Have you ever bought a bouquet of flowers or cut them out of your garden and really wished they were another color? Maybe you want orange and black flowers for a Halloween party or blue ones for the Fourth of July?

Well, it's not that hard to change the color of light-colored flowers. With a little creativity, you can turn white or light pink flowers into fabulous, bold colors.

The easiest way to dye flowers is with food dye or ink. This method will take up to 24 hours, since the flowers have to soak up as much dye as possible. You probably remember doing a science experiment in elementary school where you put a carnation in a cup of dyed water and waited for it to turn a different color. It's the same process. 

How to Dye a Flower

Choose a light colored flower. Preferably white, but light pink, light yellow or ivory will work too. It can be almost anything, including roses, carnations, Queen Anne's lace or daisies. You want a flower with a non-woody stem, meaning it should be fairly supple.

Prepare your dye. Choose what color you want to make your flowers. Put 25-30 (or more if you want the color brighter) drops of dye into a cup of water. Mix colors to get custom colors. To make it more pastel, add more water. 

Cut your flower's stem. Cutting the stem under running water at a very sharp angle will give you the best results. The sharper the angle, the more surface area there is for the dye to be taken up through.

Place the flowers in the water. Sit and wait. How long it takes will depend on the length of the stem and type of flower. You'll want to experiment with this before doing it for a special occasion. 

More Creative Ways to Dye a Flower

You can create multi-colored flowers by splitting the stem about 2/3 of the way up and dipping each section into different colors. This will take a lot of experimentation to get the desired look. To get a rainbow look, you can actually split the stems into more than two sections and add more colors.

Another fun way is to make the center a different color than the edges. Do this by dyeing the flower one color and then putting the flower in a deeper color. This will make the center darker than the edges. 

Have fun with this! Get the kids involved. It's science AND fun! 

Photo Credit:  K'vitsh, Creative Commons 2.0