Spray Dyeing With Grandchildren

The other day I stumbled upon a craft product that caught my fancy.

It mesmerized me.

It grabbed me by my shoulders and said, “Hey! You’ve just GOT to try me. I’m easy. Fun. Absolutely no mess. Really. Trust me.”

How could I resist?

So, my non-crafty self succumbed to the promise of “fun” and “easy” (and the no mess was vastly appealing, too) and purchased some Tumble Dye spray fabric dye.

The dye comes in a bottle with a spray pump. How cool is that?

I bought half a yard of lace, a t-shirt, and some Tumble Dye. I also bought a cardboard t-shirt form. I stretched my t-shirt over the cardboard form.

I laid the lace on top of the t-shirt.

And I sprayed away.

Here’s a picture of my daughter spraying her t-shirt so you can get an idea of the spraying process.

Here’s my finished shirt.

Now. For the lessons we learned.

First, it was a challenge to spray so that the dye came out evenly. Sometimes the dye came out in big spurts. I ended up with a big blob and I didn’t like it. My daughter came up with the solution of putting the bling on my shirt. So I did. And it covered up the blob very nicely.  (Can’t tell where the big blog is, can you?)

Next thing we learned. My t-shirt has a finer weave to it. My daughter’s had a looser, stretchier weave. The dye really bled on her shirt. It’s hard to tell the lace pattern in places. That problem was much harder to fix. Maybe she can spray another pattern/design of another color over it.  Anybody have other suggestions what she could do to salvage her shirt?  It just might be a work-out-in-the-yard shirt.

Notice on the picture of my daughter spraying her shirt that there are pieces of paper at the bottom of the lace. That was to keep the over-spray from getting on her shirt where she didn’t want it.  I figured that out when I spray dyed my shirt.

My daughter made my granddaughter a shirt. She printed up a heart shape on regular printer paper. She cut out the heart with an exacto knife. She cut down the extra paper around the heart so the piece of paper would fit between the sleeves of the shirt. She cut out a piece of lace and placed it over the heart stencil and sprayed the Tumble Dye. I think that my granddaughter’s shirt turned out really cute.  Cute shirt. Cute granddaughter!

My daughter said that she wished that she had placed extra pieces of paper over the shirt so that the over spray wouldn’t have gotten on the shirt. But, it’s not very noticeable.

If I try this again, I might lean the t-shirt against something so that when I sprayed the dye I wouldn’t be spraying at a down angle. Maybe that might make it so that the spray didn’t come out in blobs and spurts.

I might also try a bigger lace pattern. I also might try it at the bottom of the shirt instead of the top. It was challenging to spray the top of the shoulders and under the arms.