

I then went back over the shape with a better bead of glue.

Let the glue dry for several hours. Prepare for tie-dying as you wish. I like the spiral look. To do that, you pinch in the center of the shirt and twist in a clockwise motion, twisting tight. Put several rubber bands around your twisted shirt to hold it in place.

Prepare dyes in the colors of your choice...I find three is a nice number for spiral, because then where they overlap...theoretically...additional colors come out. I slightly dampened my spiraled shirt and then started putting the dye on. You want rubber gloves for this part!

I have yet to get colors to come out as bold as they initially appear....of course a lot of the dye washes back out when you squeeze/rinse. I like to use these bottles for this process, and just saturate the shirt in sections in our stainless steel sink.

After your shirt is dyed, squeeze out the excess and remove the rubber bands. Then go lay it somewhere to dry (I layed it on a garbage bag in the garage). This lets the dye soak in really well.

When I layed the shirt out, I decided that the Mickey didn't pop quite as much as I wanted...because of the tie-dye that I did instead of just dying it a solid color. So I went and got my squeeze bottle of red, and after sticking a walmart sack in between the layers, I just added more red to the inside of the Mickey.

After the shirt is dry, fill your sink up with warm, soapy water and dunk the shirt in there. Agitate it a little bit and give it just a few minutes. While it seems a little redundant to let the shirt dry (setting the dye) and then dunking it in water, this will remove the glue. Then throw it in the washer and dryer as normal. (I threw mine in with some old towels that needed washed, so if extra dye got on anything in the wash, it'd be no biggie).

Here's how it turned out! I like it! Next time I will slightly dampen the shirt BEFORE I twist it, which allows the dye to soak in a little better (which is what I did with last year's shirts). I was nervous about the Mickey outline getting soft again before the dying process was done.

Give it a try! Fun project! You could do words, shapes, etc. You can tie-dye it like I did, or soak it in a solid color of dye...whever you like! I'm anxious to try some other techniques!!!