Crafts: How to Dye Doilies

Have you ever seen the doily garlands that they use at weddings and bridal showers? Not only do they fold doilies in half and string them to make an awesome garland but they also make them into flowers and create garlands (just search Pinterest for Doily decor and you will see tons of projects with doilies).  I thought they were really pretty and perfect for my sister's Bridal (wedding) shower. However the colors of the shower were peach and mint, not a very easy color scheme to find matching doilies in. I know I could have just used plain white doilies, but where is the fun in that? Instead I chose to dye the doilies myself. Here is how you do it:

Step One: purchase your doilies (I bought mine at Michaels and Hobby Lobby). and purchase food coloring (if you don't already have it). If you are going to be treading it onto twine for a garland then you will need to purchase twine (I also made flower garlands so I used green construction paper for leaves).

Step Two: Fill a frying pan with a very small amount of water (just enough to really cover the bottom of the pan). Add food coloring to the water. You want to add a lot of food coloring, it takes several drops to get the color dark enough to really give the doily a good color.

Step Three: separate the doilies. Place them into the frying pan one at a time. You can layer them onto each other (I did a max of ten at one time). But be sure you place them in one at a time. Let the entire doily get covered in the water and color before you place in the next doily. Leave them in for at least 20 seconds, you can leave them in for about a minute if you need to but it gets harder to take them out after too long.

Step Four: lay paper towels out on your table/counter. Carefully remove the doilies one at a time and lay them flat on the paper towels (do not layering them on the towels, you do not want them to touch).

Step Five: pat the top side of the doily with a paper towel to remove any excess water/dye, be very careful, just pat it lightly. Let the doily dry for a good 5-10 minutes. Then flip it over and move it to a new dry paper towel to dry the rest of the way (takes about 10-20 minutes for small ones to dry).


How to make the strung doily garland:

Step One: Take the now dry doilies and cut them in half.

Step Two: using twine thread it into one of the doily holes near the top where it was cut. Then string it back in the other side. Continue to do this until you have a garland the length you desire.

How to make the Doily flower garland:

Step One: Use the small 6" doilies

Step Two: Fold the doilies in half, now push in the two "corners" that were created by making the fold. Bunch up the opposite two sides and put hot glue in the center to hold it all together.

Step Three: Cut a piece of twine the length you desire

Step Four: Using construction paper cut out leaf shapes and then use hot glue to glue them onto the twine (you can do single or double leaves).

Step Five: Use hot glue to glue the bottom of the flower onto the leaves.

March: St. Patrick's Day Display

 St. Patrick's Day display:

 It's St.Patrick's Day and it's time to make the library pinch proof! Displays featuring all books in a single color are popular. I have seen several versions on Pinterest and various blogs with captions such as "I don't know the name but the cover was blue." St. Patrick's Day is the perfect time to pull all your green books and feature them in a display!

To liven up the display a bit I added some "gold coins." These are cute circle garlands in bright yellow. I cut the garland into several pieces and taped it behind and between books on the shelves. You can find the garland and similar items on Etsy at BaileyHadAParty

I then added paper shamrocks to the display. You can make these in several ways but what I found easiest was to cut out hearts. I then tapped together 3 or 4 hearts depending on if I wanted a three leaf or a four leaf clover. You could also take the 3d layered hearts that I used in the Blind Date with a Book display and put three or four of those hearts together to make an unique shamrock.

I would love to hear about your St. Patrick's Day displays!