I feel like tie-dye has changed quite a bit since the 80s. The kit I received from Tulip contained 5 different colors of die in 5 squeeze bottles. It also came with 5 refill packets & rubber gloves. Yea for not dying my hands! The box says it contains enough dye for 20 shirts! That's a lot of dye.
It also had directions for how to do multiple tie-dye techniques. Perfect, since I had totally forgotten how tie-dye works. I needed those directions! I wanted to do something more interesting & different than a t-shirt, so I chose kitchen towels. I got my white towels from the dollar store. My first try with tie-dye, I didn't want to ruin something I already owned, just in case it didn't work out very well.
I also received a surface cover from Tulip. This thing is amazing! If you're going to try tie-dye, get one of these! I did all of my tie-dying in my house & the HUGE surface cover was more than enough to cover the area around my project. Actually, it covered the floor of the whole room... but we have small rooms, so it probably wont cover all of yours... but still, plenty!
I decided I was going to use the scrunching technique for my towels. I didn't want it to be too "done". I know, it's tie-dye & you really don't have much control of how it turns out, but I wanted it to look really sporadic. So I wet my towels & scrunched them up.
Then I prepared my dye. Since this was the first time I was using this package, all I had to do was put on my gloves, and add water to the bottles that had caps on them in the colors I was looking for. The dye was already in the bottles, so once filled with water, I just had to shake them up & they were ready to go! I applied my dye in two colors & in two sections. Yellow on top & blue on bottom. I was pretty liberal with my dye. I think I could have been less so & they still would have turned out great, so I totally believe that out of this kit one could get 20 shirts dyed, maybe even more!
Once I was done dying, I wrapped up each piece in plastic wrap. This helped keep the dye in place & dying the fabric. I left it overnight, and the next day while I was at work, so my dye had a lot of time to sink in. The instructions say you only need to keep them there for about 8 hours, so overnight would probably be plenty.
Once I was ready, I carefully unwrapped them in the sink & rinsed the leftover dye from the towels. Once the towels weren't turning the water such bright colors, into the washing machine they went! (Hot water, nothing else in the machine with them.) Wash & dry & they're done!
I had a ton of fun with this project! I still have lots & lots of dye left in different colors, and I can't wait to do more projects with it. I feel like there are so many possibilities! I've got my eye on an old pair of white shorts... maybe a table runner too! Hum...
This project was so fun. If you're interested in tie-dye at all, be sure to check out Tulip Tie-Dye's web page, Twitter, Facebook here & here, and Pinterest for tons & tons of great ideas!
This product was provided by me for review by I Love to Create, who is the manufacture of Tulip Tie-Dye products. All opinions contained in this post are mine.
