WOYWW #630: Eco-dyeing !!!

I know I said I might skip this week's WOYWW but here I am again! I simply have to share my new obsession: eco-dyeing. I had known about this process for a while, but I was put off by the need to boil things in the kitchen for hours - all the set-ups I'd seen involved open pans and complicated contraptions and I told myself I didn't want to steam up the kitchen and I didn't have the right equipment, ingredients, etc. etc. - basically making excuses. But then I realised I can do it on a smaller scale, put it in a pot with a lid and use clips instead of sandwiching it between planks of wood or whatever. So here's my "work desk" this week, ie. the kitchen counter and the cooker. (yes, that is the same rose I bragged about last week, poor thing, but at least it had the chance of being immortalized in an art project and there are dozens of buds coming through and this first one was already on the way out - call it premature deadheading!)  

This was my pot cooking for 1.5 -2 hours - I think the cooking time could be reduced to just around an hour, but I'll experiment a bit more. There are some rusty screws, teabags and some white vinegar thrown in for good measure (in addition to the alum I pre-treated the paper with) weighed down with a piece of broken clay pot, but it's not an exact science - anything goes! 

I had the best results with the marigold I collected from the garden and a tree we have that has very dark red leaves. My initial papers only had hydrangea petals, but then as I got more adventurous, my prints got more grungy and more exciting! These are just some of the results of the past few days of experimenting (and of course, these are all double-sided): 

Even my cover sheets came out looking pretty cool and interesting!

I have enough papers now to make a couple of books - I might do that. For now, I'm just having too much fun making more papers! 

This pretty rose will be my next victim, though I'll give it a few more days to enjoy its beauty before ruthlessly cooking it. I must say I feel a bit bad about it, but it's no different from eating salads or cooking vegetables, right? I mean I never felt bad about cooking a carrot. I guess it's about destroying something beautiful that's giving me second thoughts. Which is why I'll wait until it goes downhill, then I don't need to feel  guilty about it. 

Happy WOYWW! Did you see Murphy on Julia's post? How adorable is he? xx