It’s Party Time… Dip-Dyed Style

My lovely big sis had a birthday a few weeks ago and in honor or her big day, my mother and I put together a little dinner party to celebrate. Way back when, in our first post, I mentioned my desire to try out some dip-dying party decor inspired by some dip-dyed streamer. Here was my chance and I absolutely love how it turned out. I also think this would be an absolutely beautiful way to decorate for an Easter brunch or dinner.

I dip-dyed a table runner, place cards, drink stirrers, cupcake liners, streamers and white pillar candles. For everything except the pillar candles, I used gel food coloring to make the dye. Just a few drops of the gel, a little water and you’re ready to get dying. If you wanted to dye fabric you would need to get a stronger dye specially designed for fabric to ensure that it will stay dyed after being laundered.

The table runner is simply white wrapping paper dipped in the food coloring dye. It’s best to roll the paper loosely so the dye will be able to reach each level (no worries if it doesn’t though because you can always do some touchup by dipping some paper towels into the dye and then dabbing the dye on the blank spots). Also, be sure to do one side and then let it dry before dipping the other side to avoid having the dye run.

For the place cards, I printed them out of a thicker stock of paper so they wouldn’t buckle too much from the dye. They still did a little bit but I like the effect. I also made to sure to dip them several times (drying in-between) to give the dye more dimension.

The wax on the candles won’t take the dye from the food coloring (not sure if it would work with fabric dye but let me know if you try and it does). Instead I simply took a teal stamp pad and dabbed it on the candle and then rubbed off the excess with a paper towel to give it the dip-dyed look.

Of course we had to celebrate with some bubble and of course there were decorative drink stirrers. I made these out of strips of tissue paper (about 1″ x 5″). I lightly rolled the strips and dipped them in the dye. Then, I gently unrolled the paper and let them dry on a drying rack. Once dry I cut fringes into the paper about half way through and then glued the paper onto wooden skewers with a glue stick (skip the Elmers or glue gun because the tissue paper is too fragile). Once you get the paper glued on, ruffle the fringes a little.

I love how these cupcake liners turned out! It did take a little trial and error though to get it right. When placing the liners in the cupcake pan before filling, be sure to have two dyed liners in each up. If you just use one, the white of the liner takes on the color of the cake and doesn’t give you the same effect. Having both liners keeps the white white and lets the dye pop.

The final decoration that I dip-dyed was a roll of streamers. Unfortunately, they didn’t turn out as well as I hoped, leaving a few areas void of the dye. It turned out looking more like I just dyed the edges on the inner part of the streamers rather than doing a full dip-dye. Oh well, I still think it looked cool.

It was a great evening celebrating with my family and I can’t wait for us to get together for our next celebration!

 

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