Weddingbee Blog

Hello sweet hive! Here is my favorite post I’ve ever written. It isn’t my favorite necessarily for the content, but for the response I’ve received from the post. When I bought white lace for my veil, I knew I would have to dye it ivory to match my wedding dress. I searched high and low for a step-by-step guide on tea dying (I was scared out of my mind and needed ridiculous specific steps to feel more confident). When the internet didn’t turn anything back, I decided to jump in, heels first, and write my own DIY.

Since writing this article I’ve received so many emails and comments from brides/mothers who used my guide and found success. I even had a cousin contact me after she found my article on Weddingbee and I got to see her perfectly ivory veil in action at her wedding last month.

You can see my finished ivory veil in action here. Enjoy!

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Okay… so I searched all over Gainesville for someone to professionally dye my beautiful white lace to ivory (so it would match my dress). Can you believe that there is no place in Gainesville where you can get this done? Unbelievable!

But, there’s a ray of hope. One seamstress I asked mentioned tea-dying my lace. I had heard of this before but was slighting skeptical as to whether I could successfully do this myself. Searching the internet, I only found a handful of ’how-tos’ and no one really went into detail. They just skimmed over what they did to show you their beautifully dyed ivory lace. But, I’m a girl who needs directions. I ain’t gonna mess up my nice lace…

For all the other brides out there like me, who need some directions, here is, step-by-step, of how I got to the perfect shade of ivory for my beautiful Alencon lace for my veil:

You will need:

• 4 Lipton Tea bags
• a wooden spoon
• measuring cup
• and (of course) your lace to-be-dyed (I got mine off eBay for roughly $2/yd; can’t beat that!)

I first boiled 10 cups of water

I then let 4 Lipton Tea bags sit in the boiling water for 1-2 minutes; taking the wooden spoon and taping them lightly to make sure they were totally submerged in the water

Take the tea bags out and let the mixture sit until it has completely cooled (2 hours); Very Important - you don’t want to burn your lace in the hot tea.

Once the tea cooled, I cut a small test strip from my white lace and placed it in the tea just long enough to get it totally submerged (by using the wooden spoon); I then took it out and rinsed it for a second under cool water

I laid the lace on a dish towel to dry and compare with my ’control’ lace (the original white lace)

As you can see it is a little too dark; so I added 6 cups of water to the mixture to dilute the tea (looking back I think I should have only used 2 Lipton Tea bags)

Repeating the process a second time with the diluted mixture seemed to work out much better and is the right shade of ivory I was looking for. I think I would change the original recipe to : 10 cups water, 2 Lipton Tea bags

The middle shade is the shade I decided to go with. Here is a picture of it in natural light; it looks barely off-white/ivory… perfect.

Yes… I took this picture to show off my engagement ring too. I can’t help it… I like to take pictures of it!

Okay, moving on…

I then preceded to submerge the rest of my lace in the tea mixture (do I make this look easy? I was freaked out the whole time!).

I then rinsed it and hung the lace to dry in our guest bathroom.

Oh! look at the detail! This is why I fell in love with this lace and had to have it (plus the price was amazing; can’t beat $16 on eBay for 8 yards! A budget bride’s dream!)

Next it is off to the designer where it will be sewn on to my veil. I will have a veil update in the next few weeks!