How-to: Dyed and Glittered Clothespins

Your Glitter Craft is Bad for the Environment

dyed and glittered clothespinsWhen I shared with you my round-up of clothespins embellishment projects, I left out my own personal favorite. These dyed and glittered clothespins are so saturated with color, so sparkly, and yep, so darn useful that I find myself making up a fresh batch surprisingly often. Read on to see how they’re done:

spray the clothespins with liquid watercolorsThe majority of my clothespins are pretty weathered from being used on my outdoor clothesline eight months of the year, but this project works best with the nice, new-looking ones, the ones that lived their former lives on the indoor laundry line, or the ones that I’ve picked up at garage sales.

Clothespins are easy to paint with acrylic paints, but my preferred method, as it is for all the unfinished wood that I craft with, is to stain the clothespins using liquid watercolors. You can’t find liquid watercolors just anywhere, but they’re worth the effort to search them out, because a little goes a long way, and you’ll find that it takes just seconds to dye unfinished wood bright pink, or deep blue, or whatever color you want using them.

I’ve previously outlined two methods for using liquid watercolors–staining an object inside a plastic baggie, and staining an object using a small spray bottle filled with liquid watercolors–and both methods work well with clothespins. If you choose the plastic bag method, you’ll find that you have to use a few more drops of liquid watercolors than you do with most other small unfinished wood pieces, because clothespins have so much surface area. If you choose the spray bottle method (which is what I’m using for this particular project), you’ll have the fun of dyeing each clothespin multiple colors, if you wish.

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Written by Julie Finn

I'm a writer, crafter, Zombie Preparedness Planner, and homeschooling momma of two kids who will hopefully someday transition into using their genius for good, not the evil machinations and mess-making in which they currently indulge. I'm interested in recycling and nature crafts, food security, STEM education, and the DIY lifestyle, however it's manifested--making myself some underwear out of T-shirts? Done it. Teaching myself guitar? Doing it right now.

Visit my blog Craft Knife for a peek at our very weird handmade homeschool life, and my etsy shop Pumpkin+Bear for a truly odd number of rainbow-themed beeswax pretties.

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  1. I too have been surprised by how often I make glitter clothespins – at least four times a year and I make a whole package (100?) each time. They are wonderful for attaching tags to gifts, using as magnets, closing bags…

    Instead of glitter, lately I’ve been using glitter nail polish. It doesn’t flake off and I already had it on hand. At Walgreens they were less then a dollar a bottle so I bought every color and use it for crafting. Not green, but again, I had it on hand so I might as well use it.

    Thanks for a great post 🙂

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