My DH is making a playgym for our fids, and I was wanting to dye the wood. I read somewhere on here of someone using kool-aid. Should I use that or can I use food coloring. If there are other things I could use as well let me know. I'm up for any suggestions.

Natural food coloring is fine but always rewash it twice to make sure the dye is out!

Yup, what Rose said. My mom dies all of her own wood for her toys...you can PM her and ask. Have fun!!

As long as it is Vegatble Food Coloring go right ahead. They say now that RITZ has a vegatable based dye out now that's safe for birds...but I've never tried it. I use Wiltons food coloring. Don't have to mix colors and it works well...

This may sound dumb, but I'm asking anyway. How do you know if it's vegatable food coloring? Will it say on the box? Where can I find it?

Also, I have done one stick with the regular food color, before I thought to ask to see if it was safe. Should I get another one, or will washing it be okay?

I have done all mine with regular food coloring and Joey is fine. But after it dry always rewash it twice to get all excess out!

Okay thanks. My Dh was still worried about it, and didn't want to wait for a response. So he had me run out to the store to get a new stick and some natural food color. Which wasn't all that cheap and I had to drive all the way across town for it. But I guess his mind is at ease.

The food coloring you can get in the small box in the grocery store will work...it just takes a lot of it to get a good rich color...and that gets expensive too...The Wiltons I suggested is very concentrated and so a little goes a long way in hot water....I dye a LOT of wood for all the toys I make so I use 3 bottles of the wilton per about 2 1/2 quarts of water to get a bold bright, rich color I prefer. weaker solutions give more of a pastel coloring which is fine if that's the effect your after... Anything you can use to color food that you can can eat, is safe for a bird....

I have also used kool-aid and get great colours when soaking wood in it ..