This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. If you purchase something through any of our links, Stephen’s Place may receive a donation at no extra charge to you.

How to Ice Tie-Dye T-shirts

This new craft is awesome for adults with special needs at varying levels of ability, and you also get a wicked-cool t-shirt from it. Ice tie-dying is the easiest way to tie dye t-shirts. We absolutely love tie dye t-shirts around here. We even made tie-dye masks recently.

Ice tie dying is a hot new trend for 2021! Why not just use regular tie-dying techniques? Ice tie-dying is much less messy than traditional tie dying, it's easier, it takes up less space and has less steps. So, an all-around winner.

 To make ice tie-dye t-shirts you will need:

• White Cotton Tee
• Powder Dyes
• Disposable Gloves
• Saran Wrap
• Large Casserole Dish (or other vessel to catch the excess dye)
• Large Baking Rack (you can even use one of the wire rack shelves from your cooker)
• Ice

Note: If you don't have a large casserole dish or baking rack, you can use a plastic tablecloth. The difference is that some of the dye may spread more because you're not getting rid of as much of the excess dye. But, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

How to make Ice Tie-Dye T-Shirts:

1. Get your t-shirt wet enough to soak through.
2. Squeeze out as much of the water as possible. 
3. Place your wire rack over your casserole dish. 
4. Scrunch up the shirt and place it on a rack/casserole dish setup.
5.  Cover your entire scrunched t-shirt with ice. Crushed ice is easiest, but you can use regular ice. if you happen to have snow nearby, that will work as well.
6. Pop on your gloves. 
7. Start sprinkling areas of the ice with the powder dye. Unless you're trying to go for  a brown color, try to avoid overlapping colors too much.
8. Cover with plastic wrap just lightly tucking in the sides. The reason for this is that you don't want the dye to dry out too much while it's still ice tie-dying the t-shirt. 
9.  Leave for 6 to 8 hours.
10. As the ice melts, the dye will soak into the t-shirt to reveal a really cool pattern.
11. Once the waiting period is up, you can rinse your t-shirt. You can either hand rinse in the sink or wash as the only item in the washing machine. Rinse until the water runs clear. Make sure that you run an additional wash in your washing machine off two words to clear out all of the color. 
12. Dry in the dryer alone.

Note: The more you scrunch your t-shirt up, the more white from the original t-shirt will show.