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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.

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Comments

  4. elizabeth says

    Speaking of Baby Ruth–I have wanted to bring you a “Baby Ruth” candy bar so you could take her picture by it…(I think it would be cute for some of her newborn pictures) but I can’t find one. Weird.

    Not like you haven’t thought of it. Or maybe already done it….but if not, I will keep searching.

    BOy, I am unusually full of comments today…..

  5. Rachel says

    So sweet! The lace and buttons are the perfect touch. I love it! And I’d love to see more pictures of little Ruth . . . hint hint 😉

    And to Elizabeth, they were handing out fun-sized Baby Ruth’s in my RS yesterday! So at least the fun size ones still exist.

  10. skirtastop says

    I love tea dye – that was one of my very first baby clothes alterations before I ventured into sewing! Very cute. I’m a new follower after admiring your work on PR&P and Kojo’s Friday Fun Finds last week!! 🙂

  15. Marcia - Crafty Sewing and Quilting says

    Great idea to Tea dye the Onesies! Just adorable! Thanks for the wonderful share! I found you thru’ Tuesday Treasures and I am new to following you!
    I am caring for my Mom’s little dog as he recovers from two dogs attacking him. Toby was hospitalized for 6 weeks with several surgeries to repair his skin. After the 6 weeks of bandages wrapped around his tiny body, we now slip him into little onesies with the snapped part cut out. I like the idea of the tea dying for the dingy ones, as we have several for daily changes. Thanks so much. I look forward to following you…

  21. Haley K says

    found you from over at Whipperberry 🙂 And i’m SO glad! I’m all about simple…new babes in onesies are a weakess of mine 😉 And we have our second little one arriving in March! so I can’t wait to have this method in my back pocket (err, pinterest board;) to use once those perfect white onesies aren’t so white any more 🙂 thank you again for the great tutorial!

  22. Jennifer says

    I adore this!! And I love the embellishments…simply darling! I’m feature these for my Show & Share favs! Would love for you to come grab a button! And I’m pinning!!
    Thanks for linking up to Southern Lovely’s Show & Share! Hope to see you again!

  26. Avira Gp says

    This is so darling. Thank you for sharing. There is a little one at church that I want to make one of these for but never found a tutorial for doing so. You just made my day with this post. Love and look forward to each one.

    girls onesies