Dip Dying - Ombre Lamp Shades

Since our first dip dying ombre shirt project was such a success, we wanted to get a little more adventurous and try this method on a different medium - lamp shades. Yes, I said lamp shades.

Materials and Tools

• 1 8-oz bottle of Rit Dye Liquid in the color of your choice (ours is in Aquamarine). We recommend liquid dye over powder dye, as liquid dye dissolves much faster in water and doesn't leave dye marks. 
• 1 fabric lamp shade (ours is from IKEA) 
• 1 large plastic bag to cover the drying area
• Rubber gloves 
• Salt

Process

Step 1:

Depending on the size of the shade, use a tub or a sink. Fill the sink with hot water to your desired level. Add half a bottle of dye and a handful of salt, then stir until the dye is fully dissolved. 

Step 2:

Dip the shade in the sink to where you want the color to start. Add more water if needed. Make sure the shade sits evenly in the sink, and let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes. 

Step 3:

Place the shade on a large plastic bag to dry. To create the next layer of colour, reduce the water level, and add 1/4 bottle of dye. Put the lampshade back in and let it sit for 20 minutes. Repeat this step one last time with less water and more dye to create the last layer of color. 

Step 4:

Let the lampshade dry for at least 36 hours. If there are water marks on the shade, use a Tide-to-Go pen to erase the marks. 

Final Result

Before: 

After: 

Dip Dying - Ombre Shirts

To say that we love ombre is an understatement, not only do we both own matching ombre denim shirts, every time we pass by ANYTHING ombre, whether if its hair, a painting, a rug, street art, we both scream "OMG LOOK OMBRE." Nobody really understands our excitement.

So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that we decided to base our projects on this very technique - ombre dip dyed shirts! 

Materials:

• A white cotton shirt
• Rit dye in Fuschia 
• Hot water
• Salt
• Plastic Tub
• Stirring spoon

Process:

Step 1:

First thing we did was to fill our small plastic tub halfway with hot water. We then stirred in one tablespoon of the dye and added a handful of salt. (You can easily use the instructions on the packaging for this). One mistake we did make was to not stir long enough for the powder dye, just because this resulted in granules on the shirt itself as well as everywhere else! Therefore, we recommend using the liquid dye instead.

Step 2:

Get Dying, we slowly dipped the shirt inside the dye, to the length we wanted the shirt to be dyed up till. We then let the shirt sit in the dye for approximately 10 minutes. 

Step 3:

The coolest step - getting the ombre effect. So we removed the shirt from the dye, and stirred in an additional tablespoon of dye to the hot water (REMEMBER STIR WELL). We then dipped the ends of the shirt into the darker fuschia dye and again, let it sit for 10 additional minutes. If you wanted to achieve a more layered effect, you can continue these steps until you get your desired ombre style.

Step 4:

We let this hang dry for at least 24 hours and then hand washed the shirt with cold water to let all the excess color leave (a lot of the color bled, so prepare to clean up the mess). Then we just tossed our shirt into the washing machine on cold (separately of course) as well as in the dryer. After this process, the colors were completely intact and did not bleed at all!

Final Results

Before:

(next project will involve mom's white shirt and some neon dye)

After: