Dye Job

Yep, I decided to do it again… DYE!

Even though Will shoots me a million times a day (while we’re playing… He’s usually Iron Man, while I’m any range of bad guys…dinosaur, monster, rabbit, Magneto, you know, the normal range of bad guys.), this dyeing was not done with a gun. It was done with my gloveless hands and a pot. Exciting stuff, I know. Well, it all started when I saw some of our favorite bloggers, YHL & BowerPower, announced the Pinterest Challenge last week. We are seasoned pros when it comes to this challenge stuff. You can check out our previous challenge awesomeness here, here, here, and here. We’ve done some pretty awesome stuff!

I grabbed a little inspiration from some of our other favorite blogger gals:

                     Centsational Girl                                                  Made

Enter the Pinterest Challenge:
I’ve had these shorts for a while now. I picked them up last summer on clearance at Old Navy. They fit great, but the color is pretty …eh. Pastel yellow is not really my thing. Especially with my whiter than white gams. Dye them! Why the heck not!

I’m digging the bright shorts trend right now, and I just got a pair of bright blue ones, so naturally, I picked up some red dye.
I also picked up blue, but decided that red was the better way to go. Since the shorts were light yellow, I thought that they might end up going a little orangey, would was actually part of my plan. I hoped for some orangey tone because orange is so hot right now!


Since I’ve done the dyeing thing a time or two now… I got some pots ready with a cup of vinegar and a cup of salt. I also turned the burners on super low. You don’t want the water to boil, but you want it hot. You can check out my disastrous turned fabulous dye job here with Will’s Halloween costume last year. I swore I’d never dye again, and yet here I am. I am a glutton for punishment.


I used the whole bottle of red in that pot. I rinsed my shorts in warm water before submerging them in the dye for 20 minutes. Rinse them in cool water and then toss in the washer. I added an extra rinse cycle to the washer, and for extra measure, I added one of these:


I love these things. Perfect for a new red shirt, thrown in with the rest of your wash and it is saved by these little sheets. Glorious.

These babies came out pretty bright and cheery!

I’ll definitely get more summer miles out of these shorts now that they’re a fun color. They put a little pep in my step. And if I get sunburned, they will become flesh tones shorts… Thinkin’ ahead, people! I am always putting sunscreen on my kid and forgetting about myself… #MomProblems

And because I was having so much fun with my colorful cauldrons, I dyed some white onesies I had laying around:

The toned ones at the top and middle were because I was messing with keeping it in for different periods of time. Maybe I created some kind of crazy contraption so my arm wouldn’t go to sleep while holding a onesie halfway in a dye bath for 5 minutes straight, and it probably looked like this:

And it probably didn’t work out that well… but it was fun. I was hoping for an ombre effect. Not so much. If anyone has any ideas how to do that, let me know. I tried to lower the onesie in a little more after a minute, but it just made the bottom half one color and the top stayed light after a quick all in dip, and then out for a rinse.

I definitely dyed an old grungy kitchen towel laying around:
Then it was time to call it quits because I was wandering around the house wondering what else I could dye. Before I needed a Dye-tervention, it was time to dump the dye and enjoy my new colorful shorts and towel. I can’t really enjoy the onesies since Will isn’t a fan of girly colors, but I might use them to make a friend a gift or five.

My $7 shorts just got a $3 upgrade and now I have been painting the town red with them! Man, I am full of bad jokes today…

So, what have you dyed? Any tips for an ombre effect?