Sharpie Tie Die Shirts ~ Easy Summer Actives For Kids

Are you looking for a fun summer project to do with the kids. Or maybe a craft idea for girls camp, family reunions or maybe even birthday party idea? My Mother in law made these sharpie tie die shirts with my kids during our family vacation. They were simple to make and my kids LOVED them! Perfect for kids of all ages, heck I loved them so much I wanted to make one. To make these you will need

White T-shirt or White Pillow Case
Sharpie Makers
Cups, we used red solo cups
Rubber Bands
Rubbing alcohol
Eye dropper
Optional ~ Soda Ash if you want your shirts to stay bright and not fade you can pre treat the fabric with soda ash. Use – 1 cup (8 oz.) of Soda Ash Fixer per gallon of warm water. A gallon will soak 10-12 adult XL tees – so way more kids tees, fewer dresses, etc. Let shirts dry before you start to draw on them.

Start by placing the cup inside the shirt and putting the rubber bands around the top of the cup on the outside of the shirt. Make sure your rubber bands are tight this will help the colors fabric stay tight so you can draw a nice image. You can add as many as you want, just a few or “FILL ‘ER UP”.

Once you have your cups and rubber bands in place let the kids draw on the circles. If you want you can have the kids draw one image a day to make a story board if your on a trip. But we made ours in an afternoon while at the beach, so the kids drew things that made them think of the beach.

You do not have to be an artist to make these look great, remember they will be “tie died” and change at the end. SO you can scribble if you want or draw a fancy picture both will work. Just try and remember the colors are going to blend so keep that in mind when your drawing your images. It is better to stick with lighter colors.

Once you are done drawing your images with sharpie markers…. now comes the fun part. Take the eye dropper, and start to drop rubbing alcohol on your images. Go slowly if you add to much the ink will blend too much.

And like magic your images transform info stunning works of art! The colors really pop, and as the ink blends the look amazing.

Once you are done dropping the alcohol and the shirts is blended, let it dry.

Once they are dry you can take the rubber bands off. But it is best to wait 24 hours before you wash the shirt.

Colors will fade some, but if you use the soda ash that I mentioned above the colors will stay better.

If you want the colors to reach further you will need to add more alcohol drops on the very edge of the cup. Or put your cups closer together to allow the colors to blend together from cup to cup.