Dye-Na-Flow and Salt Experiments

Last November, I was given some Dye-Na-Flow for my birthday. It’s not something I’d ever used, or even heard of before, but it seemed interesting. It is a fluid acrylic paint, which acts like a dye, and can be used on many different surfaces. It is especially good for painting on fabric, because it absorbed into the fabric, rather than sitting on the surface.

One of the suggested uses for it was with salt, so I thought I’d give it a go.

I worked on 3 colours of polyester – blue, pink and yellow – and used 2 different colours of Dye-Na-Flow – Cerulean Blue and Scarlet.

For my first try, I just painted the Dye-Na-Flow on and added regular table salt. I watered down my paintbrush and added water as I went, which produced different intensities of colour. I left it to dry on newspaper.

For my second try, I wetted the fabric first and then painted. I did some flat, single colour and then also had a go at blending colours. I added a combination of table salt and rock salt. This time I left it to dry on plastic.

This process was so easy and has produced some really lovely effects. The rock salt was definitely more effective in getting more dramatic results. It also, as it was supposed to, didn’t compromise the hand of the fabric, which is great, because it means these pieces can now be used as normal.

I think one or two of the pieces I’ve made would look great with some stitching on, which I’ll get around to at some point! I also think these pieces of fabric would make really pretty covers for journals, like I made in my previous post.