Tag Tuesday--Dyed Wood Magnet Signs

I was recently working with some Rit liquid dye for an upcoming project, and since I was making several batches of dye in different colors, I decided to add some extra materials to the dye baths at the same time. I usually have some extra room in the containers when I dye, so filling up some of that space with ribbon, extra fabric scraps, buttons, or other materials is a great way to refresh some supplies that may be just sitting around. I used these extra pieces to make the dyed wood tags for this week’s Tag Tuesday.

I started with small plain wood signs that I got in a big mixed bag from Pat Catan’s eons ago. I’ll admit to having them in my stash longer than I intended, but adding them to a dye bath never occurred to me before. *facepalm* Here’s what they looked like straight out of the bag:

and after I removed the original wires and added them to the dye bath (Aquamarine dye, package directions).

My other project involved painting the dye on another surface, so I just left the signs in the bath while I created it. In general, the longer a material sits in the bath, the more dye is absorbed. In the interest of full disclosure, frankly, I forgot I had the signs in there. Whoops! I’m guessing they were in there a little over an hour. Since the dye bath is supposed to remain hot, I covered the container with plastic wrap and put it in the microwave for a minute to reheat and set the dye in the wood. Once the dye had cooled a bit, I set the signs outside for a couple hours to dry completely.

I had added a few yards of thick cotton baker’s twine and some buttons to the other dye baths (Fuschia and Sunshine Orange). The twine made it into the other project, but the buttons didn’t. I really liked the fun ombre look they ended up with, so I added them to these wood pieces as well. The twine rosettes were simple wraps secured with liquid glue.

I replaced the original wire with some pink and orange colored wire, and added some sanded, brown, label-looking words. With some different words, they would make great gift or scrapbook tags. I’ll be adding magnets to the back of mine for my studio goal board.