How to Tie Dye a Shirt - 4 Easy Designs for Beginners

Drop a plain white cotton shirt into a bin of water and let it soak for at least two minutes. Wet fabric pulls color deeper and more evenly than dry fabric, so don't skip this.

While it soaks, prep the dyes. Each bottle comes with dye powder inside. Add water up to the fill line, cap it tight, and shake hard until the powder dissolves into a squirtable liquid. Do this for every color you're planning to use.

Lay the damp shirt flat. Pinch a small spot of fabric between your fingers and pull it up into a little cone. Wrap a rubber band tight around the base of the cone. Repeat wherever you want a burst - four to six spots spread across the shirt looks great.

Put on gloves. Squirt one color directly into the center of each pinched bump. Fill in the rest of the shirt with a contrasting color. Every rubber-banded pinch becomes a white starburst surrounded by color when you unwrap it.

Lay the damp shirt flat on a table. Put two fingers on the spot you want at the center of the swirl. Pinch a tiny bit of fabric there and twist in one direction. Keep twisting until the whole shirt collapses into a flat spiral disc about the size of a dinner plate.

Criss-cross three or four rubber bands over the disc so it looks like a sliced pizza - each rubber band marks where one wedge ends and the next begins. Squirt a different color into each wedge. The rubber bands keep the dyes from blending into mud in the middle.

Fold the shirt accordion-style from bottom to top. Pick up the hem, fold it up about an inch, then fold the next inch back the other way, and keep going until the whole shirt is one long flat strip of pleats. Keep every fold tight.

Once the shirt is one strip, wrap rubber bands around it at three or four points to divide it into sections. Put one color per section. When you unfold the shirt, each section becomes a horizontal stripe, with a thin white line where the rubber band blocked the dye.

Pick the spot you want at the center of the target. Pinch that spot and pull it straight up so the shirt hangs like a long cone from your hand.

Wrap a rubber band around the cone close to the tip - that creates the inner ring. Wrap a second rubber band lower down the cone for the outer ring. Squirt a different color on the tip above the first band, one between the two bands, and one below the lower band. When the shirt opens back out, those three sections become three concentric circles.

Place each banded shirt inside a microwave-safe plastic container. The container catches any dye that drips out and keeps the microwave clean. Put the lid on loosely so steam can escape.

Microwave on high for two minutes. The heat locks the dye into the cotton fibers. Without the heat step, most of the color rinses out pale.

After the microwave, leave the shirt in the container for another fifteen minutes so the dye fully sets before you unwrap it.

Snip every rubber band with scissors and unfold the shirt. Don't try to pull them off - they'll snag the fabric and the dye will splatter.

Rinse the shirt under cold running water until the water running off runs clear. A hose outside works fastest because the dye splashes. Then toss the shirts in the washing machine on cold, by themselves (the first wash can bleed onto other clothes). Dry them on low. Once they're dry, the colors are permanent and the shirt is ready to wear.