The Global Styler: DIY Ice Dyed Napkins

Happy June! First of all, I wanted to thank you for all of the sweet comments I received on Instagram and Facebook regarding the post on Apartment Therapy. If you missed it, you can find it here. I always say this but I’m just so thankful to have found a place that I get to be creative and inspired and share that with others. God is good!

Back to regularly scheduled programming. It’s the first Monday in June which means it’s time for another edition of The Global Styler! It’s a blog series where I get together with my friends from A Designer at Home, Up to Date Interiors and Casa Watkins Living to bring you globally influenced DIY’s and decor tips.

This month, we’re talking about global table decor. That was perfect
because I have some very dingy cloth napkins that I’ve been wanting to
make better through ice dying.

We use cloth napkins for every meal. With little kids. Who like pasta and pizza and haven’t been to finishing school…..Are you picturing those napkins? In November, for my birthday, I decided it was time to get a new set. Isn’t that such an exciting birthday present? I know.. Anyway, I was having a hard time deciding on color. I didn’t know if colored napkins would hide stains well or if they would look bad with grease stains…you know, really important things.. I ultimately decided on these white ones, thinking they would be easily bleach-able. They aren’t. You’re welcome.

It was the problem of the dingy napkins that led me down the path of dying them. And not just dyeing them a solid color, because I would be met with the same stain and grease issue once again. Enter ice dyeing.

I’ve shared my love of dyeing things here. And more recently I dip dyed a wooden animal head for the girls playroom. Dye can be so good for bringing new life to something. I had read about ice dyeing and how it gives the look of tie dye but maybe more subtle.. I don’t know first hand, but I was happy to try and find out….and to make our yuck napkins look nice again.

First, I washed the napkins for a fresh start. Left them wet. Then my assistant crumpled them up and put them in a plastic bucket.

If you noticed that the napkins don’t look white, it’s because I originally tried to tea stain them. They just ended up looking dirtier..

After the wet napkins were very carefully thrown in and crumpled up, we covered the top in ice cubes.

I used 3 boxes of RIT powdered dye, one in ‘black’, one in
‘petal pink’ and one in ‘wine’. After having done this, you don’t
really need 3 colors. One or two would have worked but I wanted a little more
variation in color.

I ripped open each packet and shook the baggie over the ice, trying to spread out the dye evenly. I used all of the pink and wine and only used half of the black dye.

Side note, I had to throw the rest of our ice out because I left the remaining ice and the bucket from our freezer downwind of the dye….Geez.

I moved the bucket out into the sun and let the ice melt and do it’s thing with the dye.

This picture was taken about an hour later. The dye melted down into the napkins along with the ice.

I left it about another hour and then pulled the napkins out and rinsed them with a hose. You can see from the pictures below that there was lots of color variation before I washed them. I really liked the way they looked but I’m happy they tamed down a bit after the wash.

Feel free to wear gloves but my fingers were back to normal by that evening. : )

I carried them in and put them into the washing machine. I put them on a cycle that rinsed them twice and when I pulled them out I was so happy with the result!

They look less like tie dye and more like watercolor. I love the subtle differences in the shades.

They turned out more purple than I was hoping for but they’ll fade a bit as they get washed and they are so rich and pretty that I really love the color they are now.

I set them up on the back porch because we’ve been spending a lot of time out there lately. Sweet summertime.

Remember the longitude latitude sign I made for last month’s Global Styler? You can find that post here.

I swear that plant on the table was happy when I brought it outside but that good ole Texas heat and humidity dried it out really fast.

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I am not a tablescape expert y’all. Luckily, I know people who are. Head
over to the other posts to see more global inspired projects and
amazingly beautiful tablescape inpiration!