Looking to spice up your old clothes? How about dyeing them! Vegetables are a great alternative to chemical dyes, they are perfect to use for dyeing your clothes. I will be going over tips about dyeing your clothes with vegetables and which vegetables you can use as a natural dye!
What are the best vegetables and plants to use?
When picking a vegetable to use as a dye, you want to pick something that you think will transfer well and have a strong color. These are some vegetables and fruits that I recommend!
- Beets
- Red cabbage
- Strawberries
- Turmeric
- Spinach
- Cherries
- Onion skins
- Blueberries
- Oranges
What materials do I need?
- Vegetables
- Knife
- Blender
- Water
- Salt
- White clothes
- Elastic bands
- Gloves
- Cheesecloth
How do I make the dye?
- Make sure you are wearing gloves, otherwise the dye may get on your hands. You want to cut up the raw vegetables and add them to a blender. You want to add two cups of boiling water for every two cups of vegetables. If you decide to use turmeric, you want to add two tablespoons of turmeric for every two cups of water.
- Once blended very finely, pour your mixture through a cheesecloth. This to ensure that there are no little chunks in it and that it is ready to use.
- Then you want to add 1 tablespoon of salt into your dye and mix it till dissolved.
- You can then add each dye into a different container and they are ready to use!
How do I dye my clothes?
- Before dyeing your clothes, I like to put my clothes in a pot of water with around ½ a cup of salt and boil my clothes.
- After that, if you want to dye your clothes one color you can then place them in the dye and let it sit for a few hours, or you can leave it overnight if you want a stronger color.
- You can also tie dye your clothes, and give them a fun pattern! In this case you can take your clothes and let it dry after the salt bath, and then add elastic bands around your clothes.
- Then you can take a bunch of different colors of dye and put it on your clothes, in different areas of the elastics. This is a fun activity to do with kids, and the outcome will look so cool!
- After you dye your clothes, you can rinse it under cold water and let it dry, and there you have it, a fun way to repurpose old white clothes!
