Pumpkin Shirts

The other day I saw a "cute craft project" in a magazine and thought I'd have the boys do it. The project is tie-dyed pumpkin shirts. So. Materials were gathered with the help of my mother, and the project was undertaken last night. Benny was thrilled. But as with any "cute craft project," there was a bit more to it than I thought, and a couple of small snags. Still, fun for everyone, and here it is: First, you take a white T shirt and decide where you want your white circles to be. The goal is to make small white circles all across the shirt.


After you have rubber banded the shirts to within an inch of their lives, they are ready to go.

There's our shirts, awaiting their fate.

Oh, but first, you must take a picture of Mom for the blog. Holding her shirt. Be sure and tell her exactly HOW to hold it.

Prepare the dye............

Get ready to dip the shirt in the dye........

And then dip it in the dye and pose for another picture. Be sure and tell Mom HOW to pose for the picture. Then rinse and rinse and rinse those shirts until the water runs clear.

Oops! Orange skin!

Wash the shirts in warm water and detergent, then dry. Now the fun part! Paint your faces in the white/orange pumpkin circles, using dimensional fabric paint.

And there you are! How cute are they??? The boys did a great job. Mom....not so much. Mine didn't turn out, and we'll leave it at that.

A few pointers for anyone thinking of trying this at home:

1. Do NOT use your kitchen sink. "Stainless steel" doesn't really mean "stainless," in case you were wondering. I had to scrub frantically with bleach to get the orange out.

2. Wear old clothes.

2A: Understand the rubber band part takes a while. And there will be many comments about how difficult it is to get the rubber bands tight enough.

3. After washing the shirts, immediately run your washer on a hot, empty cycle with bleach to get any residual dye out.


Other than that, jump in, and enjoy!

Benny was so pleased with the project that he decided he was going to blog about it, too. So look for an update on his blog soon.