Halloween Tie-Dye Fun

Have you seen the adorable Halloween tie-dye shirts from Family Fun? They are so cute, we had to make 'em. My daughter, at right, wore hers to school today and she beamed with pride as she showed everyone the jack-o-lantern faces she drew on it. We used an undershirt from my son plus a $1 box of Rit dye and, presto! Instant Halloween shirt.

Here's what we did:

1. I created the dye bath according to the directions on the package.


2. We twisted the shirt into multiple peaks to create many jack-o-lantern faces. (See also the picture of my brother-in-law with his shirt. We made just one large peak in the shirt's center to create the single jack-o-lantern.)


3. We let the shirt sit in the bath for an hour (I dyed multiple items so the water:dye ratio was a little off. Less water to cover less material would have created a brighter orange in less time.)


4. I rinsed off the shirts following the directions.


5. We removed the rubber bands and laid out the shirts to dry (VERY exciting for my daughter).


6. Once dry, I ran the shirts through the washer so that they'll be safe to wash with other clothing items later.


7. Once dry, we used Bic permanent markers to create the faces.

Sunnbrook Farm Designs' post about creating shopping bags from old t-shirts really struck a cord with me too. Plastic bags are the bane of humanity as they clog landfills because they are too expensive to recycle (returning bags to the grocery store for recycling just isn't enough) and injure animals as they litter the ocean and streams. SO, why not create Halloween treat bags using the above tie-dye method and an old t-shirt? I tried, but failed miserably. I couldn't figure out how to set-up the bobbin on my sewing machine so I tried Heat n' Bond instead. Well, considering my Heat n' Bond is 8 years old... didn't work so well. The tie-dye turned out cool but the seams busted immediately; how could they ever hold a ton of candy? Oh, well... maybe next year.