Monday, April 16, 2012

Dyed pearls from Martha for I Might Make That! Monday

Dyed pearl and ribbon necklace
from Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart certainly doesn't need any promotional help from me, but this tute is old enough that I thought it might be new to readers.

At this link, which dates back to March 2008,  Martha shows how to use plain ol' Rit dye to custom-color glass pearls. It looks easy-peasy, and there is a video as well as written instructions.

I think it would be cool to make a lot of pearls with varying saturations of color for a monochromatic color palette--just by simply leaving them in the bowl of dye for longer and longer intervals.

There are separate instructions for threading the dyed pearls onto the ribbon. Lots of people have done this, but I like the twisted effect of hers. I also adore the richness of her chocolate version, above, and how the pearls have been dyed to match the ribbon perfectly.

I do love pearls, both freshwater and fake.
Crocheted ribbon earrings

And here's a bonus tute for crocheters (unfortunately, I am not): crocheted ribbon and pearl earrings. Wouldn't they be cute to pair with the ribbon necklace? They are from Valerie for Mommy Tyme Gifts and showed up on FaveCrafts.

P.S. I've noticed I've gotten a few new followers recently. Welcome! If you're new to this weekly feature, an archive of past I Might Make That! entries can be found at the link in the top right-hand corner.

2 comments:

  1. I love pearls too and the necklace is fantastic! Crocheted errings are cute!! Greetings fron Italy :-)

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  2. I've dyed pearls before and just want to add a caution from my own experience.
    If you want the hue (actual colour - shade refers to intensity of a colour) to be the same, you can't use a random collection of pearls gathered over a few years or two. You need to make sure all the pearls were bought together from the same supplier. Otherwise, they *may* turn out the same colour or they may be noticeably different.

    I'm guessing the reason is different manufacturers use slightly different coatings on their glass pearls and so they absorb colours differently. One batch I tried dyeing a soft brown colour ranged from the colour I wanted to some that were a sickly mustard yellow!

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