Name: Alder (she/her) Species: dragon Scent: Sweet potato, brown sugar & pumpkin spice Best quality: mixology skills Brand: Jellycat (customized) Note: you might have seen her posted before as her original form, an orange-and-blue dragon named Pumpkin! well, i never bonded with her, so i figured a makeover was the way to go, and it definitely worked!!
How did you achieve this?? I love it
i just unstuffed her and dyed her with Rit synthetic fabric dye. i was slightly worried the hot water might damage the fabric, but it turned out just fine. as for the scent, i used aroma beads (special little plastic pellets that absorb oils) and some fragrance oil i had left over from making holiday candles last year; put some in a little mesh pouch and stick it in with the stuffing :]
Can I ask which colour dye you used and was she a persimon dragon since you said orange? How do you use dye? (Trying to see if it's something I can do at home) I litteraly was saying today I wish jellycat made a brown dragon it never occured to me I could dye one.. Does the plushie stay as soft as the original?
of course! it's quite easy, if a little messy.
so, i used this one specifically, DyeMore chocolate brown:
and the process, while provided on the bottle in a bit more detail, is essentially:
add the dye to a pot with water and a little bit of dish soap. i used about half the bottle and a medium cooking pot.
heat the dye bath to almost-boiling. the instructions say to be very precise, but in my experience, you'll be fine as long as you just turn the heat down whenever it starts to bubble.
wet the fabric you're planning to dye, then add it to the pot. stir/move the fabric around every minute or two, just to make sure every part gets even exposure. keep going for about 30 minutes; this will get very boring, but just keep at it. a bit of dye will probably splash onto the stove; just quickly wipe that up with a wet towel and it'll be fine.
take the fabric out and rinse it THOROUGHLY. once water comes out of it completely clear, either hang it up to dry or put it in the dryer on no heat or the lowest heat setting.
after you're done, scrub the pot really well, preferably with a cleaner that contains bleach (the metal shouldn't absorb anything, obviously, but since you presumably plan to use the pot for food in the future, you just want to make extra sure there's no residue left, lol). as for the excess dye water, i recommend putting it down the toilet.
and that's pretty much it!
for me, the fabric stayed just as soft as before; it depends on the type of fur, but this one specifically turned out just lovely!
Awesome thank you. And just to make sure you used a genuine jellycat right? No judgement if you didn't but I want to know that the fabric is the same so it will respond the same if I do this. We have 4 genuine dragons and one knock off whose fabric is very different. Do you think it matters what colour dragon I use the dye on? I think some of the dragons have fluffy wings and others might have a different fabric that might not take the dye as well? Considering how expensive jellycats are I'd rather not run the risk of this going wrong haha. We have a duplicate sky dragon and while it seems almost illegal to dye it I wonder if that would turn out nice.
yep, genuine jellycat. but in my experience, generally, the softer a minky or faux fur is, the better it'll take heat. i've dyed a few different ones, and the only one that got damaged was a not-super-soft, semi-realistic type. differences as subtle as you would get between a real and off-brand plush shouldn't really change the outcome.
i think the fluffy wing fabric will probably work best; i'm not familiar with the other one, so while it's most likely not delicate enough to be damaged, i can't be 100% confident.
base color definitely matters. white is, of course, the best base for any color, but if you're not using white, you've got to put a little thought into how it'll interact with the dye color. lighter colors are always better, and brown works best over warm colors (pink, red, orange, yellow). Alder's irl shade is a bit cooler than in the photos, but even with that lighting, you can see that her wings are a more neutral shade of brown, while her body is much warmer.
Sky dragon could work. the body might turn out a pretty neutral/dusry shade of brown, since the orange undertones of the brown will be fighting a bit with the blue, but the blue is definitely light enough that it shouldn't affect it too much. i'd say go for it!
Thank you for the advice. If I end up doing it I'll show the results! I like dusty brown so that wouldn't be an issue hopefully.. I might remove the white bits qnd sew them back on later so they stay white. Much to ponder.
