Get friends together and complete a fun tie dye activity on white shirts and put together a Hippies group Halloween costume that is affordable, colorful and fun!
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Every year for the past 5 years, a fellow crafty softball mom and I have volunteered to head up the team’s Group Halloween costumes for the Halloween tournaments. Many times us moms made the costume components, but after a fun crafting session of the girls making their own zombie shirts last year, we gave it another go in letting the girls complete a tie dye crafty session before we added the final vinyl components.
I’m happy to report the 2nd half of this team costume, the vinyl design, was added using one my newest vinyl related tools, the Auto Heat Press 2 from HTVront. Keep reading to see how easy it was to put together our Peace, Love, Softball Hippies group Halloween costume idea and learn about this new fun tool!
Hippies group costume supplies:
- Peace Love Softball SVG
- Tie Dye Kit and this larger bottle Tie Dye Kit
- White Headbands
- Gildan t-shirts (this year, shirts were $2.99 at Michaels)
- Navy Blue Heat Transfer Vinyl
- White Heat Transfer Vinyl
- Cricut Maker
- HTVront Auto Heat Press 2
- Cricut Basic Tools
- Cricut Brayer
First, we set up a crafty tie dye session fold out tables covered in plastic table cloths in the backyard for the players. We directed everyone to wear their not so favorite clothes and provided them with Rubber Gloves to hopefully deter hands from staining.
Crafters were paired up so they could help each other with the swirling/rubber banding part of the tie dying process as we wanted everyone to have a swirl look, but with whatever colors they wanted. They were instructed to lay their shirt flat then pinch the middle and twist clockwise to slowly created a swirl pattern.
They used the included rubber bands from the kit to hold this shape in place.
They were also able to add some rubber bands to the white headbands too. Tip: Use a sharpie marker to put their jersey number inside the headbands and on the bottom right corner of the shirts so you know which was which after washing!
Tie dye bottles were previously mixed with water to make them ready for the tie dying process. Crafters were encouraged to fill sections with tie dye and avoid colors that will make brown! Tips: Having all the color options was great but we went through the smaller bottles pretty fast. In the future I’d probably do just the big bottle kit. Also, you can easily add in more water if it’s running low. It will be slightly diluted but at least there’s still dye to add!
After fully covering the shirts and headbands, we stuck them all in plastic zip bags to allow for a longer sitting session and for the dye to soak in. The next day, I rinsed all the shirts and ran them through a round in the wash and dryer. Look how colorful they came out!
Next up, we broke out my Cricut Maker and cut our “Peace Love Softball” designs, some text with our team name and jersey numbers. We did this in both navy with a white heat transfer vinyl offset layer so that it would stand out on all the colorful tie dye patterns they made.
To press, I was able to use my brand new Auto Heat Press 2 machine gifted to me by HTVront. I’ve been crafting my own shirts for my kids or team costumes for their friends for years using my home iron or my manual heat press machine. But having an automatic heat press machine really helped to keep my hands free to work on the next step while the machine pressed the last shirt, making this group team process a lot faster!
I appreciate the large 15×15″ pressing area and mode settings on the digital screen, already set for regular heat transfer vinyl in mode 1. I love that I could easily press a button and it’s set up for glitter heat transfer vinyl in mode 2 for future projects! The machine came with a heat press mat and cover sheet making it a great bundle to work on more heat transfer vinyl crafts!
Use code SpotOfTeaDesigns to get $52 off your Auto Heat Press 2 machine!
We added their jersey numbers to the back and had fun turning their colorful creations into wearable team costumes for the tournament. I love how colorful this collection of Hippies Halloween costume looks all together and how each player got to choose their preferred color palette.
On game day, the players and coaches can bring different accessories to wear for a group photo to really play up the Hippies vibe, before getting groovy on the field and kicking butt in softball! This could easily be a group Halloween costume for other groups, like teachers in a class or those going to a Halloween party!
More Group Halloween Costume Ideas:
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