Divine Mercy Sunday is coming up soon! If you're not familiar with St. Faustina and the appearances of Jesus, I would encourage you to read up! It's a great story and devotion. The most obvious things to do to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday would be to go to confession, and pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. If you've got that all under control, be sure and check out some of these ideas. :-)
Find last year's round up of Divine Mercy Sunday ideas here, including more printable prayer cards, desserts, and crafts! Also, since Pope John Paul II instituted Divine Mercy Sunday and is being beatified on May 1, you might want to check out my JPII round up, too. :-)
After finding these Tie Dyed Sacred Heart Shirts online, I just had to make some! We made a Sacred Heart shirt for my son, and Immaculate Heart shirts for me and the girls. Then my daughter insisted that "Daddy needs one", so I made a "Divine Mercy" shirt for him. (I didn't think my husband wanted to wear a shirt with a heart on it). For anyone who doesn't know, the feast of the Sacred Heart coming up on Friday :-)
Supplies Needed:
A Tie Dye Kit with desired colors. (I got the tulip kit with fuchsia, yellow, and turquoise. It cost $10, and will dye around 7 shirts if you dilute the blue or are willing to skip the blue on some of the shirts.)
White shirts (Or you can tie dye a sacred heart onto something else like a white bag or a pillow case. Think creatively!)
Black fabric marker or sharpie (for the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy Shirts)
Fabric roses or rose stamp with white acrylic paint (for the Immaculate Heart Shirt)
How to tie dye a Sacred or Immaculate Heart:
Before starting, it might be helpful to watch this video on how to tie dye a heart.
1. Start with a damp shirt and fold it in half as shown.
2. Sketch half of a heart onto the shirt with a pencil. Draw the "dip" in the top of the heart extra deep for a good final heart shape.
3. Gather the heart shape right on the pencil line- accordion style. Keep the pencil line as straight as possible. Start at the bottom corner of the heart and work your way around. This is what makes the heart shape, so do your best. As soon as you've gathered it all the way around the heart, rubber band it on the pencil line to secure it.
4. Place 2 more rubber bands down the shirt for color separation.
5. Prepare dye according to the directions, and dye the shirts making sure to get into the fabric crevices. Let the yellow overlap the red a little to let it bleed and create the orange "flames" around the heart. The colors go on in the order shown:
6. Finish your shirt according to the directions on your dye. (For mine, we put the shirts in plastic bags for 8 hours and then washed them in hot water).
7. Let the shirts dry.
When the shirt is dry...
You can decorate it to be a "Sacred Heart" by drawing on a crown of thorns and a cross. I used a sharpie, but I suppose an actual fabric marker would also do the trick ;-) Either way, put a piece of paper under where you are working to prevent the marker from bleeding through to the back of the shirt.
You can make an "Immaculate Heart" by decorating the heart with roses. I did this 2 different ways:
1. Use a rose stamp to create the roses using white acrylic paint. I think acrylic paint is best because it dries so quickly, and lets face it- you've already had to wait for these shirts to dry once! This is a great way to go if you're making these shirts for a whole youth group or something. I found my rose stamp in the one dollar bins at Michael's.
2. Or, you can sew on little fabric roses. At Michael's, you can get 10 of them for $0.99! :-)
About the Sacred and Immaculate Heart Images:
Both hearts are surrounded by light and flames. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is depicted surrounded by a crown of thorns, and has a cross on top. The Immaculate Heart of Mary is surrounded by roses. Sometimes (like on the miraculous metal) it is also pierced with a sword. I was sure my girls would rather have just roses on their shirts ;-)
How to Tie Dye a Divine Mercy Shirt *a masculine alternative to a heart t-shirt ;-)
1. Fold shirt in half down the middle.
2. Mark a diagonal across the shirt with a pencil. In St. Faustina's vision, the rays were coming from Jesus' heart, so I tried to make the top of this line end at at "heart height".
3. Gather the shirt on the pencil line accordian style, keeping the pencil line as straight as possible. When you've gathered it all the way across the shirt, rubber band it to hold it in place.
4. Add 2 more rubber bands, one on each side of the original. (This will keep the best "V" shape).
5. Dye the 2 rubber-banded sections with the red and blue dye. Then, dilute the blue dye and use for the remainder of the shirt. (For the diluted dye, I added 3 parts water to 1 part prepared dye). Alternatively, you could leave the remainder of the shirt white, but I had too many accidental blue splatters on the shirt to make that possible for mine.
6. Finish your shirt according to the directions on your dye. (For mine, we put the shirts in plastic bags for 8 hours and then washed them in hot water).
7. When the shirt is dry, use a sharpie or fabric marker to write "Jesus I Trust in You" on the shirt. Put a piece of paper under where you are working to prevent the marker from bleeding through to the back of the shirt.
About the Divine Mercy Image:
Jesus appeared to St. Faustina, and asked her to have a painting made of this vision with the words "Jesus I Trust in You", so that's why I put it on the shirt. "The two rays denote Blood and Water. the pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls."- St. Faustina's diary. If you're crious, read more about the Divine Mercy Image.
I think these shirts would be a fantastic for a youth group or vacation bible school project where matching shirts were needed. When I went to World Youth Day with my youth group, we wore matching shirts the whole time so we could keep up with our group. These certainly would have been fun!
If you make any and put them up on your blog, please leave the link in the comments so we can all see them! :-)
Divine Mercy Sunday is this Sunday! The story is that Jesus appeared to St. Faustina and asked her to have a picture of him painted as he appeared to her. He wanted the words "Jesus I Trust in You" included on the picture. You can read more about this story here. Here is an example of the picture:
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