Seriously, I thought that was so darn smart. I was only eight or so when I first read it, and I used to steal cloths from the cupboard and try to dye them in tea – usually with poor results. But from then on I was sort of fascinated that someone could do this, just dye items with stuff from the cupboard.

Of course later I found out that you can use lots of stuff as dye material. Lucky for you I did, because now, you and your little can take a weekend and have some fun making natural juice dyes.

The best part is that you can’t really mess up. You may get some funky colors, but mistakes aren’t terrible with this project. Once you make your juice dyes you can use them to color homemade clay dough, homemade paints, or use them to dye pieces of fabric, or white rope for crafts. Really you can even use this system to create your own colored yarn – but the process takes a little longer (we’ll discuss that some other day).

How to make the dye:

To make juice (or plant dyes) you need to take about 1/4 – 1/2 cup of a nature item, put it in a pot with about four cups of water, simmer on low for 1-2 hours, strain, and cool. When you add the coloring to something like homemade paint or clay, add a little at a time until you get the shade you want, much like you would food coloring. If you want to dye fabric, soak it overnight in the coloring. The vibrancy of the color depends both on the nature item used, and the amount you simmered.

Back when I was eight, I didn’t know to simmer the water – that was my big mistake.

Nature items to use:

For blue dye use: Red cabbage, blueberries, logwood chips, elderberries. or red onion skins

For yellow dye use: apple tree bark, marigold, turmeric, white onion skin, or goldenrod

For violet to purple dye use: Camellia or purple grapes

For pink dye use: Umbilicara

For brown and tan dye use: Coffee, walnut hulls, paprika, tea, greenbriar, or sassafras

For red dye use: cranberries or beets

For orange dye use: Yellow onion skin or oats

For green dye use: oak bark, peach leaves, or crab apple leaves and bark

I’m sure you can think of plenty of other cool items from outside to try. The most fun is for kids to randomly find items and just see what happens when you try to make dye.

Later (maybe tomorrow) I’ll post some homemade clay and paint recipes for those who need them to go with their dye.

Have fun!

Post from: Tree Hugging Family