Back to that lovely summer bucketlist, yes?
If you’ll remember tie dye was a definite summer must, and we (me and the lovely best friend I dragged into this colorful mess) found a way to use acrylic to tie dye our shirts.
Acrylic has several pros, most obvious of these would be the fact that there are hundreds more colors to choose from, as opposed to the five “tie dye” color packets that Walmart had.
What you’ll need:
-Squirt bottles (in the kitchen supplies, one per color)
-One bottle of acrylic per color you’d like (we got the cheapest little 50 cent bottles, worked like a charm)
-One bottle of fabric medium (found in with the acrylic paint at a craft store) per two colors.
-Whatever you’re dying.
-Clothes that can get colorful permanently (I used old sweats and a black tee, glamorous I know)
Step one: Mix one 2 ounce bottle of acrylic, with half of a 2 ounce bottle of medium, and three (we went a little over three) of the acrylic paint bottles full of water. Carefully mix together, shaken not stirred.
Repeat until all of your colors are done. It won’t be a thick mixture, and it may splatter. Be wary.
Step two: pick a pattern you want to dye. I did a rainbow swirl. There are countless youtube tutorials for you here, so I won’t waste my breath.
Step three: rubber band your Tshirt (or whatever) and begin. We got our shirts from the men’s underwear section, five for ten-ish dollars. Apply your dye liberally and don’t be afraid of mistakes, because there are none. Be conscious of colors that will turn muddy and gross when bleeding into eachother (ie, purple and orange).
(We dyed in an old aluminum paint tin, to keep the dye from colorizing the garage floor… But if your concrete needs a little life, more power to ya.)
Step four: let sit for an hour before revealing your masterpiece. We then allowed ours to hang dry, and then stuck them through the dryer to heat set the shirt.
Definitely a must do for the summer, and including the shirts we spent about $25 dollars and got seven shirts done with the dye. We could’ve gotten another one.
This is a great way to do something different with friends.
If you do this, please share!
Love always,
Revelations of Miss Obvious 