Valentines Craft: How to Make Tie-Dyed Heart T-Shirts

Jan 24, 2012
Lara Smith

Tie-Dyed Valentines T-Shirt Heart - Lara Smith

This Valentine's Day, make red and pink tie-dyed t-shirts with or for your kids. These wearable Valentine crafts are great for parties at school or home.

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, have your kids look the part with these tie-dyed valentines t-shirts. Perfect for school or home parties, red and pink days at school, or just for showing off around town, these shirts are sure to get a smile. Older children can help apply the dye while wearing gloves; younger children will enjoy having the shirts made for them and showing them off.

Things you will need:

White t-shirts
Pink fabric dye
Red fabric dye
Fabric pens (optional)
Heart-shaped cookie cutters
Elastic bands (comes with boxed dye)
Plastic gloves (comes with boxed dye)
Plastic wrap

Steps for Making a Single-Heart Tie-Dyed Valentines T-Shirt (Pictures 1, 3 & 4)

If you are using a new shirt, wash it first.
While it is damp, lay it out flat.
Take your heart-shaped cookie cutter and place it on the shirt where you want your heart to appear. The shirt will need to be as smooth as possible; bumps will interfere with making the heart shapes.
With gloved hands, squirt the pink dye into the heart shape. As you are squirting around the edge of the heart shape, with your other hand, make sure you are pressing the cookie cutter down into the fabric as firmly as possible. This is necessary for making a good heart shape as the dye will bleed out around the heart more if it is not pressed down.
Next, you will need to place an elastic band around the heart section of the shirt so you can dye the rest. Pinch the heart in the middle and pull upwards so your heart is in a tubular shape.
Tie an elastic band below the heart-dyed section so when you are applying dye to the rest of the shirt, it will be kept separate.
To get the alternating red/pink pattern, tie elastic bands around and down the shirt at about 1.5-inch intervals.
Squeeze dye onto each elastic banded section alternating from red to pink dye until all sections are done.
Wrap the shirt tightly in plastic wrap and leave to sit overnight for brightest colors.
Remove plastic wrap and elastic bands from the shirt. Run it through a gentle wash cycle with a tiny amount of soap.
Put in the dryer on a cooler setting.
If you would like to enhance the heart shape, trace around it with a red fabric pen while keeping the shirt as flat as possible. It's good to first trace around the heart lightly and then go over it again doing small sections at a time so the fabric doesn't wrinkle.

Steps for Making a Multi-Heart Tie-Dyed T-Shirt (Pictures 1 & 2)

Lay your damp t-shirt out flat and decide where/how many hearts you would like on the shirt. They need to be fairly far apart for when you section them off with elasic bands and apply the other dye color.
Using various heart-shaped cookie cutters, press them down as firmly as possible on the shirt, especially when you are squirting the pink dye around the edges. The shape will bleed out regardless, but the firmer you can press down the cookie cutters, the sharper your heart shape will be.
Once your heart shapes are squirted on, pinch the middle of each heart to pull into a tubular shape and twist an elastic band underneath each colored heart section. This keeps the pink hearts separate from the rest of the shirt that you will want to apply the red dye to.
Once all the pink hearts are elastic-banded, squeeze the red dye into and around all the pink sections, making sure to get the dye into all the folds.
Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and leave overnight for the dye to set.
Remove plastic wrap and elastic bands from the shirt. Run it through a gentle wash cycle with a tiny amount of soap.
Put in the dryer on a cooler setting.
The heart shapes won't be perfect, but that's part of the fun of tie-dyeing. If you would like to enhance the shapes, follow the steps above for accentuating the heart shapes with a fabric pen.

It's a good idea to wash tie-dyed shirts separately for the first couple of washes just to make sure that any extra dye has come off.

This Valentine's Day, make a truly useful valentines craft that your kids will love showing off. Perfect for parties, these festive tie-dyed t-shirts will help get everyone excited for the big day.