Tie-Dye

Featured Pro: Carter Oosterhouse
Category: Home Decor
Time: 5:32


CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Are you guys ready to tie-dye some shirts?

CHILDREN: Yeah!

CARTER: Hey, I’m Carter Oosterhouse, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.

Now, I’ve got a fun project that you can do with your kids. Now, I’m going to show you how to make tie-dye shirts that everyone in your family will love. Come on. Let’s go, guys.

All right. So now that we have all the essential items to make these tie-dye shirts – and those items include, well, the kids, of course, and then we also have these rubber bands. We have the dyes, the different color dyes. And we have this warm bowl of water. And what we’re going to do is mix the soda ash dye fixer into the warm water first, and then what we’re going to do is put the shirts in the warm water and we’re going to keep the shirts in there for about 20 minutes. That way it helps the dyes to set into the shirts a little bit better.

So let’s go ahead. If you want to take that spoon right out of there, and I’m going to pour about half of this in here. And you guys can start mixing that. Then you guys can start mixing that in there. Okay. So now what I want you guys to do is take your spoons out and set them down. And then I want you to take a shirt. And, one at a time, I want you to drop the shirt in the water, okay, and then take your spoon and push the shirts in the water. Okay, everybody over to the swing. Come on. Come on.

All right. So now the shirts have been in here for about 20 minutes in the warm water. So what we want to do is just wring all the water out. Obviously the shirts will still be a little damp. And then we can go ahead and spread the shirts out.

All right, kids, come on back. I need you. We’re going to start tie-dying some shirts.

All right, get in the same spot that you were in. Nice job, nice job. All right. So now what we’re going to do is we’re going to form the shirts. And to do that, we’re going to put the shirts in different bunches, and that’s going to form a pattern once we put our dye on there.

Okay, so right now what we’re going to do over here is we’re going to do accordion-style. Watch me, what I do with my shirt. I’m going to bunch the shirt up just like this, just like an accordion. Okay, so you guys keep doing that, all right?

Now, what I want you guys to do, we’re going to do the spiral technique over here. I want you to place your shirt just like so. And watch what I do with my shirt. I’m going to pick it up right in the middle with one hand. Take your fingers and pick it up.

CHILD: Like this?

CARTER: Exactly. Hold it up just like this. Okay. And now I want you all to just keep on twisting. Okay, twist nice and tight – the tighter the better. Good job, guys.

All right. Now what I want you to do is take these rubber bands and tie them around the shirt just like this and get them nice and tight. So you might have to twist them a little bit to get them nice and tight. Good job, ladies. Good job.

Okay, let’s put our shirts down. Now I’m going to do one too. All right, so this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to spread my shirt out and I’m going to do what is called the swirl. I’m just going to start here. I’m just going to keep swirling around. Now what I need to have is some rubber bands.

All right. So now, guys, we’re going to put some color on the shirts.

CHILD: Now can we get our gloves?

CARTER: Exactly. Why don’t you guys all pick up some gloves? Now, the reason we’re putting on gloves is because this can get really messy. And you want to make sure you wear clothes that you can get dirty too.

So everybody take a bottle out and we’re going to put multiple colors on our shirts. See how there’s a pointy end? This end we want to stick in the shirt. We want to do sections. So since I have the blue, what I’m going to do – I’m going to show you guys first, okay? What we want to do is sections into our shirt, just like that. And see how there’s these little crevices in there? We want to get it down in the crevices too.

CHILD: Can we do it now?

CARTER: Put the dye on the shirts. The next step, guys, is take the plastic bags and we’re going to put our shirts in the plastic bag and we’re going to leave them in here for about 12 to 24 hours. That way all the shirts will absorb the dye.

Now, guys, let’s clean you up first. All right, get in nice and close. I want to show you guys what they look like when they come out of the plastic bags. Now, these are some that I had worked on yesterday. And this is what it looks like after it’s been set for about 24 hours. Whoa.

So the next step, what you want to do is actually rinse this in cold water twice, and then you want to run it through the washing machine by itself once, and you’ll be ready to go. And it’s going to look something like this.

You guys like it?

CHILDREN: Yeah.

CARTER: Yeah? All right. Now, you each are going to have a shirt. And then tomorrow, when these are done, I’m going to bring these shirts over to you, okay?

CHILD: Okay.

CARTER: Good job, guys. Well done. Do you guys like these tables?

CHILDREN: Yeah.

CARTER: What’s your favorite part about the tables?

CHILD: The legs.

CARTER: The legs? They’re pretty cool right? Well, if you want to learn how to build these tables, check out my buddy, Eric Stromer, and his GMC Trade Secret on how to build them.

And I am Carter Oosterhouse, and that is my GMC Trade Secret.

Good job, guys. Well done. Well done.