Green/Greener, 2 new birds and a sand sculpture.

It's time for a green/greener post! This time my focus is on natural dying which I'm currently exploring (again!) So far my own personal experience is limited to Marigold, Tea, Coffee, red cabbage, onions skins and Fennel. I've also had 2 attempts at making Kowhai flower dye and a nest dye with poor results....this is definitely a learning process! I'm keen to learn though and as I said it my last post I think I stumbled upon a good way of setting the dye on paper- with an iron!

Moss and Lichen. Mclarens Falls.

The first artist I am going to put the spot light on is India Flint. Am I the last person on the eco-dying planet to discover India Flint's blog? lol. For anyone who hasn't visited her blog yet here it is. If your anything like me you will wish you had gotten there sooner! The first link will take you directly to a Eucalyptus dye recipe and this link will take you to her book and others of interest. My wishlist gets bigger!

Eucalyptus bark and feather. Some of the things that made it home with me after our camping trip!

I found a link to this fabulous article on India Flint's bundling/ printing /dying method on a site called Turkey Red Journal which is a publication dedicated to natural dying. Be prepared to want to run out and gather leaves after reading the article!

For John: Close up of a frond from a NZ Native Tree Fern, the Ponga.

Eco dye captures my attention because its in tune with my way of thinking. It's not perfect but it is 'greener.' The foot print of a fennel plant growing over my fence is a whole lot smaller than that of the coffee that has been shipped (and goodness knows what else!) from a million miles away. Right now I am trying to find a more natural alternative too coffee that will give me the same colour. I found this plant/colour guide on a site called Pioneer Thinking. Handy to have! As you can see there are plenty of alternatives to using coffee...and if you live in my part of the globe it's not long until Autumn...and that means walnuts! I know just the tree to harvest from too. If your interested in making your own walnut dye here's a page you might like.

I haven't tried it myself yet and I would be interested in reading about walnut dye experiences if anyone has a link to share! This link will take you to a site with the most gorgeous photography of this ladies natural dye projects. Some eye candy for the eco dyer's out there!

Last but not least, check out this collaborative project that Jasmine of Nature's Whispers is taking part in. How can you not want to go and see a project called Wrapt Trees?

Meet Dollar and Dime! (Dime is the bigger bird with his beak open.) We adopted these teeeeny, tiny sparrows today. I only took this one photo so I didn't disturb them or let them get cold. They're so very tiny and have hardly any feathers and their eyes arn't open yet. They are using a heat pack and polyprop to keep warm. Being small dosn't change the amount of noise they make when it's feed time, which at this stage is every 30mins...please wish us luck that we have a great result for this little foster babies too!

Speaking of birds, it IS feed time so I quickly post a rare pic of me and my kids at out local beach. It was published in a local newspaper last weekend.

We came third place equal in a local family sand scultpure competition! Ours was a giant "We HEART NZ"

Winning was a nice way to end a great day!