The Best Ways To Use Sola Wood Dye Colors

Sola wood flowers are perfect for decorating your home and adding a lovely touch to any occasion. Although their pristine ivory color is already beautiful, it wouldn’t be as fun, right? After all, part of what makes sola flower craft addicting is coming up with an array of color combinations and mixing paint and dye to match an event’s motif.

If you love to dye sola wood flowers, here are three of the best ways to paint sola flowers, in order of difficulty.

Dip Dyeing

Dip dyeing involves dipping your flowers to a mix of wood dye, water, and Sola Softener for a few seconds and taking it out to dry for 12 to 24 hours. That’s it! It’s easy and fun, and it only takes a few minutes to do. 

Because of its simplicity, dip dyeing remains the most popular choice for painting sola wood flowers. It does come with some limitations, though. Since you’re dipping the flowers in sola wood dye, the entire flower will be dyed the same color all throughout. This may not be the best strategy if you’re aiming for realistic flowers that have darker and lighter hues between the outer and inner petal layers. Still, it’s a great technique to use if you’re planning to paint a big bunch of flowers or just want to keep things quick and simple.

We have a step-by-step video on how to use sola wood dye colors. Check it out if you want to learn more.

Hand Painting

If you want to add a more personal touch to your sola wood flower dye, you can also paint them by hand. Hand painting gives you the ability to customize and add more details to make them look more realistic. Bigger flowers are best hand painted since their details are easily seen.

Make a two-toned lily by brushing a bit of color in the inner side of the petals. You can also dry brush your flowers to give it a distressed, rustic look. You may also do a watercolor effect by increasing the ratio of water to paint and applying it using a paint brush. Add a touch of gold or silver at the tips of the petals or put some greens or browns near the disk to make it look more realistic.

You can be as simple or as creative with this technique. The only downside here is that it can take more time to do than dip-dyeing, but it can be really satisfying to see the end-result after pouring all your creative juices on your buds. 

Airbrushing or Spray Painting

Airbrushing can be quite intimidating to those beginning their sola flower crafts. But while it’s one of the less popular ways of adding life to your sola wood flowers, the results are quite promising. This technique requires a bit more time to do and takes a little bit of practice when it comes to controlling the amount of paint that gets diffused from the airbrush. Another reason to love airbrushing is it takes the least amount of drying time. It only takes a few seconds to a minute before the airbrush paint completely dries up.

We highly recommend this method for flowers that have curls on them like bird roses or tulips because then you don’t have to worry about them uncurling too much, which usually happens when sola wood flower dye colors penetrate the petals. Also, be sure to precondition your flowers if you want that soft, pliable feel to them since the sola softener can’t be loaded on airbrushes.

Whether you want it sweet and subtle or vivid and vibrant, these top three techniques are sure to add some life to your Sola Wood Flower projects. Have fun thinking of fun color combinations or check out all the wonderful pieces other sola flower crafters came up with in the Sola Wood Flowers Official Facebook page. 

How about you? What techniques do you use to paint your sola wood flowers and which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments section below! We can’t wait to hear your thoughts (and we’d also appreciate the tips and tricks you can share about adding color to sola wood flowers).