Make and Decorate - Food Coloring Tie Dye Masks

Who is the mood for something fun and different today? I am going to introduce you to Food Coloring Tie Dye Masks! I have been dying to make tie-dye art forever and today we are going to get that chance. Tie dye was all the rage when I was a kid and now it’s coming back. If you are up for a crafty adventure today and want to try something different, give this fun teen craft a try.

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Tie Dye Crafts

Don’t for a second think that this is the only thing you can tie dye in your life. There are actually quite a few things you can do for tie dye crafts out there. Think about the opportunity out there to tie dye anything you want. T-shirts, table cloths, pants, sweaters, socks, napkins, shorts, and blankets. The options are endless. These cloth masks are just one of many things you can tie dye, so get excited. I am so excited about all the things you can tie dye.

What Kind of Material Can Be Tie Dyed?

As you sit here thinking about everything you can possibly make tie dye art of, you may be wondering what kind of material can be tie dyed. Well, that one is a little bit tricker. Once you do the tie dye, you will actually want it to stay, which is why knowing what type of material is so important.

Natural fiber is always the best kind of material to do tie dye on. A few of my favorite material to tie dye includes:

Hemp
Linen
Rayon
Cotton

You don’t want to do 50/50 blends because they just don’t come out as well as the materials mentioned above. Give these materials a try on your next tie dye and let me know what you think.

What you’ll need:

A cloth mask (I use Hanes, which can be bought at Wal-Mart or most local grocery stores)
Food Coloring (any brand will work)
Vinegar (Dollar Store Cleaning Vinegar works just fine)
A small bowl to soak the mask in vinegar
Saran Wrap (or any plastic bag)
Rubber band to hold mask in place
3 or more shampoo travel bottles (I found mine at the dollar store)
A plastic shopping bag and old shirt to hold the ‘dye’ as to not make a mess

1. Pour a small amount of vinegar in a bowl and let the mask set for 1 hour

2. While mask is soaking up vinegar, pour ¼ cup water into each shampoo bottle.

3. Add 8 drops total of food coloring for lighter color masks or 16 drops total for darker color masks. If you are mixing colors (ie: Purple. You’d add 4 drops Red, 4 Drops blue)

4. Once mask has been soaking for an hour, rinse in water and then spread out over plastic bag/old shirt or newspapers

5 Add rubber bands to fabric as to create different patterns. I used a bulls-eye and vertical strips pattern.

6. When you are finished, place the mask in plastic wrap for 4 hours to absorb color.

7. After 4 hours, unwrap mask and let dry outside or hung up in a bathtub/sink

8. After mask dries, rinse again in the sink and hand wash with light dish soap or laundry detergent

9. Let mask dry again and enjoy!

Can You Tie Dye With Food Coloring?

Well, considering we are using food coloring for this mask project, the answer is YES. In my opinion, it’s one of the best ways to tie dye too. The colors come out amazing. You will enjoy dying with food coloring because it’s so easy to do. I also love that it’s budget friendly, which makes me super happy. Since we do a lot of tie dye crafts, I like to find materials on a budget. You can pick up food coloring for only a few dollars at your local store.

How to Care for Food Coloring Tie Dye Masks

What happens if you make these masks, how do you care for them? You don’t want to spend all this money on these masks and then they get ruined. Utilizing equal parts vinegar and equal parts water and soaking the mask in it for 30 minutes can help preserve the color in the mask. Also, make sure you’re washing in cold water to help try and keep the mask from bleeding color. At the end of the day, colors do fade and bleed and you just have to do your best to prevent it.