This is a project I did quite awhile ago for my son’s nursery. With both of my children, I had really specific visions in mind for their nurseries, and the colors never matched up with what was being sold in stores. My son’s room is a soft aqua-greenish color with white and pale orange accents.
I got a little carried away with dyeing things for my son, but when you have an orange and aqua nursery, your options are a little limited.
I bought white (secondhand) cotton sheets and spread them out one at a time on top of a large piece of cardboard covered with a plastic garbage bag. I drew the waves on with Elmer’s gel glue. It’s a little tricky to draw with the glue this way, so it was probably best that I stuck with something simple. Recently I’ve read that using a metal tip with the glue bottle can help give you more control over the lines. I’ll have to try that next time.
After letting the glue dry, I used procion dyes purchased from Dharma Trading. They’re the real thing—-no playing around with this stuff, but they don’t fade and come off like grocery store dye.
So, the steps are easy:
1) Draw on fabric with gel glue. Let dry.
2) Dye according to directions.
3) Wash fabric.
The little man’s room has an aquatic theme. Here’s a shot of some of the fish on his wall:
He’s just moved to a big boy bed, so now I’m in the process of making the old crib sheets into a patchwork bedcover.
Emily Smith Pearce 
