What is better in the summertime than tie dye? To make it extra fun, these are styled after the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Heart Of Mary, and the Divine Mercy! We made a Sacred Heart shirt for my son, and Immaculate Heart shirts for me and the girls. Then my daughter insisted that “Daddy needs one”, so I made a “Divine Mercy” shirt for him. (I didn’t think my husband wanted to wear a shirt with a heart on it). For anyone who doesn’t know, the feast of the Sacred Heart coming up on Friday 🙂
Good news! This project is actually just a small part of an at-home VBS program for Catholic kids… Summer With The Sacred Heart! This vacation bible school program is chock full of fun crafts and activities for all kids ages preschool through teens. Get your program now!
Supplies Needed:
- A Tie Dye Kit with desired colors. (I got the tulip kit with fuchsia, yellow, and turquoise. It cost $10, and will dye around 7 shirts if you dilute the blue or are willing to skip the blue on some of the shirts.)
- White shirts (Or you can tie dye a sacred heart onto something else like a white bag or a pillow case. Think creatively!)
- Black fabric marker or sharpie (for the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy Shirts)
- Fabric roses or rose stamp with white acrylic paint (for the Immaculate Heart Shirt)
Before starting, it might be helpful to watch this video on how to tie dye a heart.
1. Start with a damp shirt and fold it in half as shown.
2. Sketch half of a heart onto the shirt with a pencil. Draw the “dip” in the top of the heart extra deep for a good final heart shape.
3. Gather the heart shape right on the pencil line- accordion style. Keep the pencil line as straight as possible. Start at the bottom corner of the heart and work your way around. This is what makes the heart shape, so do your best. As soon as you’ve gathered it all the way around the heart, rubber band it on the pencil line to secure it.
4. Place 2 more rubber bands down the shirt for color separation.
5. Prepare dye according to the directions, and dye the shirts making sure to get into the fabric crevices. Let the yellow overlap the red a little to let it bleed and create the orange “flames” around the heart. The colors go on in the order shown:
6. Finish your shirt according to the directions on your dye. (For mine, we put the shirts in plastic bags for 8 hours and then washed them in hot water).
7. Let the shirts dry.
Sacred Heart Of Jesus Tie Dye
1. Use a rose stamp to create the roses using white acrylic paint. I think acrylic paint is best because it dries so quickly, and lets face it- you’ve already had to wait for these shirts to dry once! This is a great way to go if you’re making these shirts for a whole youth group or something. I found my rose stamp in the one dollar bins at Michael’s.
2. Or, you can sew on little fabric roses. At Michael’s, you can get 10 of them for $0.99! 🙂
If you’re looking for more ideas, check out my other resources on how to honor Mary with kids.
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How to Tie Dye a Divine Mercy Shirt
*a masculine alternative to a heart t-shirt 😉
2. Mark a diagonal across the shirt with a pencil. In St. Faustina’s vision, the rays were coming from Jesus’ heart, so I tried to make the top of this line end at at “heart height”.
3. Gather the shirt on the pencil line accordion style, keeping the pencil line as straight as possible. When you’ve gathered it all the way across the shirt, rubber band it to hold it in place.
4. Add 2 more rubber bands, one on each side of the original. (This will keep the best “V” shape).
5. Dye the 2 rubber-banded sections with the red and blue dye. Then, dilute the blue dye and use for the remainder of the shirt. (For the diluted dye, I added 3 parts water to 1 part prepared dye). Alternatively, you could leave the remainder of the shirt white, but I had too many accidental blue splatters on the shirt to make that possible for mine.
6. Finish your shirt according to the directions on your dye. (For mine, we put the shirts in plastic bags for 8 hours and then washed them in hot water).
7. When the shirt is dry, use a sharpie or fabric marker to write “Jesus I Trust in You” on the shirt. Put a piece of paper under where you are working to prevent the marker from bleeding through to the back of the shirt.
Jesus appeared to St. Faustina, and asked her to have a painting made of this vision with the words “Jesus I Trust in You”, so that’s why I put it on the shirt. “The two rays denote Blood and Water. the pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls.”- St. Faustina’s diary. If you’re crious, read more about the Divine Mercy Image.
I think these shirts would be a fantastic for a youth group or vacation bible school project where matching shirts were needed. When I went to World Youth Day with my youth group, we wore matching shirts the whole time so we could keep up with our group. These certainly would have been fun!
If you make any and put them up on your blog, please leave the link in the comments so we can all see them! 🙂
You can find all of my Sacred and Immaculate heart resources for kids here.
Also, check out my at home VBS program with a Sacred and Immaculte Heart theme. So fun!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
oh my gosh your kids are too cute! I love the Divein Mercy idea! I saw some camoflague colored tie dye at wal mart too and i wonder if it'll work for the divin mercy shirt… I definitely want to give this one a try!
What a brilliant project! And your children look so sweet wearing their shirts. Thanks for sharing with us!
Dear Lacy,
I wish I could do this. Not sure where to get the die though.
I am going to have to try it though It will nag at me untill I do.
I have posted a craft I did with my son last year on my blog if you are interested.
Blessings
Gae
Oh my gosh, you have the cutest kids ever! I love them in all of their little shirts! And I love the shirts too!
I'm a new follower! Glad I stumbled on your blog!
We are doing this, this weekend! Cant wait!
What a fun blog! I am amazed by the tie-dye sacred heart 7-shirts!
Oh this is TOOO cute. Thank you! I am not naturally creative and I homeschool and have four children under the age of six. I was trying to think of something out of the ordinary (besides coloring pages) to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. This is perfect! THey can wear them to Mass too to celebrate and show off! Thank you for sharing your beautiful gift of creativity. YOur children are beautiful and blessings. God bless!
These are AWESOME!
Heather from Gracefully Catholic (YouTube) sent me here. Love the shirts!! So fun for kids.