Dye, Cloths pins! Dye!

I found this neat project on Pinterest on how to make cloths pins colorful.  Now I know what you're thinking, painting them takes way too long!  I know, I know!  I also have been guilty of spending sacred free time painting cloths pins.  My classroom has lots and lots of blond wood in it already though and I like lots of color.  So when I saw this easy way to make cloths pins more colorful I jumped at the chance to try it.  I found it at kojo Designs.

You will need:
1. RIT dye- any color
2. containers
3. measuring cup
4. clothes pins
5. gloves (or if you're really cheap put plastic bags over your hands)
6. something to lay your cloths pins out to dry on
7. a better set of instructions than RIT's website (more on that in a minute)

Now for my favorite part:  do NOT follow the directions on the package!  RIT's website says for dying wood and wicker to use 2 cups of hot water for a whole package of dye.  Yay! No leftover parts!  This means you don't have to remember where you put the leftovers.  I hate it when that happens.  There are eight pieces of tissue paper and I only need four, then I'm expected to not lose it and to let it clutter up my home on the off chance that I might need four pieces of hot pink polka dot tissue paper.  That's why I like this project.  No extra pieces left!

So I laid out all of my supplies.

I measured out 2 cups of water in a large glass measuring cup and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes.  Then I poured it into an empty whipped cream container and mixed in my dye.  Wait a second!  This looks way darker than what I wanted...uh-oh!

This was supposed to be a nice light denim blue.  Better go back and read the instructions again.  So after I did that I discovered that they conveniently change the unit of measure from 2 cups to 2 quarts in the middle of the instructions.  That's interesting.  So since I didn't really have a bigger bowl I was willing to throw away in case the dye didn't wash out I decided to just go for it.  I stuck my cloths pins in the bowl and watched.  The instructions say soak for 10-20 minutes.  After about one minute things were already looking a little too dark.

 So I took them out after about one minute and they looked beautiful!!!  A nice deep blue, which still wasn't what I wanted but I think I'll find something to do with them.

Then I had a lot of leftover dye and since I had not used all of my cloths pins I decided to experiment and see if I could get them lighter.  I just dipped them in and pulled them right back out.  Here's what they looked like.

Now they started looking a little more how I wanted.  I like that they are now pretty colors and I didn't have to take them apart and put them back together to make them that way.  I let them dry and then put them in a bag for evil purposes later.  In case you can't see too much of a difference in color here is a comparison shot.

Next time I DIY with DYE (haha) I will use 2 quarts of hot water instead of 2 cups and let you know if that goes any better.