The Rit Blog

For the dads who enjoy a more urban lifestyle, Cindi Bisson created this neighborhood scene using craft foam that was dip-dyed in Rit.  Who knew that was possible?  The background on the card was dye-painted by drawing lines along the edge of a ruler and then heat-setting the dye in the microwave.  So easy and so much fun! 

In this card, Cindi experimented with dyeing craft foam and it worked.  The houses were die-cut from the craft foam and then dyed with Rit Tan.  The green paper and blue paper under the row of houses are dyed painted with Rit and dried in the microwave.  The “plaid” design paper was created by dye-painting lines along the edge of a ruler directly onto watercolor paper.  Paired with a piece of metallic bronze cardstock and square copper brads, the result is a card fit for “the Best Dad in the Neighborhood.”  Card is made to fit inside a standard size letter envelope.  For the complete tutorial, click here. 

Cindi is a mixed-media artist and the Associate Producer for When Creativity Knocks, an online craft TV show (www.WhenCreativityKnocks.com).  She creates a weekly Simple Solutions project and writes a Product Review for the website.  To find out more about Cindi, visit her blog at www.FatCatCreations.blogspot.com

For those dads who love the outdoors, Cindi Bisson created this card with a winter woods theme.  She dyed dictionary paper, dried it in the microwave and then stamped branch and tree images over it, using Rit dye right out of the bottle!  As an element of surprise, she added dyed drywall tape.

Who would guess that drywall tape could be dyed?  Cindi cut strips of drywall tape about 5” long and dipped them into hot dye for about 2 minutes and then let them dry on paper towels.

Next she crumpled up sheets of dictionary pattered paper and immersed them in a hot dye mixture for 1 minute.  Then she placed them on paper towels and heat set them in the microwave for 1 minute.  Next she stamped branches, trees and a moose using Rit right out to the bottle and heat set them in the microwave.  The buttons were dyed, too! What a fun way to honor dad on Father’s Day!  Click here for the full tutorial.

Cindi is a mixed-media artist and the Associate Producer for When Creativity Knocks, an online craft TV show (www.WhenCreativityKnocks.com).  She creates a weekly Simple Solutions project and writes a Product Review for the website.  To find out more about Cindi, visit her blog at www.FatCatCreations.blogspot.com

Melony Bradley created these delightful dyed napkin rings for the May/June issue of Somerset Life, published by Stampington & Company.  The unfinished wooden bird shapes were dipped in trendy custom colors created from dye recipes in the Rit Color Formula Guide.  For added interest, decorative ribbons and buttons were added as embellishments.

To create the custom colors, Melony followed the custom dye recipes for Peach #115 ( Yellow-Orange palette), Blue Curacao #565 (Blue-Green palette), Orange/Peach #463 (Yellow-Orange palette) and Orange #96 (Orange palette) by mixing small amounts of dye in 1 cup of hot water.  Then she poured the dye into plastic bags and immersed the bird shapes, napkin rings, and wings into the various dye colors for 15 – 20 minutes.  After they dried, Melony stamped designs on the birds and sealed them with polyurethane.  It’s so easy and so much fun!  For the full tutorial, click here. 

Living in a small town in south Georgia, Melony has been designing full-time for the creative industry since 2004. Her work has been published in national consumer craft and lifestyle magazines, including Women's World, Cloth Paper Scissors, Crafts’ n Things, Create & Decorate, Green Craft Magazine, Altered Couture and Somerset Life, Sew Somerset and Somerset Gallery. Hope over to her blog to see her colorful creative projects.

www.mel-designs.typepad.com

Here’s a last-minute Mother’s Day gift you can make for someone you love!  Carla created this wall art sachet by dye-staining a wood shadow box to house a heart she dyed and then stuffed with fiberfill and dried lavender. So it’s sure to smell good all year long.  As a finishing touch, you can add a special hand-written message.

To get started, Carla hand-dyed one piece of cotton fabric and twine in Fuchsia dye.  Then she dyed a second piece of fabric and cotton twine in Sunshine Orange.  The wood shadow box was dye-stained using Aquamarine dye.  Then she cut a piece of chipboard to fit in the bottom of the shadow box and covered it with the Fuchsia dyed fabric and glued the Sunshine Orange twine around the perimeter.  The heart shape was cut from the Sunshine Orange fabric.  Then Carla hand-stitched around the edge of the heart with Aquamarine dyed twine, gathered it and stuffed it with fiberfill and lavender sachet, and glued it in the shadow box.  The flower was formed from the dyed twine.  Using a dark brown ink pen, she wrote “Happy Home, Happy Heart” on cardstock.  Click here for the full tutorial. 

Carla Schauer is an independent designer, licensed artist and a lover of color and patterns. Her designs include memory art, 3-dimensional crafts, scrapbooking, card making, mixed-media art and home decor. Carla also creates surface art for licensing. Her work can be seen at her website, www.carlaschauer.com and on her blog http://carlaschauer.com/carla-schauer-blog-whats-new/.