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Recently, I participated in a styled wedding photoshoot where I had to come up with a bright-colored bridal shower invitation suite to go with the theme. Super bright colors are not exactly my design aesthetic, but creative paper solutions are something I love to do. So I chose to buy the bright colors in Rit Dye and dip my paper instead of printing any color!
The specific color scheme for the shoot were warm colors, red, orange, and yellow, and I decided to play off the fact that red mixed with yellow creates orange. I couldn’t find much about the exact way to do this, or how it was going to turn out, but luckily, it turned out the way I thought it would. Although I tried it with red and yellow, this technique can be applied to a number of color combos!
What you’ll need:
- Cotton paper (printed or not printed) – Some options to purchase: Arches, Crane’s Lettra, Stonehenge
- Rit Dye (I used Cherry Red & Lemon Yellow)
- Containers for each dye color
- Hot tap water
- Gloves
I started this process by printing the bridal shower and thank you card design on the cotton paper. It’s super important to use cotton paper during this process – 100% cotton paper is ideal, because it soaks up the color the best. This can be a lot more expensive, but it will be worth it in the long run! I used 100# BFK Rives Printmaking paper, but you could definitely use a thicker 236# paper to do this as well. I used thinner because that can run through a printer, but 236# could be used for letterpress printing after you dip dye!
Next, I mixed up my dye. I used really big buckets and filled them up really with about 4 quarts of water because they were the only thing I could find that were big enough for me to put my 5×7 invitation in sideways. But, I found as I did it that I could have used a shallower container and put in sideways.
To mix the dye, I put on my gloves (you HAVE to wear gloves/clothes you don’t care about getting dyed in case you splash, this dye is very permanent) used hot tap water to fill up the buckets. I mixed it well with a spoon, testing the color with scrap pieces as I poured it in to get the right color. For the red color, I only used about half the bottle of Rit Dye, because it was plenty vibrant. For the yellow, I used the whole bottle, because it was a lighter color and I wanted it to be as bright as possible. Depending on how you want your colors, you may be able to use more or less color than I did.
When I had the perfect colors, I also started to test the colors together. I tested: dipping in yellow first, then red right away; dipping in red first, then yellow right away; dipping in yellow, then letting it dry completely before dipping into red; and finally dipping in red, then letting it dry completely before dipping into yellow. I was pretty sure before I did this that I would have to dip in yellow first to get an orange color, and I was right. Dipping the red first and then the yellow barely made a difference in the overlap. I also found through my tests that I liked the look of the dip after letting the yellow dry completely before dipping red. When I didn’t wait for it to dry, the colors bled into each other and created a blurry edge where they met. Although I liked how it looked, I preferred the more crisp edge I got when I let the yellow dry first.
For each piece, I dipped it fairly quickly, holding it maybe 1-2 seconds in the dye. I had read that you don’t want to hold it for too long, because it would warp the page – and there was no need to hold it for long, because it soaked up all the color immediately.
To dry, I setup a little line drying station to make sure the back of the invite didn’t get messed up while it was drying. I used string and small clothespins to hang each piece. I also put some cut up paper grocery bags underneath it so it wouldn’t drip on the floor.
The Rit Dye dried surprisingly fast, so it didn’t need to hang for long. I think I left it about 15-20 minutes, just to be sure. Then I dipped it in the second color, and let it dry for the same amount of time. The paper did warp a little bit after it was completely dry with both colors, just because of the amount of the paper I chose to dip. But, that was easily fixed by putting heavy books on top of the stack for a few hours/overnight to help flatten them.
And voila! You have a really simple and cheap way to add some beautiful color and a unique element to your stationery.
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