Tie-Dye Fish Tank Skirt

When we bought our fish tank & accompanying stand about 3 years ago, we were looking for cheap and easy. Nothing that needed to be assembled but also wouldn’t collapse under the tank. So we found this rinky dink thing, brought it home, loaded up fish crap underneath it and never thought about it again.

Over time we’ve said we wanted to hang a skirt or attach doors to the front of it so it would look nicer, but had never acted on those notions until a few months ago. In true Phineas & Ferb fashion I said, “You know what? We’re going to make a skirt for that thing today.” So that’s what we did.

You need:

• 1 old sheet
• rubber bands (we didn’t have any so I used thin hair ties)
• scissors
• tie dye kit
• 1 trash bag
• 2 plastic grocery bags
• 1 pack small velcro circles
• washer & dryer

Step 1: Hold the sheet with the “fat” seam towards the floor, fold over the top of the sheet until it is the height you need. Make sure to leave an extra inch or two just to be safe.

Step 2: Cut the sheet across (horizontal with the seam) as straight as you can.

Step 3: Twist, bunch & fold the sheet into as many crazy patterns as you’d like. I am no tie-dyeing expert by any means, I literally just twisted some pieces from one end to the other – using the hair ties to keep the twists in place and to create separation between areas.

Step 4: Cut a trash bag along the side seams to lay out on your working surface.

Step 5: Tie-dye! We happened to have a kit left-over from last summer that I saved, I knew it would come in handy some day. You know how this part works, dump colors all over willy nilly, get your hands completely covered, etc.

Step 6: Double up 2 grocery store bags, place your sheet in the bag, tie it up and leave it sitting somewhere for at least 2 hours (ours sat for about 3 hours because we went out to lunch and shopping)!

Step 7: Painstakingly remove all the rubber bands or hair ties, then pop the sheet in the washer on the quick wash cycle. MAKE SURE THE WATER IS COLD! Do not use detergent.

Step 8: Dry it… 20 minutes in our dryer did the trick just fine.

Step 9: Grab your velcro circles, place them along your stand as far apart as you want them. If you scroll back up to look at ours, the “pleats” that hang down are in between the velcro, just to give you an idea.

Step 10: Fold down the cut/jagged part of the sheet, hold it up to the velcro and make sure the height is good. Once it is, attach the other half of the velcro to the sheet and stick it on! (By the way, it’s a good idea to double-check the right side of the sheet is facing out)

Step 11: Keep folding the top edge down to check the height and repeat step 10 all the way across, letting as much drape down in between as you’d like.

Step 12: When you’ve attached your last velcro to the sheet, you should have extra material left. Un-do the last velcro piece to judge where you need to cut down the side. Make sure the cut is as straight as possible, hook it back up – YOU’RE DONE!

Enjoy :)