Tea-dyed Sock Heart {Cute}

I love when I can make a project with materials that are just sitting around the house. It is definitely light on the wallet. If you are lucky, you can reuse or repurpose something that you were going to get rid of. A couple of weeks ago, my daughter brought home a snowman that she made using a sock. That got me to thinking--my husband mentioned that he was about to replace some of his socks. Since Valentine's Day is just around the corner, I used the socks and a little magic to make a Tea-dyed Sock Heart.



Here is what I needed for my project:

3 {clean} gym socks
12 tea bags
water
large pot
tissue paper
string
scissors

I chose to tea-dye my socks a pinkish hue. I opted to tea-dye instead of tie-dye because we have a lot of tea bags that my husband bought while couponing. {Frugal.} Plus, the tea and its biodegradable bags is less harmful to the environment. {Responsible.} To make my dye, I brewed 12 tea bags in 64oz of water. I used a raspberry tea that I knew had a red hue. To tea-dye, make sure that your tea color is pretty strong. When the socks dry, they actually will be lighter than what they look like right when you pull them out of the tea. I ended up brewing my tea for 10-15 minutes. Then, I removed the bags and put in the socks. I left the socks in for an hour.

After an hour, I removed the socks and squeezed out the tea. Next, I dried the socks in the dryer. Once the socks were ready, it was time to construct my heart. I used tissue paper to fill each sock. The tissue paper made the socks easy to form. (Hint: I used castoff tissue paper from stores--you know, the stuff that they pack dishes with or the stuff that you tear while opening clothes. I keep all of that for projects like this.) I filled the first two socks about 2/3 full. I filled the remaining sock about 1/3 full, with most of the tissue paper towards the toe. You can move the tissue paper around as you are working with the socks. {Easy.}

Next, I tied the the socks that were 2/3 full together, using the ends of the socks. I formed one sock to create the point of the heart. I tied the third sock to the end of point's sock. Then, I rounded two of the socks to make my heart. You may need to work with the tissue paper a bit to get the shape.

After that, I whipped out my string to tie the the heart together and create my hanger.

 

After fashioning my hanger, I hung my Valentine's creation. {Could also be used for Earth Day.} I think it came out pretty cute and used materials that we already had at home!