DIY Kaleidoscope Roses Will Brighten Any Bouquet—Here’s How to Make Them

The spring season is often unofficially announced by bouquets of tulips, lilies and daffodils at your local grocery store checkout. Most likely there are some roses in there too, in colorful bundles of red, white, pink and peach. But nothing as bright as these mesmerizing kaleidoscope roses!

Are Kaleidoscope Roses Real?

Kind of! With petals full of vibrant hues, these are not your normal rose and can’t be grown in your garden (despite what some Etsy sellers want you to think). But don’t worry, we’ll teach you exactly how to make them for a display in your home or as a flower arrangement to gift to a loved one.

How to Make Kaleidoscope Roses

We wish we could grow rainbow roses in our garden like peonies, pampas grass and other colorful plants. Unfortunately, kaleidoscope roses are the result of a DIY project, and are not hybrid crosses like most new shades of flowers. Although you can’t plant seeds of these colorful blossoms, it’s fun to create them!

You’ll Need:

• Scissors
• Food coloring
• A bouquet of white roses

Directions

After choosing your colors, add 10-12 drops of food coloring to narrow containers of water (we recommend using bud vases or even plastic bags and rubber bands). The more dye you add to the water, the more saturated the color will be, so add as much as you want.

Next, grab a white rose that is just starting to open. Cut off the end of the stem, and then carefully make vertical cuts down the length of the stem to create several sections, about three or four total. Gently bend the sections apart and place each into their respective water-and-dye-solution to soak up some color for a few days.

If you want the colors to be bold, you can leave each rose to absorb color for up to a week!