first few attempts
We’re having a little Easter party with some of the girls from work this week and I’m so excited! We have a little after-work get together every few months, the excuse for us to meet up and laugh – and have a drink or two – varies (past gatherings have included pumpkin carving and a cookie exchange) but one thing that remains the same is that we all bring something yummy for the group to enjoy. Since Easter is arguably the prettiest holiday – so many pastels! – we thought we would try to make this the prettiest party yet.
I am really loving the ombre trend currently (well, at least I’m assuming it’s a trend… I feel I see it everywhere lately) so I thought it would be fun to try and make some ombre pastel cupcake liners to match the ombre cupcakes I’m planning on bringing to the party. I scoured the internet for a DIY, but sadly to no avail, so I had to make it up myself… a daunting prospect.
The cupcake liners didn’t soak up the dye like I thought they would, so they ended up being more dip dye than ombre… but despite not turning out quite as planned, I am definitely pleased with the results. I know I’m a bit biased, but I think they turned out really well. They’re prettier than plain white cupcake liners, but far less expensive than the printed ones that are available.
all finished
What you’ll need:
- white cupcake liners
- food colouring (I used red, blue and green)
- water
- bowls for mixing the dye in that are wide enough on the bottom to fit the top of a cupcake liner
- newspaper or an old sheet to protect the surface you’re working on (it can get messy)
It’s pretty simple actually, all you have to do is mix the food colouring in a bowl with some water (use more water for lighter shades) and then dip the top of the cupcake liner in it. I tried dying the bottom of the liner and it didn’t work so well, but perhaps you’re more talented than me and can pull it off. Also, as I mentioned the cupcake liners don’t soak up the dye very quickly, and since I’m rather impatient I ended up just swishing them around in the dye so the process would go much faster. Swishing them around means that the colour at the top won’t be even, but I kind of like it that way.
After you’ve put the liners in the dye mixture, there will be some excess on them (as you can see above). You can either just wait it out and it will dry eventually, making the colour a bit darker… or you can gently tap the liners on the edge of the bowl to shake off the excess dye. Just make sure you have something underneath, because as you can see below, it can get a bit messy.
The colours I chose to do were pink, purple and seafoam. Mixing up all the colours brought me back to elementary school – it was fun!
Pink was just red dye and water; Purple was a mixture of blue and red (though I think I might have accidentally used more blue than red); Seafoam was a mixture of blue and green (think it was pretty equal that time).
i sorta kinda have a bakery so i make cupcakes plenty!
this is refreshing because all those fancy liners are expensive!
Thanks :)
Hey! I found out that it works so much better if you use vinegar with it! Just a tip!(:
Did the dye get on the cupcakes when you baked them?
Nope. It should be fine if you let the liners dry completely before you use them to bake with… I didn’t have a problem anyways :)
Absolutely love this!!! I used to bake lots of cupcakes so I have about a thousand cupcake liners lying around. Now I can pretty them up! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Kim! It’s a pretty fun way to make plain cupcake liners a bit prettier… I suggest playing around with the colours to find a combination and dipping method that works best for you :)
Did you color the liners one-by-one? Or can you do them a few at a time?
Hi Kelley,
I tried to do a few at a time, but found that the dye didn’t distribute evenly when more than one liner was done at a time. Although it took a bit longer, I preferred the result of dying one liner at a time. However, I encourage you to play around to see what works best for you… my preference isn’t necessarily yours :)
Neat idea, but can you then use them for baking?
Hi Maria,
Yep, I used them for baking… You can see the colour better on vanilla cupcakes though (I used them to make both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes)
Hope this helps :)
Wow! Why have I not thought of this?! So easy. So effective!
Thanks! It was pretty fun and something I’ll definitely try again :)
have you tried to die the bottoms as well?
I did Sue, and sadly it didn’t work as well… I think it’s because the dye soaks up better/gathers more in the creases at the top. I also tried to dye the top and bottom and that didn’t work so well, was great in theory though!
Love this idea, but about how long did it take to dry? I am both impatient, and have naughty cats who insist the table is for them! Thanks in advance.
Hmm, well I’m not going to lie, it did take a while for them to completely dry… As an impatient person myself, I tried to speed the process up but they didn’t turn out as nice. sigh.
I did it before leaving the house for a while and let them dry while I was out – or you could do it before going to bed… I didn’t have any sneaky cats to deal with though.
Hope this helps :)
Oooh! You could have different bowls of dye in the same color family, use varying amounts of dye. Then you could have the lightest color be the deepest and dip in it first, and the deep down the the line, the darkest being the shallowest. You wouldn’t even have to let them dry in between. Hmmm…. I may try this, white liners are really inexpensive at Cash and Carry and I have a wedding coming up, and a sister to bake the cup cakes…
Ooh! I like the way you think Trista! You’ll have to let me know how it goes – though I think that I just might have to try that out for myself soon :)
(ps – congratulations on the upcoming wedding!)
Have you got a photo of cupcakes in the liners?? do the colours on the liners stay as vibrant after baking?
Well I just have a few pictures in the Easter Cupcakes blog post here: http://hellolittlewren.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/easter-cupcakes/
Though the cupcakes were chocolate so I found you couldn’t see the colour as well as if they were vanilla, but I was still pleased with the results :)
The colour wasn’t as vibrant after they were baked, but I find that that is the case with all the store-bought decorative liners I’ve used as well.
Hope this helps!
These are really cute! I’m glad to have come across this on Pinterest. Your blog looks like lots of fun!
Thanks so much for your lovely comment! It made my day :)
Great idea! You could use this same process to use the liners to make flowers with and paint brush the cups with color for custom look. I also use coffee filters for making flowers and this makes a beautiful petal edge when using pastel colors. How about taking the cups and ruffling the top edges apart then dip in color all together then leaving them turned upside down to dry. This takes longer but has uniform color. Separate them later. Less mess.
Great idea Jeanelle!! Thanks so much for sharing – I’ll definitely have to give that a try! :)
I was thinking that you may be able to get the color to soak better if you used vinegar and easter egg dye.
Thanks Kayla! I’ll have to try that for sure :)
Reblogged this on Fun to Go and commented:
Les comparto este enlace para que puedan darle un toque especial a los capacillos para cupcake, se utiliza colorante vegetal líquido, se necesita esperar unos segundos para que el capacillo absorba el colorante, .
I was really happy with my results and used only a little water to get a strong colour. I let them dry for a couple of days and then used them, but the colour pretty much all went away in the oven :(
Aw, yeah that’s the downside – I find that no matter what cupcake liners I use the design and/or colour fades quite a bit when you bake it. Still trying to figure out how to get around that…
Great idea,God bless you
Thank you Seyi :)
You may be able to put dyes in spritz bottle and spray like speckled eggs on bottom s..
Great idea thanks Misty!
I think they are very cute…however… You should try to make a mister/spretser, with food coloring in it. And just spray the whole liner :D
Thanks!! I think I’ll have to try that next for sure :)