Here, the gorgeous Vicky @vickywooandaudreyboo shares her top tip for what to do with those avocado stones you typically throw away...

Lockdown has lead many down a path of banana bread and Zoom sessions, some have even claimed to learn a new language or start writing a novel… but those of us with small children have achieved such greatness as: getting dressed before 10am, “completing” Netflix or even, home tie dye using avocados..!

Yes I was jumping on a lockdown bandwagon (I saw a handful of people home dying things pink with avocado stones and skins - something I was completely unaware was a “thing” before COVID-19). It stood out as doable: my husband consumes a fair amount of this fruit, but a quick Google told me I would need around ten to achieve a decent colour. Luckily I knew that my Hove neighbours wouldn’t let me down so I What’s app’d the locals in the morning and by 2pm I already had three avocado stones with skins on my doorstep.

My next step was to find some suitable white tees to dye and my thoughts turned to the Kindness Co-op to make things a bit more interesting. I already had a vision of a tie dye circle around the little red heart at the centre of the t-shirt, I just needed to check Lucie and Charlie wouldn’t think I was defacing their brand!! As you can see, they were more than happy for me to experiment with their tees, so much so they’re hoping this blog post may inspire others..?

Ok, so I reached ten avocados, but as I’m impulsive and I don’t read things properly, once it came to dye day, I realised that I should have cleaned all the skins as soon as I got them and put everything in the freezer! The skins had developed lots of fuzzy mould! But fret not, for the stones were in good condition and again (quick Google), the skins were not crucial to the dying.

I cleaned up the stones and got ready to dye and decided to actually read the instructions more clearly, which led to more Googling when I realised I didn’t have the chemicals to “set” the dye. Thankfully not everyone felt that was crucial either! Views were also conflicting as to how long to leave the fabric in the dye, whether to leave it on the heat.. But luckily, I’m quite happy to wing it and I wasn’t precious about the finished article, so I just did what suited me.

I was convinced our “drawer of doom” was stuffed with rubber bands, but I only managed to find three and after a scour of the whole house I only had a total of four! 

T-shirt one had three rubber bands strategically placed to achieve the “bull’s eye” effect, t-shirt two had a more random approach.

So here’s what I did/what you need to do:

Choose suitable cotton white t-shirts to dye (we recommend the Kindness Co-Op Kindness Ambassador tees :)).

Check you have a very large pot and a decent supply of rubber bands.Collect avocado stones, the amount will dictate the intensity of colour (I easily dyed two children’s t-shirts with ten stones).

Best to clean them thoroughly and freeze!

Place the avocado stones in a large pan of water and heat it (to simmer) for around an hour. 

Twist the t-shirts and tie them with rubber bands (you can Google tie dye patterns to follow).

Wet them under the tap, then squeeze out excess water.

Wearing rubber gloves, place the damp, tied-up t-shirts into the hot, pink avocado water and leave it on a very low heat for a further 30-45 minutes.

I poked them under and stirred with a wooden spoon.

Turn off the heat and leave them - I started this process around 3pm in the afternoon and chose to leave them overnight. 

When you are ready to remove them (with rubber gloves on), put them straight in the sink and rinse them under a tap of lukewarm water. 

After squeezing them out, remove the rubber bands before hanging them outside to dry.

Successful (natural) tie dye!

Written by Vicky Baynton-Williams @vickywooandaudreyboo (Instagram) and Awesome Audrey Emily (Facebook).