Orange County Music Blog

Underpants!!!

Tamara Zielinski of Crayon Fawn's Tie-Dyed underwear strikes a John Hughes-esque pose

Now that I've got your attention, who here has tried dying things before--show of hands please.

Hmmm, not many of you out there, I see. Never fear! Long Beach Craft Mafia got the opportunity to test out some new Tulip brand dye products recently. After the jump, see how easy it is to get into making something unique and enter to win some of our projects and Tulip brand goodies.

Four of us embarked on the Tulip Dye Adventure that day: yours truly, Liz Abbott of Leatherette Heart, Lexi Lee of Little Bit, and Tamara Zielinski of Crayon Fawn. At our disposal? Three new dye products from Tulip: their Dye Techniques Kit, Custom Color Dye Kit, and Fabric Spray Paint.

I have to tell you that these gals all had dying experience before, while I was a total newbie; I was more than a little nervous. What if I couldn't measure up?

As the night progressed, I quickly got over it - these dye kits are so easy to use it takes all the trepidation out of the equation and just makes it stress-free and fun.

Liz Abbott and Lexi Lee get their garments ready for some dyeing action

Your first order of business when dyeing should always be preparing the garment you'll be working with. In this case, we put cardboard inside the garments so the ink wouldn't bleed through to the other side. You may also want to get your workspace ready - trashbags taped to a table in the garage did the trick nicely for us.

Our group started with creating a batch of "Dreamsicle" peach-colored dye using the Custom Dye Color Kit--follow the included color chart and you can pretty much make any color known to man! Lexi Lee of Little Bit broke in the dye pot with a pair of white canvas sneakers:

Lexi Lee of Little Bit bathes her shoe in some Dreamsicle-colored goodness with Tamara Zielinski of Crayon Fawn

Tamara Zielinski offered these insights into the Custom Dye Color Kit:

"The kit that involved the dye bath on the stove was more time consuming and probably better to do solo unless everyone agrees on what color they want to dye their stuff... It's a great kit to have on hand if you plan on dying a lot of different items. The color options are seemingly endless, and the color chart is the most exciting thing."

I demonstrate what happens when you dye something that's already screenprinted - the results? Manifique!

We tried dyeing a tank top that had an existing screenprint on it, and it came out pretty cool-- the screenprint is still very clear, but everything is tinted that dye color. This tank happened later on in the night when we shifted from Dreamsicle to a much brighter pink, which is another cool thing - with some careful planning you can make different dye colors as you progress, by adding a little more of this color or that color to your existing dye. This means less wasted product, which is always good for the wallet.

On the next page, we get a bit experimental.