Home » Crafting » Dye Your Own Playsilks With Kool-Aid {Tutorial}

Dye Your Own Playsilks With Kool-Aid {Tutorial}

My children love playing with playsilks. Even though they’re readily available online, it’s so much fun to make your own. Here’s how to dye playsilks with Kool-Aid.

My kids helped me with this easy DIY project, and we had so much fun doing it!

homemade dyed playsilks dyed with Kool-Aid

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Playsilks are beautiful, natural toys. They are colorful, satisfying to the touch, and there are endless ways to play with them. They inspire creativity.

The only problem is, they’re often expensive! But, you can dye your own for about half the price, and it’s so much fun to do it yourself. (If you’d rather buy them ready-made, you can find them here.)

Supplies Needed:

Here’s what you need to make your own home-dyed playsilks:

dye playsilks with kool-aid packets

My youngest asked me, “Mommy, can we drink this?” Nope. Sorry kids, this is only for dyeing things with! 🙂

child holding a Kool-Aid packet

Dye Playsilks with Kool-Aid

Here’s how to dye playsilks with Kool-Aid.

1.  Fill a large pot with water about halfway.

filling a pot with tap water

heated it until it was almost hot enough to boil.

a pot with water almost boiling

2.  Add about 2 cups of vinegar.

pouring vinegar into a pot of water

3.  Put the silks in the pot with the water and vinegar.

Let them soak for about 30 minutes.

putting blank silks into a pot of water with vinegar

4.  Prepare the bowls or other container you’re planning to dye the scarves in.

Pour the Kool-Aid packets into the bowls.

Color Combinations:

  • For pink, I used 3 packages of Pink Lemonade.
  • For orange, I used 1 package of Orange and 1/2 package Lemonade.
  • For green, 1 package Lemon-Lime with 1/2 package Lemonade.
  • For blue, 2 packages Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade.
pouring Kool-Aid powder into a bowl

5.  Heat water for the dye baths.

I used my large stainless steel tea kettle for this. I have this kettle but any one will work.

putting tap water into a stainless steel kettle

6.  Add the vinegar.

Add about 5-6 cups of hot water (or however much you need to cover the scarves you’re dyeing), and about 1/2 cup vinegar to each bowl, and stir until powder is dissolved completely.

pouring hot water into a bowl of Kool-Aid powder
A water-vinegar-Kool Aid mixture in a large bowl

7.  Add silks to the dye bath.

Add the silk to the bowl and stir to cover it fully with the Kool-Aid dye. Stirring occasionally will ensure that the whole silk gets covered with the dye.

stirring Kool-Aid dyed water to dye a playsilk

It only took a couple of minutes for the color to transfer from the liquid to the silk.

bowls containing silks being dyed in Kool-Aid to make playsilks

8. Remove from dye bath.

When the silk has reached the color saturation you want (2-3 minutes) it’s time to remove it. The water will be cloudy or almost clear as dye transfers to the silk.

silks being dyed in Kool-Aid

9. Rinse.

Take silk out of the bowl (or just pour the water out of it and keep the silk in the bowl–that’s what I did) and begin rinsing silk with cool water until it runs clear.

It may take several minutes. Some colors (like red) may never rinse completely clear.

rinsing Kool-Aid dye from playsilks

Even after rinsing for a long time, the orange one still never ran completely clear. It didn’t matter to me, so I gave up!

A homemade orange dyed playsilk
DIY pink dyed playsilk
silk dyed in blue Kool-Aid

10. Dry.

Find a place to dry the silks. If you put them outside to dry in the warm sun, it doesn’t take long at all.

finished playsilks dyed in Kool-Aid

I used a peg rack balanced over two chairs to dry mine.

home dyed playsilks drying

Once they’re dry, they’re ready for playing with!

stack of playsilks dyed with kool-aid

Faith’s Waldorf doll looked very cozy wrapped in a pink silk:

a homemade Waldorf doll with a pink play silk
a stuffed rabbit toy with a green play silk
a toy rabbit with a blue play silk
dye playsilks with kool-aid

I think they turned out so beautiful! They’re a work of art.

several home dyed play silks

The girls are very creative with the playsilks, making doll dresses and so much more!

a doll covered in play silks

Skirts for themselves… and also just dancing with them…

a girl playing with home dyed play silks
a girl in a pink dress playing with play silks

If they ever need washing, I would hand wash them in cold water and hang to dry.

Enjoy your beautiful new playsilks!

**This post was originally published in August 2012.

**Update July 2014: Almost two years later, and these are still being played with and still look bright and colorful!**

23 Comments

  1. Hi! I’m hoping to do this today but I have a question! In the first step, do you keep the water and vinegar on the heat while the silks are soaking for the 30 minutes?

    1. Sorry I’m just now seeing this, I’ve been away due to the holidays and illness. I believe I turned off the heat and just left it on the stovetop so that the water was still hot but not boiling. If you made them already, I hope they turned out well!

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