To Dye For

Just playing around with color -- Rit Liquid Dye (tangerine) to be precise.

The idea was to dye some wooden beads and string them for a simple summery necklace.




It didn't take long (10 minutes?) for the unfinished wood to soak up a nice shade of orange. Also pictured are a couple of beads that were colored with marking pens, then given a light wash of diluted acrylic paint.

I thought it might be fun to see if I could jazz them up a bit with a little primitive decoration, so out came the wood burning tool --






Burned beads are on the left -- I think I like the looks of the undyed one best. Just a little dicey working with such small surfaces -- careful not to burn those fingers!

Of course, there's always dye left over, and who wants to waste? So, a mad dash through the sewing room to find some stuff to dunk. How about a little lace and some buttons? Still the same dye bath as the beads, but isn't it interesting how different materials take up the dye differently?




Nylon lace, natural shell buttons on the left, plastic (I think) buttons on the right.

Now, I wish I had some different colors to play around with -- that was fun!