Natural Dyes and Picture Pies

I found a link yesterday, through A Magical Childhood, for a homemade paint recipe, using natural dyes (just fruits, veggies, and boiling water), and powdered sugar, from Meyamo.

I'll admit, I was intrigued. Fruit, water, and powdered sugar, sounded more like frosting than paint to me, but I'm always game to try out a new paint recipe, and I love experimenting with natural colors.

We decided to try some colors from our yard.

The girls went out and gathered dandelion flowers, greens, and roots, as well as some pretty, purple, grape hyacinth. We were having strawberries for lunch, so we had some cut of bits of those to use, as well.

I rinsed the dirt off of the roots, chopped up the strawberries, and greens, and pulled off the flowers, placing each in a separate bowl.

Then, we covered them in boiling water, and left them to steep, until the water was colored.

We crushed, and stirred the plant bits, and then strained them out of the water.

The girls enjoyed looking at the colors, and smelling each one.

Some smelled better than others.

Finally, we added 1 teaspoon of each of the different colors of water, to 6 teaspoons of powdered sugar...

...stirred...

...and tried out our paints.

The girls loved it. It was exactly like painting with frosting. The girls thought it was wonderful, but gazing over my sugar glazed kitchen, I was very happy the Man of the House had to be in Butte for the day on business.

Since it was near to nap time, I called a quick halt to the painting, and whisked the girls off the the bathroom to wash up, while I rinsed off the paint brushes, and filled the sink with the sticky dishes.

All was not lost though, as we still had three pretty good dyes (the dandelion flowers, greens, and roots, all basically made yellow), and making them had been a lot of fun.

Before I finished cleaning up, I dipped a number of coffee filters...

...and a few sheets of paper, into the colored water...

...to dry, and use for future projects, like a little after nap time...

...Ed Emberley inspired...

...Picture Pie fun (thanks to Love2Learn2Day for the book recommendation).

You can't really see it, in the pictures I captured, but the dyes made for lovely pastel papers, perfect for creating caterpillars, butterflies, and summer time flowers.

It's great to be a homeschooler.