TLDR: If you want a tie-dye shirt, let me know because I have more than I’d like to admit.
A blast from the past
I was reading an article recently about how important it is to continue to do activities that can be considered “play” or recreation time as an adult. It struck a chord with me given all the time sitting in front of a computer while working at home.
This made me realize that I wanted to do something that: reminded me of childhood projects and that was purely just for fun. And, since it’s a global pandemic, I quickly justified my need to purchase a tie-dye kit ASAP.
The end result is that I now have 12 tie-dyed shirts sitting around my house and I have more hoodies and terry cardigans arriving next week to continue my new playful activity of tie-dye.
Quick project summary: For my tie-dye endeavors, I decided to purchase a kit off of Michael’s (for 20 percent off). I personally used the Tulip Kit. I found shirts on Amazon from Hanes and the Amazon Essentials brands – from my online research this was cheaper than Old Navy or Target.
I had planned to tie-dye outside but due to a bunch of rainy days, I ended up tie-dying indoors in the kitchen. The Tulip Kit includes squeeze bottles for the dye which made this way less messy than the tie-dye I did at age six.
To do the tie-dye, I watched a couple quick you tube videos on how to rubberband the shirts. I think the “target” method came out the prettiest (see above) as did the swirl method! Once I wrapped the shirts, I ran them under cool water to make them damp, sprayed them with dye and left them in ziploc bags for 8 hours. After 8 hours, I rinsed, cut off the rubberbands and washed them in cold water individually (or with shirts that had all the same dye colors on them). And voila!
Things I loved about this project: This project definitely fulfilled my desire to play. And to get a little messy, too – it was like the adult version of playing with glitter in the kitchen when you have a babysitter or your parents aren’t looking (not that I ever did that as a child). Also, if I have children someday, none of you can give any of them anything with glitter. Ever.
This project also made me realize how many of the projects I sometimes do could be considered “chores” – for example, cooking/closet organizing, etc. I love to do them but they aren’t a total break and disconnect from the day-to-day. Tie-dye felt completely recreational which I appreciated more than I anticipated. If you don’t know this about me, I’m for sure a “to-do” list person and this was a project that had nothing to do with my “to-dos”.
Additionally, this was easy enough that I could even do the project before work (thanks to no commuting) but the product was cool enough that it felt like a legit craft. Weirdly, I really enjoyed the “reveal” of each of the shirts – my level of excitement for this also led me to believe that I might have taken getting enjoyment out of the little things in life a bit too far during covid.
And finally, since tie-dye is apparently in now I can actually wear these shirts on my zoom calls and get lots of fun comments from coworkers.
What I would do differently: I would definitely recommend using different gloves than the ones provided in the kit. My hands were incredibly green for multiple days to the point where I was slightly embarrassed for people to see them (even though it was just on zoom).
Things I also enjoyed while doing this project:
-Listening to old Vanessa Carlton songs
-Drinking cold pressed juice from South Block (delivered contactlessly)
-Wearing this top from amazon!
100 Little Projects 