to live and dye - my $2 trick

Inspired by an article I read, I took on a brand new challenge this past weekend... dying a piece from my wardrobe.  We've all tie dyed, but this is a whole new ball game.  I've had this dress ($20 J Crew bridesmaid dress from a sample sale) hanging in my closet for who knows how many years.  It's never been worn and never sold on ebay.  I wasn't crazy about the pink color.  I did like it, I just never had an opportunity to wear it.  Well I broke all the dying rules that tell to not start with your best dress and I decided just to go for it.  I learned that the craft stores in town no longer carry Rit dye so I followed the clerk's recommendation and headed to Walmart.  You may be as surprised as I was to find that Rit dye is nowhere near the tie dye section, neither is it in the paint section.  You will find it conveniently placed near the.... bleach!  I guess that makes sense if you think about it... really hard.  Anyways, they only had one of my colors in stock which meant another trip to the Walmart across town.  Why did I need two colors you might ask?  Well Rit's website has this great color selection feature where you just click on the color you're after and they provide you with the colors and amounts you'll need to mix to (hopefully) achieve your dream color. Of course there are many factors that play into it so for me it was still a bit of a guessing game, but it definitely helped steer me in the right direction!  My dream color was plum.  I have a fall wedding to go to next month and I didn't want to buy a new dress if I had a perfectly good one sitting in my closet.  The process was a little tedious but overall not too bad and I'm not even typing this post with purple fingers!  I did everything in a big bucket in the bathtub and the only thing I'd consider adding to your list of prep items would be a granola bar.  The hand rinsing step took longer than I expected and I admittedly got a little crabby due to lack of nutrition.  Other than that, I am pretty excited about my finished product!  One thing to keep in mind... zippers and buttons will not dye.  I'm not sure what I am going to do about that.  My mom suggested I wear bright pink heels to match my zipper... I think I'll be in search of a dark permanent marker this week :)