An Art Project Gone Wrong...

From reading my blog you probably know how much I love to do art projects with Bryant and his friends... well Sunday I thought I would show them the art of tie dyeing shirts for St. Patrick's Day (not that I'm into tie dye... but as I kid I LOVED to do it at Camp.)

Bryant and I spent all morning getting the supplies together. I couldn't find plain white t-shirts (that were cheap) so I ended up buying t-shirts that said IDAHO on them. I figured the kids wouldn't care. I also remembered the key ingredient... Vinegar (to set the green dye).

I gathered Karsyn, Cooper, Bryant and Jen (K and C's mom) together for the project. We decided we better do it outside since the project encompassed Dye and kids!

The kids twisted, knotted, tied and rubber banded their t-shirts into giant abstract formations (which they decided to pose with on their heads??)
We even made sure to have latex exam gloves on so that our hands wouldn't turn green.
Bryant was the first to throw his shirt in the dye and vinegar mix. Look how much fun is it to make a mess!
It didn't take too long before I had to take over. The kids were getting dye all over their other clothes. Even being an adult, I still managed to get dye on my hands and feet. It was a messy project...
Three t-shirts later we were done. Whallla. Perfectly tie dyed green shirts. The kids were amazed by the designs the rubber bands and twisting created.... but boy were they stinky with all the vinegar in them!Seeing as they were so stinky, I decided to rinse the t-shirts out so they wouldn't smell. I put them in the washer and ran them through the rinse cycle. When I took them out... low and behold... they were as WHITE as when we started. The green tie dye was gone!

Bryant started crying. The other kids were sad. I had no clue what had gone wrong. Eventually I called my mom to ask her advice. Well guess what... I learned from my mom that you can't use McCormick's food/egg dye on clothing... you have to use RIT dye (made for clothes). OMG. How could I have not figured that out?

I didn't want to go searching for the RIT dye on a Sunday NIGHT... so I had the kids paint their St. Patrick's day t-shirts. That's where the "lovely" shirt on the St. Patrick's day post below came from :)

And the kicker of it all... the McCormick's dye still hasn't wash off my hands or of my shoes! Go figure!!!