Groovy, baby

I'm not normally into the hippie look (those of you that know me well have probably heard me curse 'those damn dirty hippies' more than once). But after seeing the tie-dye outfits that a friend of mine recently did, I couldn't resist. It's amazing how the things I find to be abhorrent on an adult are adorable on a child. Anyways, this is probably one of the very few crafty things that I've never really tried. So when the same aforementioned friend invited me over to tie-dye (and kindly and generously let me use all of her dyes and stuff), of course I said yes!

First off, let me just say that I had no idea how involved this whole process was going to be. We spent a lot of time just getting the clothes prepped and ready to dye, and then the dyeing process itself was pretty messy. Definitely not ideal for little kids. While doing this, I managed to dye my leg with a few big blue patches, and E ended up with rainbow feet.

The other thing tie-dyeing requires? Patience. Not something I'm very good at. Once you get all the dyes on the clothes, you have to let them sit for at least several hours, preferably overnight. I managed to wait until about 9pm, and frankly, it's a good thing I didn't wait any longer. It took me quite some time to get everything rinsed out till the water ran pretty clear and then I threw them in batches into the washing machine. There's no way I could've done this with a toddler clinging to my leg.

But here are the end results. First up, E's stuff, which turned out fabulous! I think the heart one is my favorite.




Then a random newborn onesie that I thought might make a good gift for someone. It was supposed to be more of a swirl pattern, but well, it kinda went all wonky.


Here's one I made for myself:


And lastly, there are these two sad ones that I made for T. They really needed a LOT more dye, but you can at least sort of see the patterns I was going for. I told him that if he only wears them to mow the lawn, I won't be offended.