Pumpkin Shirts

I had a lot of people ask me about how to make the pumpkin shirts. Well I would love to take credit for the idea, but I got it from Family Fun magazine (love that magazine). Go to http://jas.familyfun.go.com/crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=12054 to get the instructions for making the shirts. We used one package of rit dye for each shirt because the darkest orange I could find was called sunshine orange and it was more orange/yellow than orange. Also the thicker the rubber bands the better circles you will get. I just used Fruit of the Loom undershirts for my shirts, but I noticed that Wal-mart has nicer white T-shirts for $3.50. I think I spent $4.77 for a package of 3 undershirts. We used black permanent marker for our shirts because I thought the fabric paint would be too hard for the kids to use! I may go over it with the fabric paint because I think it will last longer and look nicer. It was not a hard project to do at all. The kids had a blast stirring the shirts in the dye. I would highly reccomend doing this outside. We did it in my sister-in-laws garage. She had a utility sink that made it very easy to add hot water and to rinse. The kids were able to do the rubberbands, get their shirts wet before placing them in the dye, place them in the dye, stir them in the dye and make the pumpkin faces. The adults prepared the dye bath and rinsed the shirts before washing and drying them.