26 August 2012

natural ink - made using flower petals

Hello! Today I'd like to share another experiment I carried out, making natural ink!
I've read about natural dyeing in an old book about properties of herbs and wanted to try with poppies, but foud very few. It was after poppy season. As I had only a handful of the most important ingredient I had to do something different and found the solution in the same book!
Instruction: put flower petals into a glass and cover it with warm water. Leave for a few hours (I leaved mine for a night).
After this time separate the liquid. (You can boil it for a while to get stronger colour - optional.) Add strong alcohol in proportions 1 dose of alc:4 dozes of extract.
Ink is ready to use!


I made three inks - out of poppy, kingcup and blue sweet pea. At the beginning all three colours were strong, but after a week blue ink looked like faded. You can see how each colour looks straight after making below. Poppy ink has exactly the poppy colour, lovely!

To sum up, natural inks are worth making. If you like flowers because of their variety of colours you should try this for sure. 

Have a beautiful day,
Julia 

EDIT: A lot of people visit this post and I got asked in the comments about flowers that can be used etc. HERE is a long list you can use for natural dye or making this ink. These flowers are used in dying fabrics, so the colour shouldn't fade or so on. Now, almost a year after making my inks, I still have one of them (yellow), and the colour is as strong as it was at the beginning.

46 comments:

  1. Looks amazing, I think I'll try making this :) thanks for sharing

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  2. The process of making this is even beautiful :) Lovely photography <3.

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  3. Oh thank you for sharing these instructions! I had some poppies in the garden but they have all finished flowering now :/ I'll try with other flowers though, love the idea.
    I had seen something about natural dyeing too, it gives pretty, soft colours, very authentic.
    Oh and thank you for your lovely comment :)
    xx

    http://highlybeloved.blogspot.fr/

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  4. WOW! This is so cool and easy. I will definitely be making these very very soon.
    Thanks for the idea!
    Trish

    www.jellybonesblog.blogspot.com

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  5. This is lovely. I've been researching how to create natural dyes, so this is perfect! :)

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  6. Can you dye clothes with these?

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    Replies
    1. Not exactly with this mixture, but you can dye clothes with flower petals. read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_dye#Processes
      or any other article about natural dye. I hope it helped somehow;)

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  7. So nice! Thanks for the tutorial.

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  8. May I pin this on pinterest???

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    Replies
    1. Of course, feel free to pin whatever you want!

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  9. really...
    this is faboo
    ...i never knew...you could...
    make ink...with flower petals...
    saving this and trying it!
    so nice!

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  10. Thanks for sharing this. I will do this with my Coming of Age group next summer!
    Katharine, Journey of Young Women http://JoYW.org https://facebook.com/journeyofyoungwomen

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  11. Definitely going to attempt to tye dye my sheets this way :D

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    Replies
    1. This is more complicated for clothes. You have to have a mordant or the dye will quickly wash out. I learned that the hard way. :) A good book for natural dying is Wild Color, Revised and Updated Edition: The Complete Guide to Making and Using Natural Dyes - http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Color-Revised-Updated-Edition/dp/0823058794/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

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  12. have you encountered India Flint?
    she teaches about natural/contact dyeing.
    maybe if you freeze the blue flowers first it might release more pigment?
    that's what she recommends.

    I found dandylions make the best dye

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  13. Thank you so much for this - I was looking for a way to do it. I am going to try cut alder wood - it is bright orange!

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  14. this didn't work for me :c I'm just getting a weak, brownish water

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    Replies
    1. What kind of flowers did you use? Maybe I could help somehow

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    2. I used a rose, but not the average kind, more like a big, dark red rose
      after two days, the water did turn red, but on paper it's like diluted pink watercolor, it's barely visible

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    3. Here,s a list of flowers that would make rose/red pigments: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_dye#Processes
      As you see, rores itself don't work. If you want red ink you could wait a month or two and try to use poppies, they are the best.

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    4. What if there's no poppy? What flowers can be used that is available here in the Philippines? Thank you :))

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  15. I was wondering if the colors fade after they're on paper? I'm currently in a watercolor class and the teacher talked about how some of the cheaper paints they sell can fade over time, and I was wondering if this ink faded as well.

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    Replies
    1. I added all the information to the post. They won't fade if you use proper flowers;)

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  16. What type of alcohol do you use for this? Thanks, they look beautiful!

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  17. what was the name of the book you found the recipes in?

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    Replies
    1. It's a Polish book, so it wont help you, probably;)

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  18. Really inspiring stuff!!! This post is fantastic, and equally fantastic is this conversation thread. This information regarding printers and different category of printers & its machinary is so inspiring! Awesome Work. Keep it Up!

    Inkjet Ink Manufacturer | Inkjet Ink Supplier | Inkjet Ink Exporter | Inkjet Ink Factory | sublimation ink manufacturer | CISS Refill Ink | Refilling ink for CISS System | Pigment Textile Printing | dye ink supplier | pigment ink manufacturer | sublimation ink supplier .

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  19. Looks amazing, I think I'll try making this :) thanks for sharing

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  20. What other alcohols could we use? Like 90% rubbing alcohol or like strong liqueurs?

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  21. This could've been awesome if I lived in your place and have these ingredients in my backyard. Me and a couple of other guys are trying to do this Investigatory Project on all-natural ink and when I was researching on it, this link appeared second on the results. I thought it was a great idea, except we don't have the materials.

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  22. I colour orchids with inks and food colouring, dry them out, cover them with resin and make jewelry from them. Maybe I can try colouring these flowers with inks made from other flowers?? Interesting

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