How to Dye Bottle Brush Trees

1 Bleached tree under a cloche.  Simple.

A sampling of the completed trees in two colors. The white trees were soaked  in bleach and the blue were dyed  RIT midnight blue.

I used bottle brush trees you can find at a craft stores like Michael's. You can also find them at JoAnn Fabric Stores. When I purchased them they were dark evergreen in color. They are available in multitude of sizes, so I bought several different heights.

I started by soaking trees in boiling water. to get the brush part of the trees pliable and ready to accept the bleach.  Next, add bleach to water and soak trees. I used a pyrex bowl for this project and my suds tub in the laundry room.

The longer you leave the trees in the bleach, the lighter they will become.  At one point they were a beautiful aqua which was my target color, but I ran up to get the camera and when I came back they were almost white. Lesson learned? Stay close to your project because the color continues to change as the trees soak!

I left the tree on the right in the bleach longer so that it would be whiter and the one on the left was pulled from the soak earlier as I planned to dye a different color with the Rit dye.

This is the grouping of trees before I put them in a Rit dye bath of midnight blue.  I had wanted aqua, but couldn't find it anywhere.  They are much bluer than I prefered, but now they may become add ons to gift packages instead of decor in my home and I may dye more to try for the aqua color I really wanted. You know what they say; If at first you don't succeed, dye, dye, again!

Soaking in the dye bath.  It doesn't take very long, nor does it take very much Rit.

Be careful with what you wear as well & also as to what jewelry you might have on when using bleach.  Take off jewelry and don't dye in good clothes. Rubber gloves to save wear and tear to your hands are also recommended.

The blue trees finished and set up to dry.  I'm hoping they get lighter. 

Update:  The trees did get lighter after drying and look a bit more aqua.  Yeah!!!!

This is the combination of white and blue trees as well as the wreaths that I dyed.

My favorite is the white!  Remember, you can dye them what ever color you desire...just use a small amount of Rit powder dye. Let's see what you come up with for your holiday decor!

Bleached tree looks vintge after getting the dark hunter green color out of it.