Our Christmas shopping is almost {almost!} completed and I wanted to add something homemade to the kids’ gifts. For my three year old daughter, I decided to jazz up her bed sheets with some purple tie dye. Want to follow along?
New-To-You Bed Sheets!
Abigail is almost three and she is starting to develop “favorites” only she doesn’t call them that. She always refers to them as “her best”. For example, she’ll say “Purple is my best color” when she really means that purple is her favorite. Recently, she’s been quite obsessed with purple, and I wanted to get her some purple sheets. The only trouble is we have WAY too many toddler bed sheets already, so decided to upcycle a few she already had!
Now, I should confess from the beginning: I have no idea what I’m doing. I looked at a few tie dye posts I found via Pinterest and even watched a video on Youtube where some guy kept talking about owl spit and the importance of heat. I also read the directions on the RIT dye, but they all seemed to advocate for different methods, so I just kind of guessed. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, huh? Well, stick around and see!
To begin, I laid the sheets out flat (well, as flat as a fitted sheet can lay) on a too-small counter and put a wooden spoon in the middle. I spun the spoon in order to twirl the sheet up into a hurricane design.
After the sheet was all twirled up, I placed rubber bands around it to hold it in place.
I found an old bucket left over from summer fun at the beach and dumped the packets of RIT dye powder in it. I added some salt because one of the sources said to do that. Can’t hurt, right? Right? Did I mention I have no idea what I’m doing?
I placed the wrapped sheets (I also did a pillowcase) one at a time into the bucket. Leaving it in the dye for about 10 minutes on each side. Well, that was the plan, but I did leave one sheet in for a significantly longer time while I left to go deliver dinner to one of our church families. Focus is not my strong suit.
After being in the dye, I placed each sheet inside a plastic bag. Now, none of the sources said to do this, but we did do this when we tie dyed at our VBS this year, so I thought it would be a good idea. You’re supposed to leave the material in the bag for 24 hours, but……….
I got anxious to see how they turned out, so I opened up the bags after about 5 hours. That’s a pretty long time if you ask me. Now, I wish I would have taken pictures at this point because the sheets were still white, but the hurricane design was very purple. I was kind of hoping for more purple, but I liked the design. Anyway, the camera was ALL THE WAY upstairs, so you’ll just have to imagine this step.
Next, I washed the sheets twice without any soap. So, I guess I just rinsed them. But I used a washing machine, so it seemed like I was washing them. After they were done being rinsed, all of the sheet was purple and the hurricane design was dark purple, so that was perfect for me! Just what I was hoping for!
To the dryer next and then finally onto the bed to see how they looked. Pretty cute, huh?
What About You?
What kind of DIY gifts do you make for your kids? Leave me a comment and tell me all about it!!
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, I have resolved to ”walk slowly through the halls” and be more available to both my volunteers and people at church. Too often, I’m rushing to gather up one more prop or review my lesson one more time and I view people as an interruption rather than an opportunity to do ministry. I would love to be able to great people at the door, especially new guests and be able to walk them to classrooms instead of blowing by them.
by Andy Stanley (Excellent Book!!) and thinking about what our “wins” are in Children’s Ministry? Is it kids coming to Christ? Kids taking a greater ownership of their faith? Inviting a friend? Is it parents becoming more involved? We’re having a planning meeting this month to come up with some tangible measurements for our ministry and to decide how we can better align with our church’s vision.
