Dyeing Sequins Part 1

Sequins seem to be pretty hot in the card making world these days. I bought a huge bag a month ago of "shiny" sequins at the craft store but the ones I am seeing are light and iridescent in color. Ellen Hutson had some pretty ones in her store but I couldn't decide on the "perfect" colors so I just bought the plain white and vanilla ones. I started to regret that this weekend.

I decided I was going to do an "experiment" and dye my own. I did a Google search for dyeing sequins and came up nada. I was very disappointed. I didn't let that stop me. I took out some re-inkers from Paper Trey Ink and a bottle of alcohol and decided I was going to make alcohol ink. I figured that might work. (I apologize for the horrible photos. I need to a) learn how to take photos off auto and b) get a light box!!)

I literally just poured the alcohol in the cups and put as many re-inker drops into it as I thought would get results. I put the most ink in the yellow solution, thinking this would make them yellow. My whole room smelled nasty!! I didn't even realize it until Charlotte came in and remarked on it.

I even added a fourth solution of alcohol and pink dye after I took these photos. I used my white sequins and left them in for about an hour. I wouldn't say this was a total success. Below is how they came out.

The lightest sequins are supposed to be yellow but look more ivory. Like I said, I used the most ink in this solution. The green were OK but they did not evenly dyed. They were all flat in the bottom of the container, none on top of each other so that should not have happened. I don't like the effect.  The blue and the pink came out pretty good. So the I guess the result of this experiment was 50/50.

So my conclusion is that alcohol inks are OK for some colors but I need something stronger for others. I did a search on dying buttons AFTER I did this experiment and found a tutorial at the RIT website. I am going to try using RIT dye next time. I will let you know if it works!!

Nora