How to Tie-Dye with Food Coloring

Tie-dye shirts can be a great and fun way to get creative with your clothing. This craft project can even be done with children to get them to design and make something that they can wear later. Make sure the tshirt has been prewashed already before starting the steps.

Things You'll Need

• food coloring
• white t-shirt
• squirt bottles
• rubber bands
• rubber gloves
• garbage bag

Instructions

1. Fill your squirt bottles with the different colors for food coloring that you have. Four colors would probably be a good to start with.

2. Take your white tshirt and begin to tie off sections with rubber bands. Make sure to try to tie every 2 inches of the shirt until you are at the end.

3. Lay your garbage bag down on a flat surface and place your tshirt on top of it. The garbage will be able to catch whatever food coloring that does not soak into the shirt and also creates less mess for clean up.

4. Put on your rubber gloves so that you won't stain your hands as much and then begin squirt each color onto the shirt. For each section of the white tshirt that is shown you can squirt with one color and alternate the color on each section.

5. After completing your shirt, allow the shirt to dry for at least eight hours or best yet, let it sit overnight so that it can be completely dry.

6. After the shirt is completely dry, you can begin to remove the rubber bands and see what design was created on your shirt.

Tips & Warnings

• Be creative and place the rubber bands in anyway that you like. No tye-dye shirt will be alike even if they are created the same way.

• Since food coloring is being used, after a few washings the color may start to fade which is normal.