Tie Dying

On Wednesday, the camp "dress code" was anything Tie Dye. Of course we are not a Hippy family, nor are we into the tie dye look, so we had to turn this dress code into a project. We could have arrived, to camp, in civilian clothing, but everyone wanted to be a part of the fun. So...after camp, on Tuesday, I brought the kids home and fed them lunch. I then loaded up the van, which was NO simple task with 5 kids, and headed over to JoAnn's Fabrics.  I bribed all five of them with a visit to Sweet Frog if they were well behaved in JoAnn's.  

At Joann's I purchased the deluxe tie dying kit.  It contained 36 colors.  I figured that was enough color choices to keep the kids from arguing. In the store, I was envisioning "I had it first!" or "It's my turn!" or "Don't use it all!" or "I wanted that color!" when considering the smaller kit with 12 colors, so the deluxe kit made more sense to me.  I also purchased some plain white T-shirts and some tie dye duck tape.

After our trip to Sweet Frog, we headed home.

So sorry for the poor image quality... I didn't bring my camera into Sweet Frog.  I just used my iPhone.

 Group selfie! 

Can you tell who the photo bomber was?

 Jax's signature, photo face.

While I cooked dinner, the kids set up and played on the inflatable water slide.  I cannot believe Tyson did that ALL on his own.  Man, when that kid sets his mind to something, he does it and does it WELL!!!!! After dinner was simmering, we went to work tie dying.

These cute, sweet, innocent children,

Clean and protected with hand gloves,

Prior to getting out the tie dyes,

Take a turn for the WORSE!

 Leecie and Jax were engrossed in this project.  Totally artistic in nature.

See how many colors there were?

 Working together nicely, but invisibly making a tie dye flood.

I failed to lay out paper towels underneath the shirts they were dying, so every single time they squirted the bottle of dye, there was a new puddle of dyes on the floor tarp garbage bag.

 

Basically all you do is fold the shirt, in 1/8 suggested ways, according to the directions, squirt your preference of color tie dyes onto the shirt, and let the shirt sit for a minimum of 6 hours.

"Here's the red dye Jax!"

This project about gave me a heart attack. It's not only messy, but it's also a project that could cause some serious PERMANENT damage.  I failed to have my kids dress in junk clothing and Ty accidentally tie dyed a brand new pair of Under Armor shorts. Sigh... 

Check out what happened to my hands even WITH the usage of gloves.

After dying the shirts, the older two and Lilah became distracted, but Leecie and Jax chose to continue working.  

I offered them to make everyone a pair of tie dye socks.

In total this week, I ruined 10 pairs of socks.  Eeeeeek!

After everything is complete, stick each item in their own, individual zip block bag and label the bags which your children's name on it.  Leecie insisted on writing everyone's name.

Tada!

You can wait a minimum of 6 hours or as long as you desire to let the dyes soak into the t-shirts.  I went to bed that night without rinsing the shirts.  I was beat.  So our shirts soaked for about 11 hours. I woke up at 5 am to complete this project. RINSE.WASH.DRY.WEAR!

When the kids woke up, they were so anxious to see their shirts.  They didn't turn out exactly the way I had hoped.  I encouraged the kids NOT to use every color, but the temptation was there and they couldn't resist it. Everyone knows what happens when you combine tooooo many colors: it turns black. They seemed content with the outcome though.

There you have it... 5 tie dyed cuties!!!  I also made some tie dye, duck tape accessories.  Be on the look out for that post soon.  I HAVE SO SO SO SO MUCH to post about.


*Update: Duck tape accessories post is complete.  See here.*

Day #3 - Group Photo Compliments of Brett Williams (Youth Pastor)

Ansley won the tie dye challenge.

There are a few extra photos that I did NOT post.  Anyone who is interested in viewing them, feel free to double click on the below photo album!