Two-tone Playsiks

Our coffee filter butterfly tree has gotten many a compliment (we sadly just took it down to make our Halloween tree.) If you remember we made many of our beautiful butterflies by simply dipping and hanging our coffee filters in liquid watercolors. I know I must seem mildly obsessed by dying silks but it did make me wonder if we could make play silks this way. Just dip the silk in two pots and let it sit there and soak up the colors.

In each container is filled with approx 16oz of hot water, 6oz of vinegar & a good squirt or more of food coloring. You can read more about dying play silks with kid friendly dyes here, here & here.

We left the silks to soak for 30mins or so.

The results were really quite pretty - I gave into the imperfections in the color and enjoyed the design that the process resulted in. 

 

Here is Bunny #1 running around the garden pretending to be a butterfly. 

They also make really pretty neck scarfs.

Other dyeing fun we have had:
Tissue Dyed Silk Pillows
Two Tone Play Silks
Teacher Appreciation Gift: Home Made Play Silks
Easy Silk Scarf Dyeing with Tissue Paper
Kid Friendly Dyeing - Making your own Play Silks

Home Made Play Silks: Dyes from the Kitchen Cupboard

One of the really fun things we did this Summer was discover all the things we could dye play silks with (tissue paper & food dye.) We had so much fun dying them and then playing with them. Recently we have been playing a with red cabbage water experiments - which made me think what play silks would look like dyed with these mixtures.

And why limit it to cabbage water? In my cupboard we also decided to play with turmeric, paprika & beetroot.

Here is my little chemist ready to mix away to her hearts content with the cabbage water. The pink glasses are her safety goggles .....

Cabbage

• Chop up red cabbage and add some bit water. Bring the the boil and simmer until cabbage is pale. Split the cabbage water into two pots. 
• Add silk scarf and soak for 30mins to one pot. 
• In the other pot add some vinegar - the mixture will turn dark pink - add silk scarf and soak for 30mins. 
• Once your silk scarf has finished soaking in the first pot. Remove the scarf and add in baking soda (the mixture will turn greeny blue) - add silk scarf & soak for 30mins. 

Note: Cabbage water changes color depending on its PH. When they were washed & dried the colors became much less vibrant.

Silks soaked in with cabbage water before washing

Turmeric

• Mix turmeric & water - bring to the boil - add silk scarf and soak for 30mins

Paprika

• Mix paprika & water - bring to the boil - add silk scarf and soak for 30mins.

Beetroot

• Boiled 3 chopped up beetroot in some water for about 40mins- puree everything together - add silk scarf and soak for 30mins. 

Cabbage Water = Soft Purple
Cabbage Water + Vingear = Soft Pink/Purple
Cabbage Water + Baking Soda = Silver Blue
Paprika = Gold (honestly - it is a gorgeous gold hue)
Beetroot = Cream
Turmeric = Bright Bright Yellow (just look at that yellow!! See below.)

Note: After we had soaked the silks I dried them on their own on the hottest setting on our tumble dryer (sanitize) and then put them on their own through a 20mins cold wash (no detergent) and dried them again on the hottest setting.  

I'm not sure we have anymore space for playsilks in our dress up box. I am playing with the idea of making a quilt from these. 


Other dyeing fun we have had:
Tissue Dyed Silk Pillows
Two Tone Play Silks
Teacher Appreciation Gift: Home Made Play Silks
Easy Silk Scarf Dyeing with Tissue Paper
Kid Friendly Dyeing - Making your own Play Silks

Teacher Appreciation Gift: Home Made Play Silks

My girls go to a really sweet preschool. Next year they will be moving schools - so I wanted to thank their teachers for giving them such a lovely and happy experience. I asked their movement and music teacher if there was anything she would like for her classroom and what do you know - she wanted some colored silks for the movement classes!

We decided 30" square silks would be the best size as her classes range from just under 2's to 4+.

Again I used food colors to ensure the silks were super kid friendly. I used the McCormick Assorted Food & Egg Dye and the McCormick Neon Food & Egg Dyes.

I have posted a previous post about kid friendly dyeing techniques here. But to recap -  

- Soak silk in hot tap water with a glug of vinegar while you make your mixture. (I'm in a debate about whether soaking the silks before hand is really necessary - if I do this again I will try using dry silks.)
- Mixture: 1/2 bottle of 0.25oz food coloring with 16 ounces of hot tap water + 6 ounces of vinegar.
- Squeeze water out of silk and place silk in a pyrex bowl with the dye mixture.
- Leave it there and stir occasionally - you will see when the dye has been absorbed as the liquid will become a lot clearer - approx 20 mins - although we did leave ours hanging around most of the afternoon.

- Rinse in cold wash & dry on hottest cycle in tumble dryer.

Amazingly bright colors. My only disappointment was that the neon 'pink' and the assorted 'red' are practically the same hue.

TIP: If your silk ends up looking like this first try (I rushed it) do not panic - just make another mixture of dye, water & vinegar and resoak the silk.

You can see how bright the green came out (far left) on the second soak.

Kid Friendly Dyeing - Making your own Play Silks

I have wanted to make some play silks for the girls for a long time.  Play silks can be used in a multitude of ways in creative play to stimulate a child's imagination. They can be used as blankets, for dress up, for doll play, in dance, flags & forts etc If you don't have time to make your own silks and just want to buy them these websites will help you Sarah's Silks or Magic Cabin.

I wanted to be able to make the silks in fastest possible way which was kid friendly and non toxic. I googled about Kool Aid dying, winged it with the Easter Egg Dye and used the information here to experiment with tissue paper.

To see if these dying methods would succeed or fail I also made a sample without the kids using Tulip fabric dye. Here are the results.

Kool-Aid (powder) (Tropical Punch - Dye Red 40)
- Soak silk in hot tap water with a glug of vinegar while you make your mixture.
- Mixture: We used 2 package of unsweetened Kool-Aid with 12 ounces of hot tap water + 4 ounces of vinegar.
- Squeeze water out of silk and place silk in a pyrex bowl with the kool aid mixture.
- Microwave for 2 mins - stir and let sit for 2 mins - do this step twice.
- Rinse in cold wash (no detergent) & dry on hottest cycle in tumble dryer.
Comments: There was some mottling on the fabric - perhaps this is just a product of microwave dying but I suspect if we had used 3 packets of Kool-Aid with 18 ounces of hot tap water + 6 ounces of vinegar so the silk was submerged at all times - this might have yielded better results.

Kool-Aid (Liquid) (Tropical Punch - Dye Red 40)
- Soak silk in hot tap water with a glug of vinegar while you make your mixture.
- Mixture: We used 1 liquid Kool-Aid with 12 ounces of hot tap water + 4 ounces of vinegar.
- Squeeze water out of silk and place silk in a pyrex bowl with the kool aid mixture.
- Microwave for 2 mins - stir and let sit for 2 mins - do this step twice. - Rinse in cold wash & dry on hottest cycle in tumble dryer.
Comments: My girls really enjoyed squirting in the liquid. The mess was much more contained than with the powder sachets. The sugar in the liquid did not seem to affect the success of the dying - although the color is lighter. Some mottling - again I think we should have used more liquid.

Easter Egg Dye (McCormicks Assorted Food Colors & Egg Dye - Red 40)
- Soak silk in hot tap water with a glug of vinegar while you make your mixture.
- Mixture: We used about all I had left in the bottle (maybe 1/2 to 3/4) with 12 ounces of hot tap water + 4 ounces of vinegar.
- Squeeze water out of silk and place silk in a pyrex bowl with the mixture.
- Microwave for 2 mins - stir and let sit for 2 mins - do this step twice. - Rinse in cold wash & dry on hottest cycle in tumble dryer.
Comments: SO excited by the bright and even color - I tried this process without heating the liquid in the microwave because I wanted to find the most kid friendly process to dying these silks and IT WORKS!!! Here is my amended recipe:

Food Coloring or Paste/Gel.
- Soak silk in hot tap water with a glug of vinegar while you make your mixture.
- Mixture: 1/2 bottle of 0.25oz food coloring with 16 ounces of hot tap water + 6 ounces of vinegar.
- Squeeze water out of silk and place silk in a pyrex bowl with the mixture.
- Leave it there and stir occasionally - you will see when the dye has been absorbed as the liquid will become a lot clearer - approx 20 mins.
- Rinse in cold wash & dry on hottest cycle in tumble dryer.

Here is my pink, purple (a disaster - totally my fault), blue, yellow & green using this method.

Comments: I did notice the water did still not run clear in the washing machine after the rinse cycle. So perhaps the microwave method does produce a more colorfast product. However for ease, safety etc for dying with the kids this still by far is my favorite. Different types of food dyes did produce different results with mottling, color flecks etc.

Tissue Paper (7 sheets of red tissue paper)
- Soak silk in hot tap water with a glug of vinegar while you make your mixture.
- Lay out some glad wrap or cling film and put sheets of tissue paper 2 layers thick on top of some glad wrap or cling film - 2 layers thick. Lay your wet silk on top as flat as possible.
- Lay more sheets of tissue paper on top of your silk. We used a total of 7 sheets of tissue paper - 2 layers underneath 1layer on top.
- Sprinkle some of your water & vinegar solution on top of the tissue layers & silk.

- Fold the tissue layers in half, in half again and in half again. Squeeze and massage all the layers together for some time. (My little one enjoyed dancing on top of the package instead!)

- Leave for several hours - we left ours over night. 
- Undo your package, peel off the tissue paper.
- Rinse in cold wash & dry on hottest cycle in tumble dryer.

Comments: I liked this a lot - for the fact that it is totally kid safe, the most interactive, tactile, no hot water or microwave is needed. However the process did take the longest. The pattern where the fabric didn't touch the tissue paper looks kind of cool. I think you could make some really interesting designs/drawings with the tissue paper too. Maybe we will try that next.  

Tulip Liquid Dye (Red)

Comments: The most disappointing result by far - mainly because of the color - it is not red - I think it is orange. Granted I didn't fully follow the instructions on the packet - they didn't have instructions for use on such a small amount of liquid/material. I'll be returning the other dyes we purchased and have not used in this line. 

Further Notes: After all the silks were dry I used a hot iron on each silk. I used a front loading Electrolux Washing Machine which has a 20 minute cold rinse cycle without a spin. I used a front loading Electrolux Tumble Dyer that has a 14min 'fast dry' cycle which is at its 'sanitize' heat level (hotter that a hot cycle.) I purchased our plain silks from Dharma Trading they are 35"x35".


I hope this helps you make your own play silks at home too.