How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

DD's 3rd b-day theme is rainbow.

I originally thought of letting the kids tie dye a shirt. I'm not having any entertainment besides our backyard toys....there are about 8 kids invited....ranging in age from 2 years to 8 years (mostly in the 2-4 year old range).

Is it hard to tie dye? Is that age group too young to do it? Will they get messy (and therefore the parents will hate me )?

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

I've attempted tie dyeing and while it came out looking great the mess it made was not fun..ALSO the dye WILL stain your skin so if it's kids that will NOT want to wear gloves it'll be a party full of colored dried out little hands..but it could work if you're doing it outside and they WILL wear gloves, I can't stress that enough

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

What about getting pens or something (rainbow colors!) that the kids can draw on the shirts with? I can see tie-dye getting a little crazy w/o intense supervision!

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

I had a playdate where we did tie-dye. It was fun! I got a kit at Walmart and it came with squeeze bottles to apply the dye which worked great with little kids. How many kids are you having? I only had 6 and had them bring their own shirt.

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

i think itll be fine, but put on the invite to bring a smock or buy a pack of adult white tees for the kids to wear.

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

I dont know how hard it is, but I do know it sounds like an AWESOME idea!!!! I am putting that into my notes for later on!

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

I do a lot of fabric dying for quilting fabric and I wouldn't do it with that age group. You are advised against dying when pregnant or nursing, so I think keeping it away from young kids would be best. I started to allow my SS to dye with me when he was 12.

Just logistics wise, the reaction time of dyes are time sensitive, you could make up a batch the day before (also, in the powder form dyes are toxic and you need to wear respirators, etc when mixing), but the day of you will need to add soda ash as a fix (this is the time sensitive part, if you do it too early you dye will be "spent" and it will be very light. Alos, I think you'd have a hard time getting them to wear rubber gloves.

RIT dyes aren't quite as dangerous as the Procion Dyes, the kids would still need rubber gloves and obviously they can't ingest it, but they require LONG soak times, you won't get the bright colors and they will fade quickly.

How about going to Michaels and getting craft paint for puffy paints and letting them paint a shirt? They could do hand prints or you could buy stencils/stamps etc. I think that would work with young kids

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

We did it with 26 kids at a class party We rubber banded the shirts ahead of time. Used hair dye bottles with the dye in it. We had a few smocks and lots of gloves on hand and it was fine.

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

Posted by nbc188

Posted by julz33

I had a playdate where we did tie-dye. It was fun! I got a kit at Walmart and it came with squeeze bottles to apply the dye which worked great with little kids. How many kids are you having? I only had 6 and had them bring their own shirt.

Only about 8 kids are invited. I'd probably supply the shirts and have it be the main favor, you know? That way it's an activity and a favor in one

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

i just saw a cute kit to do tye dye in bed bath and beyond....its all enclosed...let me see if i can find a link (i saw it in store though!)

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

so they didn't have it online at bbb, but I found it at amazon. com.....maybe a few of these and you'd be set???tie dye kit

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

We did it at my friend's son's 2nd birthday last year.

Of course all the mommies did the rubber banding...then after that they had the dye in squeeze bottles, so we let the kids squeeze the dye on the shirts wherever they wanted. It wasn't that bad with the bottles.

However, for the age they were then...they weren't too interested and the grown ups ended up doing most of it.

It definitely was messy. But still fun and a cute idea

ETA - She bought tye dye kits from somewhere if you want me to find out for you

Message edited 5/14/2010 7:03:28 AM.

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

Posted by chelle

We did it at my friend's son's 2nd birthday last year.

Of course all the mommies did the rubber banding...then after that they had the dye in squeeze bottles, so we let the kids squeeze the dye on the shirts wherever they wanted. It wasn't that bad with the bottles.

However, for the age they were then...they weren't too interested and the grown ups ended up doing most of it.

It definitely was messy. But still fun and a cute idea

ETA - She bought tye dye kits from somewhere if you want me to find out for you

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

Posted by nbc188

Posted by chelle

We did it at my friend's son's 2nd birthday last year.

Of course all the mommies did the rubber banding...then after that they had the dye in squeeze bottles, so we let the kids squeeze the dye on the shirts wherever they wanted. It wasn't that bad with the bottles.

However, for the age they were then...they weren't too interested and the grown ups ended up doing most of it.

It definitely was messy. But still fun and a cute idea

ETA - She bought tye dye kits from somewhere if you want me to find out for you

That would be great, thanks! Yeah, I'm a little concerned that it would be mostly the parents...and while most wouldn't mind, I'd hate for the parents to get all messy...plus, with a newborn, I don't know how much time I'll have to get MY hands dirty (figuratively, of course ).

Message edited 5/14/2010 8:02:50 AM.

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

She got them at Michael's and she said that today is 20% off

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

We just did this for our first grade show. We TD with 100 kids, the whole 1st grade.
I went to Joannn's and bought 5 bottles all different colors. I had the kids shirts rubber banded before. It was very messy and the kids picked what colors they wanted it in. We the teachers used gloves. I would warm parents because the dye does stain hands and clothes.
Sounds fun but I would either let kids select and you do all the work or like the above suggestion of puffy paint or pens. Good Luck!!

Re: How difficult is it to tie dye at a b-day party?

I just went to a little girl's birthday party yesterday where the mother set up colored sand, funnels and bottles, and the kids layed the sand in the bottles.

She also had puff fabric paint and they decorated white baseball hats.

Both of those could also work for your theme.