This year for Emily’s birthday party she decided she wanted to Tie Dye shirts with her friends at her birthday party. My first thought was, that would be great if your birthday was in the summer and not the winter. How was I going to be able to have kids Tie Dy inside my house. Then I remembered seeing a way to tie dye shirts with Sharpie Markers on pinterest. After looking it up and testing it out a few times I decided that this was something we could definitly do and it turned out to be a lot of fun and not very messy either!!
I set up our dinnning room table with a tray for each girl to work on. In the center were all the Permanent Markers and rubber bands we had for the girls to use.
I gave each girl a plain white t-shirt and showed them how to roll and tie up their shirt with the rubber bands. Then they got to work coloring the different sections in with the permanent markers.
When the finished coloring, while they were still tied with the rubber bands I sprayed them I sprayed them with rubbing alcohol enough to saturate them, but not to completly soak them. The rubbing alchohol makes the permanent markers ink run and spread out over the material. It is really cool to watch the colors spread and blend together.
After about 5 minutes the girls took off their rubber bands and I hung the shirts up to dry. Once they were dry they should go into the dryer for about 5-10 minutes to set the ink or be ironed.
I had made Emily a shirt to wear on the day of her party and my husband came up with the idea to have each of her friends sign the back of her shirt. It is a fun keepsake from her birthday party.
While they were taking turns signing her shirt I gave each girl a rainbow scratch door hanger for them to work on. They really had a good time with this activity and it lasted a lot longer than I anitcipated.
I had fun making these tie dye t-shirt cookies for the girls to have with the cake and I also indivitually wrapped one for each girl to put in their goody bags.
The part that I loved the most about Emily’s birthday party is that she decided that instead of asking for presents for her birthday she asked each girl to bring a pair of pajamas for her to donate to Jake’s Jammies. This is a charity that provides a comfy pair of pajamas for children that are in the hospital. When the lady came to collect all the pajamas that Emily collected I was so proud of her. I started to tear up as she told me how worried she was that there wasn’t going to be that many pajamas and how it made her birthday so special when she saw our coffee table overflowing with pajamas that she knew were going to make children in the hospital SO happy and comfy.
We always like to do a photo booth at the girls party so that we can get pictures of the girls with their guests. I was hoping to find a nice tie dye table cloth, however there really wasn’t that much available. My husband did find really cool tie dye print Duct tape which we used for a picture frame photo prop. With the pictures that I took I turn each one into a photo card and send the personalized card as the thank you for coming to the party.
The girls after the party with their finished tie dyed shirts!