how to ombr dye flawlessly .

how to-sday What You Need: White or light-colored natural-fiber garment (cotton, rayon, hemp, silk, etc .) Fiber reactive dye (Dharma Trading has an insane range of colors!) Soda ash Table salt Disposable gloves Marker Ruler or tape measure (bonus if it's shaped like an owl) 1. Flip your garment (shirt) inside out. Decide how far up you want the color to go. This will be the lightest part of the ombr. Mark a small dot there on the seam with your marker. Now, mark dots all the way down at even intervals, all th e way to the bottom of the shirt. I marked a dot every two centimeters. Each dot will later guide how much of the shirt will get the next amount of dye. Since y ou're marking on the inside seam, nobody will ever see the dots. 2. Wash your garment ahead of time to get any residue off it. Mix water hot fr om the tap with the salt and soda ash. You'll add one cup of salt and one tables poon of soda ash per gallon of water. Stir it until it's mixed thoroughly. Dunk the shirt, and then wring it out thoroughly. 3. Put on your gloves! Dump about two tablespoons of powdered dye into a bowl, and add a little water. Mix to form a paste, and then add some more warm water, mixing carefully until you have no more clumps of powder. This dye is incredibl y concentrated and will stain everything, so be very careful! (I used Dharma's P R22 Cobalt dye color.) I use this particular dye because I've heard awful things about the quality and staying power of the grocery store stuff, and plus, it's surprisingly cheap. One jar will do lots of garments or fabric. The color is very true to the swatches on their site, and it has stayed vibrant through tons of washing. (And they didn 't send me anything free or pay me to say that!) P.S. If you don't wear gloves, your hands won't be a normal color for a week. Pr omise. I'll let you guys guess how I'm so sure of that... 4. Add dye to the water 1/4 teaspoonfull at a time, until you have a light col or. You can test it by dipping a white rag or paper towel. You want the color to barely show up. Stir it really well. Now put a rod of some sort - even just a c lothes hanger - over the top of the bucket to hang the shirt. 5. Drape the shirt over the rod, and drop the bottom into the water until the top dot is level with the top of the water. Let it soak for three to five minute s. 6. Make sure you have no dye on your gloves. Pull the shirt up, letting the excess hang over the side, until the second dot is level with the top of the wa ter. Now, very carefully, add another 1/4 teaspoon of dye. Dip it into the side of the bucket away from the shirt, and swirl the teaspoon in the water until the dye has all soaked into the water. Now stir it around with your big spoon, and let that layer soak another three to five minutes 7. Continue pulling the shirt up, one dot at a time, while you add one more sp oonful of dye at each new layer. To deepen the effect, you can let the layers so ak a bit longer each time so that the darker layers absorb more dye. When you ge t to the bottom, grab the shirt by the top, and wring it out from the top down i nto the bucket. Now throw it in the washer by itself, and wash it on the cold cy cle. Voila - you should have a new piece of clothing with a gorgeous gradient! Oh, and don't worry about it if you have some dye leftover. You probably won't u se it all, but you can go ahead and make something for a friend with the extra!

Note - for a more subtle look, add less dye to each new level. This will also be the most flawless transition from dark to light. For a more intense look, add m ore dye. The more dye you add each time, the more difference you'll notice betwe en layers - kind of like stripes.

summery striped neon shirt . how to-sday You Need: shirt neon acrylic paint acrylic paint fabric additive coarse bristled paintbrush thin masking tape heavy cardboard 1. Start with a laundered shirt - dried, too, if you're usually going to dry i t after washing. Decide where you want your stripes to be, and then center that spot over your piece of cardboard. Pull the rest of the shirt tight around the b ack of the cardboard, and then tape it in several places at the top and bottom t o secure it.

2. Figure out how many stripes you want. I have four colors of paint, so I'm d oing four stripes. You need twice as many pieces of tapes as stripes, plus one. So, for four stripes, I need nine strips of tape (4 x 2 + 1 = 9). If I were doin g three stripes, I'd need seven pieces of tape (3 x 2 + 1). Tear your strips of tape at random lengths, and lay them against each other with the edges barely to uching. 3. Peel away every other piece of tape, starting with the second piece. You sh ould be left with as many "blank" spaces as you'll have stripes. Using the tape strips helps to make sure that your stripes are all the same width. 4. Mix your fabric additive into the neon paint as instructed on the bottle. T hen, using a brush with stiff, coarse bristles, soak your paint into each stripe . Vary the heights of your stripes for a handmade, artistic effect. After you've painted all your stripes, leave it for awhile to dry. 5. Add a second coat of paint after the first has dried. I only painted the se cond coat about 3/4 of the way up to be sure that the top has a nice hand-brushe d effect with a bit of transparency. For this black shirt with heavy fabric, I e nded up using three coats of paint. On a light cotton or a white shirt, you'll p robably only need two. 6. Let your paint dry thoroughly. All the way. Seriously - don't peel the tape up early. When it looks dry - no longer shiny at all, you can peel the tape up. Peel it back parallel with the fabric, not straight up, to avoid stretching. 7. If, unlike me, your stripes turned out perfectly, then woohoo - you're done ! If they have some runny edges in places, then it's time to bust out your Sharp ie. Just draw over the rough edges, and you'll have a nice, crisp, clean line. O r lines. Lots of lines.