Blueberry Dyed Shirts

A few weeks ago we were doing a history lesson and learning about the ancient civilization of the Phoenicians (who also provided the base for our modern day alphabet apparently... Phoenicians... phonics... *lightbulb*... lol). Anyway, when ancient civilizations wanted to dye their clothes they had to use natural things to do it; in their case a type of slug that they boiled for a particular purple color that was so strong it even dyed the workers so that they became known as the "purple people". Now, as much fun as finding and boiling slugs sounds... *gag*... we decided to go with an easier (and less disgusting) approach and use blueberries! Of course blueberries aren't the only things you can use, blackberries are another good option, but Wade wanted to eat a few when we were done so blueberries it was. We made a special trip to the store (which of course included a jaunt by the park...), got our blueberries and got started.

I forgot to look at the label before I threw it away, but I'm pretty sure we used about 8 oz of blueberries in a pot of water. All we did was put water in the pot, added the blueberries (at the rate of two 6 year olds...) to the pot and let it boil about half an hour. Once time was up, I (in the name of preserving my kitchen from being dyed blue) strained the blueberries out of the pot (keep the water of course) and the boys put their plain white t-shirts in. We let the shirts soak for at least 5 minutes, probably closer to 10 honestly, and then pulled them out and let them drip dry over the sink until they stopped dripping and then finished drying in front of some fans. Once they were dry I washed them once in cold water, hoping the dye wouldn't disappear, and they turned out pretty great! They fade a little bit after washing them over and over, but they're still purple and the blueberries did a great job!

Blueberries in the pot

Shirts soaking in water

After dyeing shirts

After washing them. :-)