« Dyeing Flowers with Food Coloring Tutorial »
Thursday, February 7, 2013 
My Mimmie has the most amazing garden. As she's gotten older it is less frilly and has more plants that self sustain, but it has always been a thing to see. When I was little she would let me grab a couple of white flowers out of the beds and bring them in to dye them. On extremely special occasions she would even buy me a single white carnation to "pretty up".
When I was a new adult I would commonly purchase bouquets of bright and colorful flowers to liven up my living space. Now that I'm older and have a mortgage, car payment and all of that jazz a bouquet of flowers is not on my regular shopping list.
When I walked into the grocery store I saw some of the prettiest daisies that were bright pink and neon green. These weren't natural, sedate pink and green. These were very obviously altered. And I loved them. The cellophane outer wrap showed that they were $12.99. What? Aren't these still daisies we're talking about? A quick trip around the floral department found me a package of white mums for $3.99. SOLD.
Want to make your own white flowers into something colorful? You will need:
- White Flowers
- Glasses or jars
- Water
- Food Coloring (I used neon colors)
First place a decent amount of water in the bottom of your jars or glasses. Make sure that they are nice and heavy so that the weight of the flowers doesn't tip them over. The last thing you want is watered down food coloring running into your sock drawer or something.Drop in some food coloring until you get a nice, rich color. I used half a little dropper of the coloring in each jar for mine.
Also remember that you can mix colors as necessary, yellow and blue make green and all of that business.
Take your flowers and break up the bunch into as many sections as is natural. Take and cut an angle on the bottom of the stems. You can shorten as necessary for your jars/glasses. Try to remove the leaves that are near the bottom to keep them from sitting in your water and getting funky.
Place your flowers into the jars and allow to sit until you achieve the color you desire. When the color is achieved, rinse the stems well and transfer to your vase. FYI - the water will turn color the longer the flowers sit in the fresh. If your vase is clear, you may need to change the water out regularly.
The longer you keep your flowers in the dye the darker they will become. I removed mine after about 36 hours to achieve the color you see at the top of the page. Cut flowers will naturally get droopy, so remove saggy petals as they form to keep them looking pretty and fresh.
So what do you think? Will you look at cheapie white carnations and mums differently? Next time grab a few for your kids - I can tell you from experience what a wonderful thing it is to keep an eye on!
10 Minutes, Dyeing, Home Decor, Miscellany 
Reader Comments (8)
These are absolutely beautiful! I cannot wait to try this, maybe I can do it as a Valentines present to myself xo
I never realized how fast flowers can soak up the dye and change colors! I just might have to try this sometime. Seems like a fun experiment!
They were my Valentine to myself, Alice :)
It really is fun, Lauren... And come spring you'll can experiment like crazy when everything is blooming!
Oh, I did this with my mom when I was really young. Now I want to try it again, your flowers look so cool.
Thanks, Natasha :)
How long does the color last after you put them in plain fresh water?
In my experience the color outlasts the flowers. Some of the coloring lingering in the stems will dirty your clear water, though. Keep that in mind if displaying in a clear vase.