Pepper Paints

Halloween Tye Dye

As a Grateful Dead follower, I am someone who loves tye dye any time of the year!  So these shirts are no exception.  I try to keep a stash of thrifted white T’s in various sizes around the house for just this type of project, but we were out.  SO a quick trip to our local VOA landed us a few oatmeal colored shirts and a light blue one for me as we couldn’t find any suitable white ones.  And I must say, I love the way they turned out.  Also, cotton works best.

First gather and pinch a single layer section of the shirt and tightly wrap a rubber band around it-the farther down you wrap it the bigger the circle will be.

You will need some type of fabric dye-I am old, cheap school and love, grocery store purchased, Rit dye.

Follow the instructions inside the box.  I prefer the washing machine method-less mess and clean up.  First we wet down the shirts with warm water as the machine filled with hot water a bit of laundry soap and pre dissolved orange dye. (theses are the box directions)

I let it wash through one cycle and then reset the washer for it to wash another quick cycle.  Rinsed in cool water and then ran the dyed shirts through a light wash cycle with a bit of soap.  All the while my girls waited impatiently-wanting to dye there hands and arms orange  too.

Next cut all the rubber bands off, very exciting!

You get to see your Jack O lantern heads.  Or your in my case the pretty blue circles peeking out.

Then put them in the dryer or air dry them-while you run around the house looking for your permanent black marker, hoping there is still plenty of ink in it.  When the shirts are dry you can use the markers to make jack O lantern faces

It works best if you insert some newspaper or cardboard between the shirt while coloring so the marker does not bleed through.  This project idea came out of this months Family Fun magazine.  It is a great publication for the money!!