Smelly Kool Aid Play Silks

Eleanor and I (emphasis on "I") decided to dye some silk scarves for her to play with. We saw a tutorial on the Artful Parent blog, and since I've been excited to try all of her projects because they all look wonderful, we (again, read "I") decided to do this one right away.



I went to Safeway and bought all the colors (flavors) of Kool Aid they had, seven in total. We followed the instructions to soak the scarves in hot water with a splash of vinegar and mixed up the dye. Eleanor enjoyed smelling the packets of Kool Aid and stirring (splashing) the water/vinegar/powder.



Once we got everything mixed, the tutorial calls for microwaving the scarf in the bowl with plastic wrap over it for 3 minutes. This smelled terrible to me. I don't remember ever having such an aversion to the smell of orange Kool Aid, maybe I've never smelled it before, but boiling it in the microwave filled our house with a wretched and nauseatingly sweet orange, plastic laden funk. I am serious, I can't ever remember being so averse to a smell even when I was pregnant! Anyhow, we made it through that step and I think the silks turned out great. I do wish we had been able to find a color that would make blue though. Eleanor seems to be enjoying them, even if they do still smell like Kool Aid.



Maybe next time I'll get really fancy and use onion skins and blueberries to make natural dyes. I bet they would smell nicer.