Tie Dye Easy Low Mess Method For Young Kids

My daughter wanted to tie dye shirts for her birthday. Now considering she was only turning 6 and all of her guests would also be around this age this really scared me. I pictured dripping dye all over their shoes and clothes, messy hands me trying to juggle drippy soaked T-shirts. Upset parents of children who's clothing was horribly stained. Didn't sound like it would work out too well.

Here is what I came up with instead.

Mix dye according to package directions. We mixed our boiling water and dye in a liquid measuring cup. This made it easy to pour into spray bottles once it was mixed.

I tied the shirts before the kids came to the party. I used string because we didn't have enough rubber bands. I pinched the center of the front of the shirt, tied the end of my string around it, and then looped and pulled the end through then repeated this down the length of the shirt. I did end up with a blister after pulling and tying 4 shirts.

I also prepped gallon Ziploc with the post care instructions for the shirts, and the child's name. Our dye said to wash the shirt separately the first couple washes to rinse off extra dye.

Each child arrived at the party and put their own shirt into their own Ziploc. Then we went outside and I helped each child one by one put on a rubber glove and place the entire spraying end of the spray bottle inside the Ziploc bag to spray dye onto the white shirts. We used two different colors. I also turned the bag over so both sides of the shirt would get sprayed.

Spray bottles will need to stay in an upright spraying position because the straw needs to suck the liquid from the bottom of the bottle. Tipping it sideways makes it suck air and then it won't spray right.

Make sure the spray nozzle is past the zipper of the bag so all the dye stays contained inside the bag.
 Put the spray nozzle on a mist setting. This helps prevent over spraying and a bag full of liquid dye. Less is more at this age, they won't be disappointed that their shirts have lots of white. They will just be excited to say that they did it.
Sprayed dye that is on the inside of the bag is fine and once the bag is zipped the kids can shake and move the shirt around to soak up the dye on the inside of the bag walls.

We sent the shirts home with the kids inside the Ziploc still tied since there was not time at the party for them to dry. These are the unwrapped ones our children did.