Sharpie Tie-Dyed T-shirt

As a project with my kids over the summer, we tried a new way to tie-dye t-shirts. This way is fast, easy, and not as messy as traditional tie-dying. We instantly fell in love with this creative way to make shirts and love the ability to make your own unique and custom designs. Here is the simple instructions to try it out yourself.

Items needed:

A t-shirt

Rubbing Alcohol

Eye dropper/straw

Sharpie Markers

Cardboard Box

Step 1: Step 1: Protecting the Shirt.

Take your cardboard (I found that a cut up cereal box works well for the job) and lay flat inside t-shirt to create a barrier between the two layers of shirt. This is important to help reduce bleed through when coloring one side of the shirt. Some bleed through may still happen on the outer edges and if you don't care about the bleed through you don't need to do this step.

Step 2: Step 2: Drawing the Design.

Using the sharpie markers, make a design on the front of your shirt. This is where you can be creative and make your own unique pictures. I like the look of dots but you can make solid lines and color areas in. A few things to be mindful of is more ink on the shirt allows for a wider spread, smaller ink spots won't spread as much. Also the ink doesn't go away, so you have a permanent mark wherever the dots, lines, or colored in area is.

Step 3: Step 3: Using the Rubbing Alcohol.

Carefully with the eye dropper/straw drop the rubbing alcohol on the shirt. Continue dropping in the same spot 10-15 dropper or straw full allowing the alcohol to spread out naturally. You can also encourage the spreading in one direction or another by having the shirt slanted while doing this process. The more alcohol put on allows for a bigger spread. You can use the center of the shirt as your starting point, or whatever you want your center focus to be.

Step 4: Step 4: Continue With Rubbing Alcohol.

Continue dropping rubbing alcohol on the shirt 3-5 droppers or straw fulls at a time around the edge of the alcohol spread until the entire design is saturated. Again, keep in mind the direction of the flow and how you want the marker to spread. The alcohol will start to puddle and that is okay.

Step 5: Step 5: Dry

Allow time for the shirt to dry. It will run a little more if hung on a hanger, so if you wont to stop the running leave flat, otherwise put it on a hanger to hang dry.

Step 6: Step 6: Do the Backside. (optional)

Repeat steps 1-5 on the backside of the shirt if you would like a design on the backside.

Step 7: Step 7: Wear It.

Wear your newly designed and created shirt proudly. When you need to wash it just throw the washing machine like you normally would.

Note: Even after you have created your design and added rubbing alcohol, if you think of an idea to make your design even better, go ahead and add to your design and reapply the rubbing alcohol.

If you are wondering what my design is, I put my sons name into a Gallifreyan translator on my phone and printed it. Gallifreyan is the fancy written langauge of those from the planet Gallifrey aka. Doctor Who