Way back at the beginning of quaratine I bought a few unfinished oversized yard games to paint for the backyard to keep the kids entertained. Well, 6 months later I finally got around to adding my colorful touch to the wood stacking game. But I didn’t use paint! I actually used a Tie Dye kit to dye the wood all the shades of the rainbow to create a DIY rainbow wood stacking game! I wasn’t sure if the tie dye would work, but it totally did and the colors are so vibrant!
Just look at all those bright colors! And while it may be a little difficult to tell here, each layer is a different color or shade. But I only ended up using 8 bottles of tie dye to create all the colors. Just a little creative dilution and color mixing worked perfectly to get me all the colorful shades!
Materials to make your own DIY rainbow wood stacking game:
- Tie-Dye kit (I used this one)
- Raw wood stacking game (or make your own with 2 by 4’s)
- Small plastic container that fits one block
- Plastic wrap or foil
Begin by adding warm water to your dye bottles up to the line on the side.
Next, place one of your wood blocks in the plastic container and squrit the dye over the block. Use a gloved hand to turn the block over and make sure that the dye is even on the block.
Once the dye has soaked in to your liking and the color you want to acheive, remove the block and lay on a piece of foil or plastic wrap. Then repeat with the other two blocks from that layer.
Now comes the fun part of making your own colors. For me I dyed one row of the blocks the mixed dye straight from the bottle, then I diluted the dye by 1/2 and dyed a second layer of blocks this lighter color. Once that layer was complete, I poured the remaining dye back into the bottle and saved for later. Then rinsed out the plastic container and moved on to the next colored dye. Once I had two diluted colors made up, I would mix them together to create a 3rd color. For example, I used the left over diluted pink and diluted orange to make a coral color.
I repeated this technique of dyeing, mixing, and diluting the dye for the bricks until I had dyed each layer a different color. I used plastic wrap to keep the dyed layers separate to prevent bleeding and let dry.
Once the wood had dried out (about a few hours later), I was able to stack up all the bricks in rainbow order and place the DIY rainbow wood stacking game outside on our porch for the kids to play with.
Now we have fun colorful game central over here with the giant connect 4 and the tumbling tower!