Message: I am trying to get a Cub Scout Activity lined up for our summer graduation party. We have asked each boy to bring a white cotton tshirt to our party. We wanted them to be able to decorate them without too much of a mess. We were hoping to hang the shirts up on hangers on a clothes line and let them spray/squirt them with different dyes using squirt bottles. I've read some of your stuff and I'm thinking this won't work. What should I do? Hellllpppp. We are doing this at our Church so I wanted to use squirt bottles on the lawn to keep things simple. Hellllpppppp!!!!

Do NOT use all-purpose dye, such as is sold in little boxes in most grocery stores and pharmacies, because you have to boil the shirts in a pot of dye, which is completely inappropriate for your plans. You need fiber reactive dye, such as Procion MX type dye, so that you can use it without heating it. You can mail-order an appropriate-sized "tie dye kit" from companies such as http://www.dharmatrading.com , which will contain squirt bottles, dye, urea, and soda ash. Make sure everyone brings old clothes to wear that can be stained with dye - NOT their uniforms! You can also buy cheap plastic aprons, and be sure to get plenty of cheap latex gloves. If you want spray bottles (and it looks like you do), you will need to buy them separately, but they are available from the same source.

The mail-order dye places charge so much less for their dye that you can pay for expedited shipping, if necessary. Two ounces of Procion MX type dye will dye 14 shirts, permanently and brightly; a $2.75 packet of "all purpose" dye will dye only one or two shirts, and then wash out badly.

One way we do the dyeing is with a bucket of soda ash dissolved in water, which they soak the shirts in until the shirts are thoroughly wet (about five minutes), then wring them out by hand and hang them up on *plastic* hangers (metal will rust and stain the shirts), then spray with Procion MX type dyes mixed with water and powdered urea. More commonly, people cover large tables (or sheets of plywood on sawhorses) with plastic drop-cloths and let the children lay the shirts flat to squirt or spray on the dye. Very commonly, we have them tie their shirts with rubber bands before they come, then have them soak the shirts and proceed as above, using squirt bottles, not spray bottles. If you hand an untied shirt on a plastic hanger on a line, you can apply dye at the top of the shirt and watch it drip down; the results can be very nice. This is not tie-dyeing, since you don't tie the shirts at all, but everyone calls it tie-dyeing anyway.

If you lay the shirts flat on the lawn, after you pre-soak them and wring them out, and put nicely-shaped leaves on them, you can use a spray bottle to mist dye on the shirt. (Make sure everyone wears a cheap dust mask! Don't let them breathe the dye mist.) The leaves act as a stencil to make really cool results. See http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/example19.shtml . You have to flip the shirts over to do the other side.

Warning: use spray bottles only with children who will not be tempted to spray each other! How easily controlled is this particular group of boys?

If you need things to be neat, as for example for use indoors, you could get Pentel fabric crayons or any brand of fabric markers to draw directly on the fabric. Crayola fabric crayons work only on shirts that are 50% to 100% synthetic material; to use them, the children draw on paper, and then an adult irons the resulting designs onto the shirts. Crayola fabric crayons will not work on 100% cotton. Everything else requires cotton, but Crayola fabric crayons require synthetics.

As you can see, there are many possible alternatives. Good luck.