Stars & Stripes Forever Tie-Dye

We sang all three verses of The Star Spangled Banner today at Church.  It felt amazing.

I love my country.

 I showed you The Rocket Pop Dress and New Glory His and Hers Independence Day Outfits and here's one more.  Stars and Stripes Forever Tie-Dye. 

Here's how I did it -

Supplies:

• White Cotton T-Shirts
• Regular Rubber Bands
• Mini Rubber Bands (for hair)
• Rit Dye Scarlet
• Rit Dye Denim Blue
• Marbles ( I used the flat bottom kind that you get in the floral department)
• Salt

 Step 1:  Place a marble on the underside of the shirt.  Wrap tightly with mini rubber band.  Repeat over the top half of the shirt.

Step 2:  Gather the bottom of your shirt in an accordion like fashion and wrap tightly with rubber bands.  See photo above.

Step 3:  Wrap the entire top of the shirt in plastic wrap and secure with more rubber bands.

 Step 4:  Prepare the red dye according to the directions on bottle.

*The directions on bottle tell you how to make 3 gallons worth of dye.  Unless you're clothing an army you don't need this much.  My friends and I did a total of about 10 shirts and we only used 1 gallon.  To prepare for 1 gallon use the following:  1 gallon of water, 1/3 cup salt, 4 tsp liquid dye.


Step 5:  Soak the bottom half of shirt in red dye until it reaches the color you want.  (You can see from the picture I had to get creative in keeping the top half out of the dye.)

Step 6:  Remove from dye and rinse the bottom half of the shirt until water runs clear.

Step 7:  Remove plastic wrap and prepare blue dye. 

Step 8:  Soak and dip the top part of the shirt in the blue dye until it reaches the desired color.  Rise like you did for the red.

Step 9:  Remove rubber bands and follow directions on bottle of dye.

*Note: Directions said to wash in washer with warm water.  The red bled onto the white to give it a slight pink color.  I think next time I will wash in cold to help set the color better.  Any other suggestions?  It was just the red we had problems with.

Have a safe and fun 4th of July!

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