Friday, October 24, 2014

Dyed Bottle Brush Trees {DIYish}

I stumbled upon this little video last year.......watch it.......it's lovely. 



And I've been waiting for the holidays to roll around ever since so I could make these myself.  For the most part I've followed her tutorial exactly.  I use the same little natural colored trees that she recommends.  I found some at Joannes, some on a scrap book website and bonus--I just discovered that at Jo-Ann's online they are on sale for 1/2 half; five trees for $4.79. 

I use a different brand of dye than she does. And really, the only reason for this was that when I was at Jo-Ann's I discovered fiber dye already in little spray bottles (she used dye in dropper bottles and then had to mix the colors herself in her own spray bottles). I understand that buying the dropper bottles of dye and mixing the colors yourself might save you money in the long run because you could make various shades of one color by adding more or less drops of dye to your mix but I figured out the cost of the dropper bottles of dye I'd need to buy plus all the different little spray bottles and in the end it really wasn't much more to just buy ready-to-spray dye. 

I used this brand (also on sale right now--and you can probably spray two trees per bottle with this brand), and this brand (on sale as well right now and hands down my favorite!). The second brand of dye has more color intensity, better quality pumps on the spray bottle so you don't get dye all over your hands, and you get more dye for the dollar.

Some tips for you if you're going to do this, and you totally should:

1.  Wear rubber gloves. I don't know how she doesn't in the video and not have dye all over.
2.  Bend your little trees around before you spray them and make sure they'll stand up.  You'll want them to stand up to dry once you dye them and messing around with getting them to stand up once you've sprayed them gets messy.
3. Even though you'll tape the bases of the trees (use washi tape) to keep them clean you'll still get dye on them--it will just seep through.  It's really no big deal and not that noticeable once you have them up and all together.
4.  Mix various shades of dye to get more colors.

Hope you have fun with this!  I'm thinking these little trees will have a place in my home for years to come!

My collection so far….I'm going to make about twenty more. 
Because I can't stop. 

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