Tie-Dyed Shoelaces!!

Last Wednesday, 27 people stopped by our outdoor teen craft station to make tie-dyed shoelaces. It was messy, but great! We had some samples available, but a lot of people tried their own patterns. The library provided all of the materials, but the teens had to take their laces home to rinse, wash, and dry them the next day. We will definitely do this again in the future.

A lot of people had questions about tie-dyeing during the event. To help you in the future, I arranged the photos in order below, so you can see the steps of the process we used. When you tie-dye, you must use 100% cotton items. Many things you buy at the store are blends, so you have to be careful. Also, when I orginally bought our tie-dye materials, I bought this kit at A. C. Moore, which included a helpful DVD. Try tie-dye at home with all kinds of stuff!

Here are the pictures...

The first step is making a pattern on the laces with rubber bands. We used the tiny rubber bands meant for hair braids, and they worked perfectly!

More teens preparing their laces. After being rubber banded, laces went in a soda ash soak for 10 minutes.

After that, it was time to go crazy with the dye bottles! Actually, this project didn't take much dye at all.

Another group getting started with the dye bottles.

Everyone wore gloves to prevent stained hands.

Laces after dye was applied.

More dyed laces, ready to put in bags to set for 24 hours.

Genni and I made some extra laces for prizes at the teen summer reading party. I took these home and did the finishing work myself, and they all turned out well.

Two people wore their laces to the library on Friday!