Thanks guys. It was a lot of work, but will be worth it. The family is getting together this afternoon and I can't wait to see their faces!
red hill, I used aniline powder water-based dye for the color. The blue is just straight color. I made the purple bow by first putting blue dye on the bow and then adding red dye on top of that. I debated mixing blue and red together in one jar, but doing two separate applications gives an interesting variation in the shade of purple over the bow. For the green, I first dyed the tips black, followed by dark green dye. The grey bow used only black dye, applied very heavy in multiple coats for the tips, and then lightly for the rest of the bow. I got the grey I wanted by rubbing in a small amount of dye, then using a clean wet cloth to rub out some color.
It was a lot of fun, but worth a lot of smiles!
Michael