I bought this for my coaster woodburning craft. I had to do a lot of research to figure out how to get the effects I wanted. This kit did not come with instructions, but it did have the base colors needed to make a variety of colors.I learned that less powder to water ratio makes a color similar to when you mix a color with white paint. For example, to get light pink, you would want more water and less powder, but to get a light red, you want to do more powder less water, but less coats. While these can be done with just water, adding a little rubbing alcohol tends to create a stronger color.I have yet to try adding to a water based wood stain, but I plan to buy “Minwax 117310000 Clear Tint Base Wood Finish Water-Based Solid Color Stain” and try the powders with that.

Had problems thinking the brown colored powder was brown but it's really black. Well, an extremely dark blue that looks black.I mixed 5 mg of each with 1/2 floz (15 ml) of water and took pictures with the packets next to each color. The Red, Yellow and Blue are very pure and the potency of these is EXTREME, the dye from just 5 mg for a 300 ppm (parts per million) mix is enough to stain your hands pretty thoroughly. Alcohol swabs can wipe them up a bit but wear gloves! It's called stain dye for a reason!Hopefully the photos help others out when trying to figure it out. I don't know why the black looks brown and brown looks black. The black is like ballpoint pen ink - when it's very dilute, it appears to be extremely dark blue but this is potent stuff and a 5mg scoop in half floz water made it completely opaque black which I found impressive. The rest of the colors dilute well and appear right with good staining ability, but the brown powder (which mixes to turn black) is the most potent by far. The flashlight next to the brown and black show the difference in potency of the black dye (which looks brown in the bag, as shown in photo)--ETA:For people wanting instructions, I was just taking a whack at a mix that could make "aged paper" quick and easy.k If I used a spray bottle/mister, it could do a sheet of paper in one shot, or the faces of book edges that are bright white to tone them down.Instruction I wrote on the card, but I mixed 15 mg of the Brown dye (black powder) with 50 mg of Yellow Dye in Methanol/Denatured Alcohol aka "Fuel alcohol" from Kleen Strip. It is a bit strong at 60 ml / 2 floz, but I think if I diluted it down to 4 or even 8 floz, the effect would be the subtlety I am looking for. I went a touch too far on brown as a guess, so use a scale that measures milligrams and creep up to the color. Here I used a base color of yellow and I know that 50 mg in 2 floz would be a very strong yellow tint, so I added a guesstimate of brown to tone it down and might have gone a bit too far. All the colors can be easily mixed in most any solvent, I switched to methanol floor this so I could tint shellac with it to paint a box to appear older than it was, an effect stronger than simply using amber tinted shellac.Lastly, 50 mg of one color may not be the same intensity as 50 mg of another color, that's where you need to weigh carefully and keep notes of mix attempts to notice stronger than usual tints, such as brown and black and the other colors potency changes to a far lesser extent.Acetone, Odorless Mineral Spirits, Denatured Alcohol, Ethanol, Isopropyl alcohol will all wor as solvents for this, though the color may change slightly to be more intense or more subdued depending. With methanol, the yellow is a bit less eye searing vivid that it shows when mixed with distilled water, but that worked in my favor. Once on the material and dry, the difference fades. Don't get too hung up on solvent, use what is compatible with your finish if going for a toner appearance to change color without staining the wood, or mix vivid colors in water and soak your wood blocks in it.According to manufacturer, one packet mixed with a quart of water is the correct amount, after experimenting, that seems a bit overkill and you could get by with 3/4 that much if not half. If mixing colors, use a scale and keep notes for strange results. Mixing with black can give all sorts of results as it's a color tinted black instead of mineral pigment black near as I can tell. Test with very small amounts and when you find what you are looking for, scale it up to a few ounces instead of a few milliliters.

Kit contains five colors, red, yellow, blue, black and brown. No instructions other than to say it can make over a gallon of dye. I mixed my dies with isopropyl alcohol as the ad on Amazon said this could be done. I mixed 2.5 grams dye (1/2 of the amount in the packet) to 125 ml alcohol. Yellow dissolved well and appears to give a vibrant color when applied to pine, the red and blue have been extremely light and at this rate will require quite a few coats. I used 90 percent isopropyl and thought this might be causing a problem so I diluted some of the dye with water to get the more common 70 percent isopropyl mix. As soon as I added the water, the dye solution became a much more vibrant blue but it was still very disappointingly light when applied to the pine wood. I will experiment more by increasing the ratio of water and the amount of powdered dye. I did mix the brown with water only and this gave a deeper brown coloring when applied to pine.

I am using the dyes to color some wooden children's toys. The colors are bright and vibrant. However, better instructions for mixing small batches of the dye would be helpful.

Easy to use, just add water. Will buy again, but would like additional colors.