Tie-dye with permanent markers

Inspired by this post on DesignMom, we invited our neighbours over and made our first foray into tie-dye with permanent markers yesterday afternoon.



The process is easy.
Start with a clean shirt.
If you don't want the design to transfer to the back, smooth a plastic bag inside the shirt.
Draw whatever design you like in whatever colour* permanent markers you like.
Use a medicine dropper to drip rubbing alcohol on the design.  The more alcohol, the more the colours will blur and spread.
When the shirt is completely dry, toss it in the dryer for a few minutes to heat-set the design.




*Keep primary colours--red, yellow, blue--in mind. When those blend and merge, you will see more colours.  Red lined with yellow will merge orange; purple lined with green could merge brown.  We used Sharpies brand permanent markers and were very happy.  Be sure that you use permanent ink not regular markers or textas, because those will not set in the fabric.

Don't be afraid to outline in unusual ways.  My daughter first drew a yellow star and announced she was done.  I encouraged her to add in more detail.  She outlined it in red and then drew purple lines down the centre.  The photo above captures it in mid-drip process (see how the colours are moving?).  Check out the end result:

 

This was such a fun project!  It also saved this shirt, a favourite of my daughter's that had a large ink stain front and centre that is now covered by the heart design.  Plain shirts with stains will now be kept for future fun.  Hooray!