Patriotic Costume 8ft Skeleton

SUPPLIES & TOOLS:

• White T-Shirt: Size 3XL
• Rit® Liquid Dye: Red & Blue
• Squirt Bottles: 2
• Salt
• Plastic Gloves
• Rubber Bands
• Baking Tray for Dye
• Plastic Wrap
• Craft Wire
• Patriotic Tinsel
• Tinsel Chenille Stems
• Craft Felt- Red, White & Blue
• Hot Glue Gun & Hot Glue Sticks
• 3/4" Elastic: 12"

DIRECTIONS:
Tie Dye T-Shirt:
Rit dye has excellent detailed instructions on how to tie-dye with a squirt bottle, including videos showing tie designs, on their website:
"https://www.ritdye.com/techniques/tie-dye/squirt-bottle-technique/">Rit tie-dye instructions
 

1. Pre-wash the t-shirt.
2. Lay the damp shirt on a flat surface & fold, swirl, or scrunch it.
3. Rubber band your t-shirt design in place.
4. Place t-shirt on a baking rack over a tray or place the baking rack in a stainless steel sink.
5. Mix up dye mixtures: 2 tablespoons of Rit liquid dye to 2 cups hot tap water & 1 tablespoon of salt.
6. Allow to sit for 30 minutes.
7. Wrap in plastic wrap, making sure the shirt is sealed inside & place on a paper towel in the microwave.
8. Heat for 2 minutes, then take out & allow to cool.
9. Alternately, you could wrap the t-shirt in plastic wrap & place it in the sunshine for an hour, then allow to cool.
10. Rinse in cool water until the water runs clear.
11. Take off rubber bands & run through a cold wash cycle with a mild detergent.

Headpiece:

1. Bend the craft wire from ear to ear on your skeleton (about 18")
2. Bend the wire to get 3 lines of wire for a more robust head piece.
3. Twist each side 3/4" from the ends to create a wire loop to wrap elastic around later.
4. Wrap the wire with tinsel.
5. Cut star shapes and/or any lettering out of felt & hot glue onto tinsel chenille stems.
6. Wrap chenille stamps around wire.
7. Add elastic onto the bottom of the head piece by looping in through the ends of the headpiece.
8. Tighten as needed.
9. Hot glue elastic in place.

JOANN HACKS:

• Use a Cricut® Maker® Machine with a rotary blade attachment to cut star shapes & lettering out of felt.
• You could also use a Cricut® Explore™ Machine with the fine point blade to cut the stars & lettering out of felt.