Last Saturday at Goodwill's 50% off sale I found this Dooney and Bourke ostrich tote bag. I couldn't believe my luck! It ended up costing all of $12.48. This mustardy-cognac color is not flattering on me (or anywhere near me, or even in the same zip-code) so I had a mind to dye it right away.

I'm exhausting most of the cool-toned Tarrago dye kit colors, so I had a hard time choosing what I wanted. After waffling between a not really exciting purple and midnight, I finally went with the midnight, which is like an ink blue or blueberrry (brighter than their navy, which almost looks black). It came in the mail today! DD is laid up after having all 4 wisdom teeth extracted this morning, so I'm going to try to do this while I care for her. She's in front of a movie, so I should be good!

A hundred degrees and no humidity mean it will take about....oh....3.5 seconds to dry in between coats, lol! For fun, I though I'd take pictures during the process and post them down in this thread as I go. So many of you have asked questions about the dyeing process so now you can watch me in real time.

The first step is to scrub it with the leather cleaner that comes in the dye kit. Here's what the bag looks like before starting anything. And yes, it's a genuine D&B. I did my research.

ETA: At the end of the thread I wrote about darkening the ostrich spots. If you don't feel like jumping there, I'll add the finished product here as well:

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