Wednesday, April 21, 2010

What's Up Wednesday! 4/21/2010

It's Wednesday...and I know it this week!!
It's also the day before EARTH DAY!
In honor of that, I am
DYING IN THE KITCHEN!

I have used things from the kitchen to color some white Prima flowers. These are items I have used for years to "dye" fabric, so I thought "Why not try it on flowers!" (No, they are not going to be acid free any more...)

Here, I used unsugared Koolaid! As any mom knows, the dye in this stuff NEVER comes out!! I used the non-sugared kind and mixed it very concentrated (about 8 oz of water for the packet) Mist or brush on the flowers. KOOL colors!... and it smells fun, too!!



Here's the card using the flowers. I used plastic bag "paper" (see my Youtube video ) for the background and paper made from recycled paper grocery sacks



Next I made some very strong instant coffee and several strong varieties of teas. Just drop the flowers in the coffee or tea. Let sit a minute or two, then pull them out to dry. The colors are subtle and beautiful!!



Here's another card. The paper is made from banana fiber and the background panel is from a Starbucks cup sleeve. The subtle colors of the tea and coffee dyed flowers are so soft and pretty!



There are lots of other natural dyes from veggies and things as well. Look around you kitchen...you never know what you can find to include in your paper crafting!!

Have an awesome week!!

Laura

18 comments:

  1. Thanks Laura these are great ideas !!!

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  2. So inovative! :D Love your ideas! Nice cards, btw.

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  3. This is a wonderful idea! I absolutly love the second "just because" card. I must try this! Thanks for sharing!

    Vanessa

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  4. Kool-Aid!!! Who knew? Do you rinse the kool-aid off before your dry? This will be WAY more affordable than the glimmer mists (I love them too!). Did you happen to try adding any of that glimmer stuff that stampers use to your little spray bottle? Just wondering. Thanks for sharing your genius with us!!!!

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  5. P.S. Where did you find your little spray bottles?

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  6. The coffee and tea flowers have a vintage look to them. I love the colors that came from these dyes. What a great idea.

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  7. Love the coffee and tea dyed flowers. I'll definitely have to give those a try.

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  8. This is so neat. Thanks for sharing. I bet they smell good too.

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  9. I thought about the tea for colouring when we accidentally spilled it on the carpet (white). It was an awful stain but a beautiful colour! lol ;D Thanks for sharing. They all look gorgeous! more stuff to try.. hehe

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  10. Gorgeous colours and beautiful cards, brings a silver lining for every stain I can't get out of my kids clothing :)

    Kat

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  11. Great ideas here! Where the heck do you find banana fiber? Perhaps in the same section as Elephant poo paper eh? They have that at my local quilting store! I just couldn't get past the poo factor even though I know it's clean enough!!! Argan Oil was the other "premium item I couldn't get past....it's gleaned out of goat poo....something about it....and it's to eat!!!!!

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  12. Great ideas Laura!!! I love the tea & coffee dyed flowers, although I would love just the tea...heheehe. Thanks so much for the lovely pic of Alaska. My oldest Son & I had the chance to take a cruise through the inside passage, and it was so beautiful (I worked for a cruise line in Seattle, so it was my free cruise :), I probably already told you this), anyways, I was a bit dismayed to see that the glacier that we went to was not the pristine white that was shown in the brochures, it was filthy, I imagine from all the "wonderful" cruise ships showing everyone this great part of nature..sad really.

    I hope you have an awesome day my friend!!!

    Crafty Hugs,
    Lisa :)

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  13. Actually, the crud on the glacier is rocks and gravel drug along by the glacier for centuries. It is what the glacier removes as it forms the valleys left behind as the glacier receeds and is called "moraine" ..... nature-made not man-made. Some glaciers are more pristine...especially those covered by snow!

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  14. Wow...Fantastic ideas Laura
    Thanks for sharing

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  15. Wow this is so awesome and creative now were going to have to try these techniques...thanks for sharing :)

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  16. Laura you are amazingly creative and very easy to follow on your videos. I am so glad you record your clases because I don't have a home computer and can usually catch up after work on my work computer.Thank you so very much
    Karn N/Dallas Texas

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