Sola wood flower question - dying and stems!

I love my sola flowers. I'm sure you will, too! I did mine half and half, the first set I dyed without the stems and the second set I dyed with the stems. (For no particular reason, it just worked out that way). I didn't have any issue dyeing the flowers with the stems on, my only caution is that you'll probably get dye on the stems, depending on what type you are using. I used the cloth wrapped stems, and definitely got dye on them in multiple places from handling them with my messy gloves one. However, I'm wrapping my bouquet stems in twine, so it didn't matter to me at all. Just something to be aware of it you aren't planning on wrapping the bouquet base at all!

I love my sola flowers too... i also found it a little harder to get them to dry if they were on stems. I actually got out every cookie and pizza pan i had, lined them with wax paper (to make clean up easier) and would dye, lay them out on the pan in front of a box fan I took out of the shed. It eliminates the need for foam and the "room" to put all the flowers if you wait to put the stem in.
Also, I noticed that, although subtle, it looked best when i laid the flowers face down to dry (basically the stem part pointing toward the sky/ pretty part of flower faced down). This kinda let the dye slowly seep toward the end of the petals while it was drying and I lovvvvvved the look. It was more realistic, imo.
I also recommend dying them without the stem on, unless you have alot of room and foam, because you don't want to put the flowers too close together in case you accidentally bump the flowers, the vase, etc as the flowers are very fragile.
Side note- make sure you let them dry 110% before dyeing a 2nd time (if your going for a darker solid color). Only saying this be cause i thought they were dry enough, but some of them werent when i dyed them the 2nd time, and th green when they really did dry done of the flowers cracked. But that was totally my fault and I fixed the it and I don't regret going this route at all!
Hope you have fun!

Oh, heres a few pics...

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Ahhh, now I'm stressing about how fragile they are! I'm kind of worried about putting the stems on when they're dry/fragile. Did you run into any problems with that?

I think I'm going to have to take over my mom's basement for all these flowers!

I love the idea about drying them 'upside down' so the dye seeps down. Did you use a dye like RIT or craft paint and water?

Your bouquets are GORGEOUS by the way. I think I've seen them on WW previously and it really made me consider sola flowers, which is where I've ended up, so thank you!!

You know I always wondered if my pictures had helped anyone decide on using sola. So thanks for confirming. And your very welcome! I love them and glad to share that someone else can have customized, beautiful, wedding flowers at a reasonable price.

I tried both the RIT and the craft paint mixed with water. I actually took one flower i wasn't crazy about and tore it into a bunch of pieces then used those pieces as my dye testors. I wasnt as crazy about the dye colors I had ordered once they arrived so I went to walmart and got 50 cent bottles of acrylic paint in the 3 colors I wanted. It took 3 bottles to do the 5 bouquets.

RIT: It had a transparency to it but the color was still there. The lines in the flowers (like the wood lines) dyed with the color and the edges and then real transparent color on the rest of the flower. It was very pretty and FH said this looked more like real flowers than the acrylic paint did but I wanted a more solid color.
Acrylic: I ended up doing 8oz of water for each small bottle of paint. (They only make the 2 standard sizes that Im aware of) so just the smaller bottle.

If I would have known putting them upside down to dry would have given it "the seep down" look lol) I would have diluted the paint more, probably 12 or even 16 oz of water per bottle of paint. Just play around with pieces of one flower until you achieve the color you want.

I didn't have any damage to the flowers while inserting the stems. As for them being fragile, that's mostly the petals. So when you go to insert the stem, get a grip around the bottom of the flower. The flowers are wood but they're kinda like balsa wood, used to make model ships. So they are flexible, but because the petals get thinner as they get closer to the edge of the petal, that's where I noticed they were most fragile.

The only damage that occured was incidents where our 2 dogs and my 10 yo son came barreling thru the house and hit a vase or knocked one over, then it would chip maybe 1 petal. But when its all put together you can't tell.

My biggest tip to you would be let them dry all the way, then let them dry some more before dyiing anything to them. And when you dye them, don't hold them in the dye for more than maybe 10 seconds total. Literally count to 10 in your head while you are doing it.

Also, I didn't read or see this anywhere, but I swear the dye went on better when it was warm. So I dyed them in at the kitchen table and heated up the bowls of dye every 15 minutes or so.

If you have anymore questions when your doing them feel free to reply to one of my comments or message me. Id love to help with suggestions or let you know of things I found that did or didn't work.

Also, -what is your plan for the stems/handles/ends of the bouquet? Are you going to wrap the whole thing in fabric or ribbon? Or will your ends be showing like I did mine?
And honestly, the dying was really easy. Its the assembly that took me so long and was the hardest. That's why I still have 2 more bouquets to put together lol.