Bleaching and Dying Denim :)

I decided around midnight on July 16th, that I wanted a pair of colored shorts. Now, I could have gone the easy way, and bought a pair of white shorts and fabric dye, but psh, I'm on a college budget [well, my mother's budget] and I love crafting so I decided to DIY them <3

To begin with, I went to Wal-Mart and bought 5 packs of Lemon-Lime [green], Grape [purple], Fruit Punch [red], Lemonade [yellow], Orange, and Pink Lemonade Kool-Aid.

Then, I got a bucket [just an old ice cream tub], filled it about a quarter with bleach, put the shorts in, and filled the rest with water, and stirred the mixture. I let it sit for about 45 minutes, and received very little bleaching. So, I did the process again except with very hot water, for around the same amount of time, but received the same result....so I decided to go ahead and dye them. [they were already a pale blue and the bleach lightened them a little]

[this is where I noticed a bleach spot on my favorite tshirt (sad face) so I tossed it into a diluted solution of bleach/water after spraying it with straight bleach]

I had trouble deciding what color I wanted.

I boiled about a cup and a half of water and poured in 3 packets of pink and then poured the mixture into an old squeeze bottle, along with some vinegar. I laid the shorts flat and sprayed the shorts, being sure to soak them fully.

The pink didn't show up too much so I decided to spray purple on the shorts as well. Which gave the shorts a cool tie dyedish look. I let the shorts sit in the sun for a few hours, flipping them over now and then, before tossing them in the dryer to let the dye heat up a bit and hopefully soak in more.

After the dryer, I tossed them in the washer, set the water on warm, and let it run through the cycle. Sadly, the dye washed out of the shorts and I was left with normal light colored blue jean shorts. But it was worth a shot!! :)