DIY Tie-Dye Denim

Here at Team JS, two of our favorite things are tie dye and customized denim, so we thought we’d try a little DIY perfect for summer!

We’ve pulled together a collection of white denim (which BTW, looks great styled with any of our pre-made tie dye tees if you’re not the DIY type!) but if you’ve got any older, faded or stained white jeans laying around at home, this is a great way to give them new life! We used a kit for our dye, but you can find a variety of dyes at your local craft store.

Step 1: Prep Your Designs

For a spiral style, best on a denim jacket or tee, find the center point of your garment and twist it into a large wheel. Secure tightly with rubber bands all around the wheel. For smaller color bursts, gather small bunches of fabric and secure individually with rubber bands. For a striped pattern, fold like an accordion and space out the rubber bands along pant legs or arms.

Step 2: Time to Dip!

We used a few techniques to color our denim. Dunking directly into the dye as well as using a squirt bottle to really saturate the colors in certain spots. For our denim we wanted to try a half-and-half pattern. This is where the squirt bottle came in handy to carefully follow the seam of the jeans.

Step 3: Line Dry

You can leave the bundles to soak in for a short while, but you’ll want to line dry the garments. This way you can also see if there are any areas you missed. Be sure to fully rinse and wash them alone before wearing to be sure excess dye doesn’t bleed into other fabrics.

Pro Tip, wear gloves!

Have a fun and colorful summer! If you’re not ready to dip your toes into a DIY, you can shop our pre-made tie dye collection here.