Saturday, May 26, 2012

DIY Mint Jeans

This is my first shot at a DIY tutorial, so please don't judge too harshly and leave some comments for the next DIY post.
MINT JEANS!!

 My cute roommate is quite the photographer!!
 I refused to be cute in these pictures, because she made me change out of my sweatpants :(
For those of you who follow Lauren, you already saw a post about our awesome mint pants.
Here is a step by step tutorial with what to do and what not to do!
1. Purchase a pair of white pants, preferably a cotton blend.

2. Wash and dry them like you would your normal laundry.
3. Pick a color from this awesome RIT color swatch link. There are color tabs at the bottom of the page that you can click through and then just click the swatch you like for the color mix measurements.
Here is a screenshot of the mint mix: 
1/2 teaspoon of Teal RIT dye and 1 teaspoon of Lemon Yellow

These are the powder versions, I found them at Hobby Lobby
Wear gloves and be very careful because they color will stain everything!!
4. Measure two cups of hot water and mix measured amounts of dye into the water. Stir consistently until ALL the powder is dissolved, otherwise you will see yellow and blue spots on your pants like I do. oops!
5. Fill a bucket or a sink with hot water so that the pants are completely submerged with room to move around. Then place the pants into the water and make sure all the fabric is completely soaked (for even coloring). Again, I FAILED! In this case, bigger is better. I recommend a mop bucket, not a tiny sink.
6. Pour in color, giving it one final stir just to be careful. Then mix the color into the water very quickly to avoid spotting. This is crucial. No time to stop and take cool pictures like this one, we learned our lesson. Just use your gloved hands to mix it. 
7. Make sure to really move the pants around or you will have light and dark spots! Not good!
8. Let it soak for about 15 or 20 minutes and then rinse the pants in warm water and progress to colder water with every rinse. You want to rinse until the water runs clear. 
9.Then wash the pants SEPARATELY, unless you want to destroy some of your clothes by adding them to the same wash.. The choice is yours, really.  
10. While your cute pants are washing and drying wipe everything down with bleach otherwise your Mom will probably get mad at me for posting this and causing you to destroy her sink and countertops!! 
11. Wear those cute pants and love 'em, and when people ask you where you got them-you can say, "I dyed them myself, No Big Deal!" Very impressive!!

10 comments:

  1. This is so cool Tara! I can't wait to try it! Can you do the same thing with other colors?!

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  2. Yes, just follow the link to the color chart and you can mix any color that you see. I also dyed a white skirt coral.

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  3. Cute Tara! Why are you so awesome?! Love this and I'm so going to do it :)

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  4. Thanks Emily, it was pretty easy- just don't make the mistakes that I did!

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  5. I followed your exact steps (btw, i love your blog!) and my jeans turned like a lime green. is there a way to fix it and make them mint? please help me out! i would really appreciate your help and advice! thanks!

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    1. I would bleach wash them. You can google how to do that if you don't know. Then I would try to mix a lighter color. Make sure you are precise on your measurements, and mix the color into 2 cups of water before adding it to the mix with the hot water and the pants. I hope that works. The thickness of the fabric tends to affect the darkness or lightness of the pants.
      1/4 Tsp Teal
      1 Tsp Lemon Yellow
      2 Cup Water

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  6. Thanks for these great tips and for sharing where you made mistakes. It was very helpful and I love the color!

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  7. Thanks for these great tips and for sharing where you made mistakes. It was very helpful and I love the color!

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  8. The final pic of the colored jeans vs. the pic with you holding them are different?

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