Tea Dying Old Onesies

Baby Ruth is our 3rd child and the poor girl is destined to wear more than her fair share of hand-me-downs. Like this pile of onesies...already worn by one brother and one sister...not as bright as they used to be...and even a little stained...

But instead of making her wear them all dingy and sad I wanted to make them over into something I would actually want to put Ruth in. Finally I decided that the best solution would be dye. And I set about to revive an old love of mine----the tea dye.

Tea dying is easy I just follow these simple steps:

#1. Get your garment wet. (I just ran mine under some warm water and then wrung out the excess.)

#2. Submerge your garment in a warm tea bath. (I just boiled water in a pot on the stove, added several Lipton tea packets, let simmer until my water turned a nice deep shade of brown and then let it cool down before adding the clothing.)

#3. Let your garment sit in the bath until you get the color you desire. (Actually I let mine get a little darker to compensate for the rinse to follow.)

#4. Rinse your garment until the water runs clear.

#5. Dry in the drier to set the color.

Once I was finished with that process I started adding things like lace and buttons to the onesies to make them a little more girly. (They really didn't need anything added, I forgot how much I love anything tea dyed, but I couldn't help myself and out came the trim bin.)

It was a simple, old fashioned project but I kind of love it. (And I always like the idea of giving something old new life again.) Now I just need Ruth to get big enough to wear them.