Got a Disney-Lover in Your House? Here's How to Make Mickey Mouse Tie-Dye!

The first thing you’ll need to do is gather everything you’re going to need for the project. That includes a printed Mickey Mouse silhouette, a pencil, a white T-shirt, rubber bands, and a tie-dye kit.

Place the Mickey Mouse silhouette between the two layers of your shirt where you want his head to be. Trace the outline using a pencil or chalk. Be sure to trace dark enough so you can see the markings clearly for the next step!

Gather the top layer of the shirt where one ear is traced. Place a rubber band on the pencil markings. Do the same for the second ear, and then tie off Mickey’s head. You’ll have three little nubs.

Bring the entire shirt together until it looks like a snake. Put rubber bands down the length of the shirt every few inches, being sure not to place a rubber band over the Mickey Mouse sections.

Following the instructions from the tie-dye kit, get the dye ready and set up a spot outside to color your shirt. If you don’t want to dye your sidewalk, put down a few layers of paper towel or old newspapers.

Place the section that has Mickey’s ears and head facing up. Drench all three sections of Mickey with dye in your chosen color first. It’s best to use a darker color so it shows up later.

Using the remaining dye, color the rest of your shirt. You’ll need to use more dye than you think you’ll need to get to the center sections of the shirt and get the color saturation you want. After tie-dying one side, flip your shirt over and repeat on the other side.

Carefully wrap your shirt in plastic wrap and place it into a plastic bag. Let the shirt rest overnight to absorb as much of the dye as possible. The next morning, unwrap the shirt and cut off the rubber bands. Rinse the shirt under cold water then place it into the washing machine by itself on a short cycle, then hang the shirt to dry it.

After drying, you’ll hopefully have something that resembles Mickey (though if you’re unlucky, you might get one that looks like mine). For better results than this, I’d recommend drawing a larger Mickey silhouette on your shirt so that your pattern will stand out more, and placing the rubber bands a little past the pencil markings so you get a nicely shaped head. Also remember to use way more dye than you think you’ll need and really get in between the layers of the wrapped T-shirt so you get a full spread of color. That’s what I’ll be doing next time!

Because my shirt didn’t come out exactly like Disney’s did, I got out a trusty black permanent marker and traced over the Mickey silhouette in the same spot the pencil tracing was. This definitely helped make the Mickey head pop off the shirt. I plan on wearing my newly created Mickey Mouse tie-dye as a swimsuit cover-up, but you can style yours in a million different ways!