How To Tie Dye From Start To Finish

Hi Foxy Friends! I know it's been a while. I always have all these intentions to blog, but then I just don't. Take this post for example...I started writing this over a month ago, and actually made these shirts back in April. Working from home and trying to keep the kids occupied is hard. I mean you all know what I mean. And then I just haven't had the mojo to do anything. Don't worry though, I've been taking lots of videos and pictures of things that I have been doing, so the content is there, just haven't been motivated. I did these Tie Dye shirts in April...so that's how far behind I am...oops.

In any case, it's here now. As I was watching videos and tutorials on how to Tie Dye, I realized that NONE of them ever covered how they were washing them. Do they do them separate, together, 5 million loads of laundry?! I needed to know, so I figure you would want to know the process of tie dying from start to finish. So let's get started. Here is a list of everything I used:

Video if you are more a show me how to do it type of person, like me.

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.

What You'll Need:

Tie Dye Kit Womans T-Shirt Womans Long Sleeve Hoodie Womans Cropped Hoodie Kids T-Shirts Kids Sweatshirt
Plastic Drop Cloth
Disposable Foil Tray Color Catcher

Directions:

Step 1 - Get Shirts wet, wring out as much as possible.

Tip: If you have a lot of shirts to do, put in washer in a rinse and spin cycle (mine is10 minutes), saves your hands from having to wring out all those shirts/sweatshirts!

Step 2 - Tie up/rubberband shirts. There is no real wrong way to do this. The classic tie dye shirt is the swirl method. But I really like the scrunch method.

Tip: It's okay to start rubberbanding and then realize it's not working to start over. Don't get frustrated, just keep going.

Step 3 - Fill dye bottles with water. The set that I bought, came with small bottles, so I switched the powder dye into larger bottles and filled with water.

Tip: Careful when shaking bottles, as some bottles are not completely shake proof.

Step 4 - Start dying your shirts/pants/socks, whatever!

Tip: use a foil baking pan, put shirt in it and dye inside of that, makes for way less of a mess. Of course also put protective plastic under that, can never be too careful!

Another Tip: Remember which colors when mixed together will make other colors. Sometimes we forget and we put Blue and and Yellow near each other and you get a lovely shade of green...sometimes we don't want that.

Step 5 - Put in baggie and let sit overnight or 24 hours. The more pigment you want, the longer you should let it sit. If you want the colors to be pastel, let sit for shorter amount of time, 12ish hours.

Step 6 - Take clothes out of baggies and rinse. If you want to keep the white part of your shirt, white, rinse first with the rubbers bands still intact. When it starts to rinse clear, take rubber bands off and continue to rinse until water runs clear.

Tip: If you want to keep the white whiter, then rinse your shirt/sweatshirt before taking off the rubber bands. Rinse as much color out as you can before taking those rubber bands off.

Step 7 - Wash clothes. To save on laundry, wash like colors together. Use a color catcher to catch the inevitable dye that still has the potential to ruin your whole project!

I also put two shirts together that were not in the same color range and it worked out. I wouldn't do that if I actually cared, but I made sure that the water ran clear when I was rinsing and used a color catcher. Watch the video above to see how I washed my shirts exactly.

Step 8 - Put in dryer and enjoy your results! 

So that's it, from start to finish this is how you make and wash your tie dye shirts!
Of course if you are a video person, here is a video for you to watch.

How to Tie Dye A Shirt

Hi Foxy Friends! So much has happened over the summer! For a much later post, I keep thinking, I should write about what we've been doing, but then time passes and it seems pointless...eventually I'll recap it...maybe. Anyway moving right along. We went to Hawaii this summer with some friends, actually two sets of friends, the first 6 days with some family friends and the last 4 days was spent with school friends. What do you do when you are traveling with other people, you make shirts of course.

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.

I made the first set of shirts using my circut. Here's a video on I did it. I think they turned out pretty great. In case you wanted to know what shirt we are wearing, we are wearing these the kids are wearing these, both shirts are in Tropical Blue.

For the second set of shirts, we decided to do a little Tie Dying, because who doesn't love that? We had to make shirts for 11 adult shirts (5 woman, 6 men) and 8 kids, so 19 shirts in total, and we only needed one bucket of Tie Dye. Granted the last few shirts were all of the left over colors, see Mr.'s shirt, it was black and green. It ended up working out, and the adult men didn't particularly care.

Tie Dying is super easy! Don't be overwhelmed. Sorry I didn't take pictures of all of the steps. Let's get to it.

What You'll Need:

Tie Dye Kit
Shirts (same as the ones from above)
Water
Bucket

Directions:

Step 1: Get shirts wet, we filled up the sink with water and let them soak for a few minutes, then you have to really wring out the shirts so there isn't dripping water.

Step 2: While the shirts are soaking, start filling your bottles with water. The kit comes with powder in each bottle, you need to add water and shake.

Step 3: Use the rubber bands given in the kit (they gave us enough that we didn't have any any issues with running out, even with all of the shirts we dyed) and shape and tie your shirts.

There are so many different patterns you can do. Two of us did hearts on our shirts, and I think it turned out pretty good. Really you can't go wrong, I YouTubed How to Tie Dye and found a bunch, also Googled and got a bunch of hits as well. But the directions in the kit give you the basic ones and that's pretty much what we did.

Step 4: Protect your table (we did it on the grass so it didn't totally matter, mostly we put something down because we didn't want grass on our wet shirts).

 Go to town on the shirts. Don't forget to dye both sides of your shirt. And remember that the colors are going to spread a bit, so if you are using more than one color, don't put them too close together. Or be aware of what colors make what, like blue and yellow will make green, so if you don't want a ton of green space out your colors a bit.

note: make sure to use the gloves given, or your own as the dye does dye your hands and it takes a few days to get it off. 

This is all of the shirts all done.

Shirt decorating is most fun late at night right? If we had more time I probably wouldn't have put some Vinyl on it, but I didn't, we left for our trip the next day.

Step 5: We put our shirts in baggies, each shirt got it's own baggie. Leave in baggie for at least 24 hours.

Step 6: After 24 hours, rinse out the shirts in the sink. Trying to get all of the excess dye out. We didn't want to have to do  19 loads of laundry, so what we did was washed them and used a color catcher. Seemed to work as nothing was leaked onto another shirt. Wash as normal, and enjoy!

They turned out great and the kids love wearing them post trip. It's really easy and super fun to make them, and yes a little messy! Enjoy!

Favorite Workout Gear

Hi Foxy Friends! Today I'm joining The Blended Blog for our Wednesday fashion prompt, workout gear. The wonderful Shelly is hosting today's link up, So go link up your workout gear post on The Blended Blog or Shelly's blog. 

So I'm going to throw this out there, I'm probably the LAST person you want to take fashion advise from for workout gear. I have been wearing the same workout shorts for the last 14 years, no joke, these things were made to last! Case in point....Shorts from when I ran my 1/2 marathon 7 years ago.

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.

 
This picture, taken 2016, still wearing them, even the same shirt. I've tried so hard to find more pairs like it, but so far have been unsuccessful. I like them to be higher on the waist and for whatever reason, the people making running shorts thing everyone wearing them have runners bodies...FYI: I do not.

I have in the past 18 month or so discovered I like wearing bikes shorts, not the most flattering thing, but a good when you can't find any bike shorts and you're just tired of wearing the same shorts the last 14 years. Yep I just had to make that shirt for "Mean Girls" Day.

So as you can see my workout uniform is tank, sports bra and shorts of some sort. I figured out early on I can't wear any sort of pants, this might be TMI but I'm going to tell you anyway, I get heat rash super easy, so running with pants on, heat rash within 5 minutes. So during the colder months, it gets cold for me.

I do however like wearing workout pants for around the house. My favorite ones comes from Fabletics. I have two pairs now and they are so comfy and hold up well. These are the first I bought and my dad HATES them. This is the only picture of have of them. I used to wear them to physical therapy a lot when I had my ankle surgery, full story on why here. Here I am at physical therapy getting stim on my ankle.

I am LOVING these moto leggings, and they're on sale too! I actually have been wearing them like pants. I wore them on Sunday to do errands.

I haven't found a sports bra that I am totally in love with, I'm thinking I need to get some better ones...anyone have any suggestions?

I have been obsessed with making my own workout shirts lately. Case in point...

Perhaps I should go into business and make these. Anyone want one? How's $25 plus shipping? haha, just kidding, sort of.  I'm thinking I need to add a few more to my workout wardrobe...how about "Today's workout is sponsored by Pizza"

Oh and I forgot to talk about my favorite shoes! Currently I really like these ones. I've gone through several brands and have found Asics to be the best for me. I highly suggest you go to a running store who has a treadmill and can assess how you run and workout and then help you pick the best fit for you.

Also, if you go to a turbo kick type class these are my favorite weighted gloves. They are one pound each and perfect for getting a little extra weight in on the arms while boxing around.

Now go link up your posts with The Blended Blog or Shelly!

Kellyann. Sarah. Andrea. Deena. Carrie

Lana. Vanessa. Whitney. Abbie. Shelly

How to Use Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) On A T-Shirt

Hi Foxy Friends! Today I am showing you how to make your own t-shirt. I have been obsessed making these things...see here, when I made one for all of my friends.

And then I made this one too for some friends as well:

So here is how you make your very own heat transfer vinyl (HTV) shirt of your own.

What you'll need:

*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will  either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page. 

Heat Transfer Vinyl (I used White)
Tee shirt (my favorite brand of plain tee to use)
Craft pick
Cricut or cutting machine
Iron
Ironing board

Directions:

Step One

Let's assume you have a cutting machine, or you can hand cut (will take longer), but open program and create the graphic what you want.

 Step Two

Measure your shirt to ensure that the image will fit on your shirt.

Step Four

Print out your grahic, don't forget to mirror you image!

Step Five

Weed your HTV, so just the letters are left.

Step 6

Place HTV where you want it on the shirt.

Step 7

Using the a piece of parchment paper, place on top of logo, and iron. Press iron in shirt and hold for about 10 seconds (this time is going to vary for your iron, I find that 10 seconds work for my iron). Do no swipe back and forth, press down, life press down in new spot.

Step 8

Remove parchment paper and remove that clear coating on the HTV, this should leave the letters behind on the shirt. If the letter are peeling off of the shirt, put parchment paper on top, and hold heat on letters for a few seconds more.

Sometimes I have to use my craft pick to help the letter off of the plastic, since we'll be ironing again this is okay.

Step 9

Once the plastic off, place the parchment on the letters again and iron. You can press again, going slowly, making sure the letters are fully adhered to the shirt. You can sometimes see the grain of the shirt on the letters, that's when you know the letters are really on there.

And here is your finished product!

This is pretty much my favorite shirt and how I feel every time I go to the gym, haha. Especially when I take circuit class.

Note: Remember to wash the shirt inside out, this helps the letters last longer. If you find that the letters are starting to peel off, you can place parchment paper on top and iron again.

Now go out and make your own shirt! The sky is your limit now that you know how to do it! Here is a video I put together if you want to see exactly what I did.

Linking up here