Flower brooch hand dyed in burgundy

I keep experimenting with hand dyeing. It's such a rewarding and inspiring process. So many new ideas come to life when one starts mixing colors. The end result is always a surprise and the whole process is much fun!

I hand felted many many wool petals for my flower brooches and dyed them in my freshest color mix. The final dye color is more like a burgundy with hints of red and even yellow. It's such an interesting color that is not eye popping bright but rather stylish and elegant.

I've assembled my petals into a flower brooch with a hand crocheted jute base that I had made earlier. The brooch looks like a flower and will no doubt decorate any outfit. It will go well with any office neutral colors especially the ones with hues of light green, dusty pink and pale blue.

My Red Rose brooch featured on Etsy Front Page

It's so cool that my Red Rose brooch was featured on Etsy Front Page today in a beautiful red and white treasury curated by Baronyka. Thank you so much for creating such an amazing collection and featuring me in it!

How to dye in green with blue and yellow drink mixes

Since I bought Kool Aid brink mix in blue raspberry I now have all prime colors I need for dyeing. I am eager to start experimenting with mixing different colors and creating new ones. My first experiment will be in mixing a bright green color. We will need one pack of yellow drink mix. For that we can use lemon Kool Aid. In addition we will need a blue drink mix and blue raspberry Kool Aid works just fine.

I mix both drinks in a plastic container. It makes sense to first make a yellow mix and start slowly adding blue drink mix into the container with yellow water. Keep stirring for colors to mix well. I suggest you do it slowly so that you can control the hue of green and stop when you think the color of the mix is the one you are looking for. I've noticed that for a pack of yellow mix I used about 2/3 the blue one.

I dyed my hand felted white wool pieces in the mixture of two drinks and got brightly colored green stripes.
Now it's time to turn them into something nice and beautiful. I assembled white and green pieces of wool on a base that I hand crocheted from jute earlier. The green color turned out to be even better than I've expected. It's a true positive and happy green. The brooch is bright and vivid making it a great accessory.

Dyeing hand felted bracelet with blue Kool Aid

Since I bought plenty of blue colored Kool Aid on line I continue experimenting with dyeing different hand felted items in bright blue. This time I decided to create a hand felted bracelet.

I first hand felted eight beads mixing white and dark blue wool. To read more about how to make wool beads please visit my earlier post.

To create a blue dyeing mixture I poured Kool Aid blue raspberry drink mix into a plastic container with water. It's important to stir the mixture well before soaking beads in it. Thus, the color will be applied equally on all the beads.

When my dyeing mixture is ready I placed all my eight hand felted wool beads into the container and microwaved it for about 3 minutes or until it starts boiling. Don't overheat the beads as they can get burned! Please be careful handling beads after the microwave as they get extremely hot!

My beads absorbed bright blue color. They now look like marbles with spots of light and dark blue.

Dyed beads could be turned into a necklace, a bracelet or a pair of earrings. I decided to create a jewelry set this time. First I made a bracelet chaining six beads together. I still have two blue beads left. They will look great as a pair of earrings.

The set is of bright colors of sea waters, ocean lagoon and sky. It's completely unique as beads were hand dyed and now have their own special color. That's the beauty of hand dyeing. It creates unique colors and special items!

How to dye with a bright blue Kool Aid drink mix

I finally found the bright blue drink mix I was looking for. The Kool Aid drink mix in blue raspberry has exactly the color I needed to create happy blue items for my on-line shop. It's not easy to get by in local supermarkets. For some reason stores normally don't carry this particular color. However, one can always buy it on the Internet.

To dye with blue drink mix you will need to create felted wool layers first. We will felt white wool and dye it later. To learn about felting you are always welcome to read my earlier post on how to hand dye a flower brooch. When the layers are ready just pour water in a plastic container with blue drink mix and stir it well. Place all your layers in the container and microwave until it starts boiling.

Let your bright blue felted wool layers cool as they are extremely hot in the beginning and gently squeeze the wool until somewhat dry. I usually let my wool dry overnight.
When our bright blue layers are ready we can use them to create a brooch. I personally like to mix colors so to create my brooch I added a few layers of dark blue hand felted wool. The result is a bright and vivid brooch that will go well with happy colors of the summer.

Clematis flowers in purple, tender pink and white

I love taking pictures of flowers. Most of the flowers are so exquisite, tender and glamorous! Even if they are not flowers still somehow radiate positive energy and happiness. Clematis with its wide range of purple, violet and pink hues definitely deserves to be noticed. A unique shape of the flower's petals and stamens makes it a great object for macro photography.

As a result I've got a number of abstract images of clematis colored mulberry, orchid, pale pink, purple and white. All the curves and twists add sophistication to the images.

The flowers could be a great inspiration for artists and craftsmen. Their tender color mixes and delicate lines could inspire jewelry makers, felting artists and many other wonderful members of hand making community to produce unique and stylishly colored pieces.

There are over 200 pieces of Clematis that comes in a wide variety of shapes and colors. The plant is relatively easy to grow. It doesn’t take too much space. Clematis is a climbing plant that could be grown into a beautiful fence in your yard.

Deep greens of the summer

With spring bloom almost over we are moving towards a more subtle green summer season. However, greens are not boring! The deep green color of leaves, grass and trees comes in a lot of different hues.

We still can find fresh and young leaves that have this optimistic color of lime. They are tender and fragile and it will take them some time to turn into deep green mid summer leaves.

Don't get upset that all the spring flowers are gone. Take your camera and go for a picture hunt in the green of the summer! I promise you will find lots of cool green objects worth to be displayed on your living room's wall.

How to color with green lime drink mix dye

I've been looking for a green drink mix for a long time and finally found it! Unfortunately Kool Aid doesn't come in green. If it did it would make out life so much easier!!! I came across this lime green drink mix in our local super market and decided to try it out. It worked out pretty well!

To dye wool with the green drink mix I took two cups of the mix and mixed it with half a glass of water. The water turned the color of the bottle label. That was exactly the color I was searching for a long time. It's the color of lime, lettuce and fresh spring greens.

I hand felted a piece of white wool using soap and hot water. To learn about hand felting techniques please refer to my earlier post about hand felting. While still wet I placed my felted piece into a plastic container with the green drink mix and heated it in a microwave. Be careful not to overheat the wool as it can get burned. Normally I'll just wait for the whole thing to start boiling and take it out of the microwave. Then I let the piece dry somewhere.

When all my pieces of wool are dry it's time to turn them into something wearable. To create my brooch I first hand felted white wool, dark green wool and wine colored bead. Then I hand crocheted the base and colored white wool with the lime green drink mix. When all the pieces were dry and ready to use I assembled the brooch and attached a pin at the back. The lime colored wool looks beautiful and bright. I'm now anxious to hand felt a scarf and color it green!