Tissue Paper Tie Dye

I love color. I love colorful clothes. I like black and tan and grey clothes too but there's something about blues and greens and well... the title of this blog. I've been enjoying making simple and colorful clothes for my boy since he was born and so when I came across a way to tie dye with something I already had lots of in my craft closet I was all over it.
Make and takes posted this tutorial last week and then I was lucky enough to find a clearance rack of plain white onesies and T's. So here's what transpired....

supplies gathered



I really do love deep greens and blues


and of course every project needs a helper


So I was supposed to put the tissue paper on, wet it with the spray bottle and leave it to transfer the color until it was the shade I desired (or darker). Most of them came out really well! especially the cheaper tissue paper that didn't have a shiny side to it. I did notice that as I sprayed they ran a little but that was good with me because that adds to the tie dye appeal!


I also played around with cutting out shapes and putting them on there, with the bleeding issue though it didn't turn out all that great


I noticed that some of the colors were transfering to the cloth as different colors. This one dark blue I was using was coming out purple and then pink. This orange came out very yellow and this pink didn't come out at all. In fact, I added some blue tear drop shapes to the yellow ones that came out and got something more like this
see how light yellow that orange came out?

I sprayed them down with vinegar and left them to dry for 24 hours. I also needed a break, my helper was getting tired of all the hard work

These were my favorites pre-wash


I should have known that despite the vinegar and the 24 hours of drying and spending 45 minutes in the dryer that the colors would fade... but they REALLY faded. Some of them washed out all together and the dark blue that was making purple came out fuschia! most of the greens came out yellow and no blues came out at all. So mostly I have a bunch of pink and yellow clothes now and I think I'll be looking for a little girl to pass these along to very soon. One did come out nice and seemed suitable for my boy for nightwear. We put it on him tonight but couldn't get the snaps closed it had shrunk so much. That's what I get for buying the next size up and not two sizes up. Oh well - anyone want some hand me downs?