Experiments with Tie Dye

This weekend we took the older girls from our Guide unit away on an overnight to discuss them taking up the Baden Powell challenge, which for all those in the dark is the highest award that a Guide age girl can attain.  It was mainly all to do with what it means to be a patrol leader and sorting out which Go For Its and badges they would like to do and the new responsibilities they were taking on.  We did it with the older age group last year and it worked really well and got them all fired up for showing their patrols what they can do. 

As a little break from all the planning we usually do a crafty project that we wouldn't be able to do in the unit due to the larger numbers of girls.  I had some Dylon hand dye that I won in a Dylon facebook page competition (which is a page worth checking out as they do loads of giveaways and are very helpful) so I decided to do some tie dye with them.  This would have been more difficult with 25+ guides and I could see it getting very messy.  It would be a good camp project though as it could all be done outside and you wouldn't have to worry about fumes or spills.

We decided to dye 100% cotton handkerchiefs which were fairly large in size and were luckily in my other leaders stash.  The girls used elastic bands to block out where they dye wouldn't stick, making circles and stripes and basically whatever they wanted.  Then I set up 2 bowls on dye outside and followed the packet instructions.  They worked really well and each girl had a really different and unique project to take home with them.

My Guides lovely tie dye!

I used Ocean Blue and Tulip Red which is really quite pink and they are all really pretty.  Best of all I shared it on the facebook page and Dylon nominated me fan of the week!  My Guides will be thrilled that their work has won them a prize!  I can see more dying happening in the future!