During a recent sort-out, I came across our sharpie tie-dye t-shirts that we made when the children were little in one of the craft workshops that we ran at the PowerWood Summer Camp… they are so colourful and vibrant and bring back happy memories of summer camp days!

I love the quality of light during the early autumn days and was thinking about making a ‘light-catcher’ of some kind to put in the window, to remind me to appreciate the light each day – and when I found the Sharpie t-shirts I wondered what might happen if I used the Sharpie tie-dye technique to hang in the window? It was also a good opportunity to circle back on an ‘old favourite’ craft technique in order to create something new… 

The tutorial below outlines the steps I used, but it is also an introduction to the super-fun method of Sharpie tie-dyeing 😊 You could explore the technique on its own on an old piece of fabric, just for fun, or you could incorporate it into other projects – like t-shirts as we did at the PowerWood camp, coverings for lampshades or upcycled jars to make lanterns or pen-holders (great for this back-to-school/home-ed/work time of year!). You could even make some colourful no-sew bunting using sharpie tie-dye, or if you fancy a rainbow Christmas, save this technique to use along with embroidery hoops to create a rainbow bauble effect (they would glow beautifully with some fairy lights popped behind!). Or you could use something like this, to make a collection of miniature rainbowy Sharpie tie-dye baubles. 

To make circular, mandala-like patterns, like the ones on the t-shirts in the picture, pop a cup or ramekin under your fabric, and secure it in place with an elastic band. You can then draw a pattern within the contained space of the circle created by the cup, and blend the colours by dropping rubbing alcohol onto the pattern to create the ‘tie-dye’ effect.

For the project below, I used the same wire bending technique for the frame as the one in this craft, but in a new way/to make a different shape, but you could choose to use something like an embroidery hoop, or cut-out recycled cardboard base if you wanted to skip this part – anything that can hold decorated fabric in the middle and hang in a window to let the light shine through!

Wishing you a cosy and calm autumn as well as plenty of fun moments…

Happy Crafting!

Note: it’s a good idea to work in a ventilated space when using the rubbing alcohol and young children would require supervision for this activity. 

If you’d like to see how our Sharpie tye-dye t-shirts turned out at our summer camp workshops, you can spot them in this video 🙂 

© 2024 Abigail Cole

For more creative ideas visit PowerWood’s creative corner by Abigail and Abigail’s own creative website: www.forgetfulfairyartstudio.com