Tie Dye Catholic Shirts- Sacred Heart, Immaculate Heart, and Divine Mercy

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 🙂

Sacred Heart Tie Dye

Finished Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart tie dye craft

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!

At Home VBS

 

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)
 
How to tie dye a Sacred or Immaculate Heart:
Finished Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart tie-dye onesie and 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.

 
Shirt Folded in Half

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.

Shirt Bunched Up

4. Place 2 more rubber bands down the shirt for color separation.

Shirts rubber banded up with tie-dye bottles

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:

Tie-dyed Banded Shirts

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.

Shirts drying on clothesline
When the shirt is dry…
 
You can decorate it to be a “Sacred Heart” by drawing on a crown of thorns and a cross. I used a sharpie, but I suppose an actual fabric marker would also do the trick 😉 Either way, put a piece of paper under where you are working to prevent the marker from bleeding through to the back of the shirt.
Step-by-step of drawing details on tie-dye heart

Sacred Heart Of Jesus Tie Dye

Finished Tie-Dye Sacred Heart Shirt
You can make an “Immaculate Heart” by decorating the heart with roses. I did this 2 different ways:

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.  
 

 
Rose stamps on tie dye
Immaculate Heart Of Mary Tie Dye
Finished Sacred Heart Tie-Dye Shirt

2. Or, you can sew on little fabric roses. At Michael’s, you can get 10 of them for $0.99! 🙂

Ribbon rose and tie-dye shirt
 
Sacred Heart Tie-Dye Shirt

About the Sacred and Immaculate Heart Images:
 
Both hearts are surrounded by light and flames. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is depicted surrounded by a crown of thorns, and has a cross on top. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is surrounded by roses. Sometimes (like on the miraculous metal) it is also pierced with a sword. I was sure my girls would rather have just roses on their shirts 😉
Sacred Heart Side-by-Side
 
Mary and Jesus with Immactulate and Sacred Hearts

If you’re looking for more ideas, check out my other resources on how to honor Mary with kids.

More Mary Resources for Kids

Post continues after this brief information about the Catholic Icing Monthly Membership


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Catholic Liturgical Monthly Membership

Perfect for families! Each month you gain access to printable activity pages, crafts, home altar pieces, and more.
 
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How to Tie Dye a Divine Mercy Shirt 
*a masculine alternative to a heart t-shirt 😉

"Jesus I Trust in You" Tie-Dye
1. Fold shirt in half down the middle.
 

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”.

Folded White Shirt

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.

White Folded Shirt

4. Add 2 more rubber bands, one on each side of the original. (This will keep the best “V” shape).

White Shirt With Rubber Bands

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.

Tie-dyed Banded Shirt

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 I Trust in You" Shirt
About the Divine Mercy Image:
Divine Mercy Painting

More Divine Mercy Resources for Kids

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! 🙂

Here are my kiddos enjoying their shirts!
Kids in Tie-dye Shirts

You can find all of my Sacred and Immaculate heart resources for kids here.

Sacred Heart Ideas for Kids

The month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and you can find my other resources for celebrating June feast days with kids here. 
 
June Feast Day Resources
 
The month of August is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and you can find my other resources for celebrating August feast days with kids here.
 
Auguest Feast Day Resources

Also, check out my at home VBS program with a Sacred and Immaculte Heart theme. So fun!

Summer with the Sacred Heart

 
 
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Comments

  1. 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!

  2. Christina says

    What a brilliant project! And your children look so sweet wearing their shirts. Thanks for sharing with us!

  3. 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

  4. Hello! I'm Kate. says

    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!

  5. Catherine Anne says

    We are doing this, this weekend! Cant wait!

  6. What a fun blog! I am amazed by the tie-dye sacred heart 7-shirts!

  7. 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!

  8. These are AWESOME!

  9. Heather from Gracefully Catholic (YouTube) sent me here. Love the shirts!! So fun for kids.