Friends, Food, Vibrations, and Tie-Dye Shirts

We had some wonderful friends come to our home last week. We all enjoyed a couple days full of fun, learning, and love. To top it off, they brought delicious food and planned special activities for the family.

During school, they taught us about light and vibrations. "And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understanding; Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space— The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things." D&C 88:11-13

After the learning about the physics of light and vibrations, we had a super activity making tie-dye shirts. The children thoroughly enjoyed the activity and acquired a brand new, homemade, personally designed, tie-dye shirt.

Let's Do Tie Dye!

1. Smooth a section of the shirt over your plastic cup. You can secure it with a rubber band if you want.
2. Dot a Sharpie to form a circle in the center of the area formed by the cup. You are aiming for a dotted ring about 1" in diameter. You can use more than one color.
3. Drip rubbing alcohol on the blank center of the circle. I used the extremely low-tech method of dipping a pencil in the alcohol and dotting it on the shirt. After a few drops, you will see the alcohol spread outward from the center of the ring, taking the Sharpie ink with it.
4. Continue adding drops of alcohol until you are satisfied with the size of the pattern.
5. Allow a couple of minutes for the alcohol to evaporate before moving on to a clean section of the shirt.
6. It doesn't have to be a circle. You can make stars, triangles, squares, lines... be creative!
7. After your shirt is completely dry (alcohol is flammable, so don't use heat on a damp shirt), set the colors by tumbling the shirt in a hot clothes dryer for ~15 minutes.
8. You can wear and wash your new shirt like other clothes now.

How It Works

The ink in a Sharpie pen dissolves in alcohol but not in water. As the shirt absorbs the alcohol, the alcohol picks up the ink. You can get new colors when different colors of ink mix together. The wet ink will diffuse, or move from areas of higher concentration to lower concentration. When the alcohol evaporates, the ink dries. Sharpie pen ink doesn't dissolve in water, so the shirt can be washed.

What a joyful time together, learning and playing by day, and conversing and sharing by night. We stayed up almost all night talking, and it was well worth it. We are thankful for dear friends. We hope they always feel welcome in our home.