Rebecca Desnos

  • About
    • About Rebecca
    • Natural Dyeing
    • Plants Are Magic Magazine
  • Shop
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • FAQs
  • Contact
  • My Account
    • Cart 0
    • Checkout

test page

BUY NOW

Recent Posts

  • Dyeing with nettles
  • How to dye even colours (and why you might not want to)
  • Avocado Dye : FAQs / Top tips for pink
  • New napkins and thoughts on creating less waste
  • A shift in mind and space – what’s the future of the magazine?

Categories

  • Book
  • Commissions
  • Dye experiments
  • Dyeing
  • eBook
  • Jewellery
  • Painting
  • Uncategorised

Tags

Alder cones Avocado avocado dye Avocado skin avocado skins Bags Bamboo Beads Berries Blue Bundle dyeing Business cards Carrot tops Commissions Dandelions Dress eBook Eco printing Eucalyptus Experiments Fabric wrapping Flowers For the home Indigo Iron Jewellery magazine Mahonia Berries My process Onion skins Organic cotton Packaging Painting Paints Paper Pattern plants are magic Scarves Seaweed Shibori Soy Soya Soya milk Watercolour Woad
  • A pot of avocado dye to begin the week 🥑 Plus my very simple tip for dip dyeing 😉💌 . I made this avocado skin dye over the weekend. I collected the skins over the last couple of weeks, washed them carefully each time I ate an avocado and dried the skins on a tray. I have a fairly recent blog post with my avocado storage and dyeing tips so feel free to check that out on my website 🥑💓 . These skins made a warm apricot dye. The exact shade seems to be variable so it's always a lovely surprise to see what will happen. The stones (pits/seeds) also make shades of pink. I like to dye with them separately to enjoy the different shades, but you can throw them all into one pot if you choose. . I'm dip dyeing this cotton scarf. I pretreated the fabric with soya (soy) milk as detailed in my book Botanical Colour at your Fingertips and then used my usual method of dyeing in an aluminium pan (also detailed in my book). . Have you ever dip dyed fabric and found that it burns on the side of the pot when the metal heats up❓I've done this too many times 🙊 This time I remembered to drape the fabric across a wooden spoon so the fabric stays away from the hot metal edge. I hope this tip helps you! . Are you dyeing/making/crafting anything at the moment❓Or are you tempted to try some avocado dyeing❓
  • I collected a handful of fallen petals earlier on in the week and tried to ferment them in salt water 🌺 I wondered if this would extract the colour from the petals and stop it from turning brown... I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here but it was lots of fun playing around and testing ideas. . I've seen @samorn_sanixay and @christinelewisstudio make rose petal dye. I didn't know how to do this so adapted a fermenting recipe for these petals. . I used the fermenting recipe in the latest @plants_are_magic magazine by Eleonora Matarrese (Eleonora's IG page is @iskogenmagazine). Her recipe is for preserving vegetables and I just did the same but used petals. I made some brine with sea salt and poured it over the petals and kept them in a clean glass jar for a few days. . After a day, the liquid had started turning pinky purple and turned an even darker pink after 4 days. There is definitely something worth experimenting with this. Next time I'd like to try some really dark red petals. I know it's best to leave the petals in the jar (in the fridge) for months... so that's what I'll do and see what happens. . Oh and the grey swatch on the paper is from the reaction of the dye in the rusty lid - it turned the dye black! . A handful of petals gave me a few days of enjoyment and I've learnt some things along the way. I love a bit of open ended experimentation. . Have you experimented with rose petals before? What do you do with yours?
  • I've been waiting all summer for these flowers to bloom 🌼🌼🌼 They are an ornamental variety of Hypericum. . They bloomed a few weeks later than last summer. I know that because I picked flowers from this very bush the morning I was in labour last year. My son turned one few days ago (and it was my birthday on the same day 💕) but the buds were still tightly shut on our birthday. . The bush must have finally bloomed over the weekend... I've been watching it everyday for weeks now. On our walk this morning we found that it was a golden blaze of yellow 🌼✨ There are still thousands of closed buds - it's going to be a joy for weeks! . I expect the dye will be coral/orange, and amazingly the leaves also make this colour in the dye pot. It's a beautiful plant to dye with. . Are there any dye plants that you look forward to all year❓Do you have special memories attached to them❓
  • Hi friends, I'm just popping by to let you know that the next edition of @plants_are_magic went on sale for pre-order this weekend 🌿🎉 . You can sign up to my mailing list on my website and get 10% discount 💌 You'll be emailed a coupon code which is valid until 30th June. Enter this code at checkout to get your discount and use it on all past editions of the magazine too 🌿 . The magazine is filled to the brim with beautiful articles, interviews, tutorials and recipes from contributors from around the world 🌎🌍🌏 . I hope you enjoy the magazine as much as I've loved putting it together 🌿💞 . Thanks for supporting my dream to create this independent, advertisement-free magazine 😚
  • Hi 😊 I'm just popping in with a photo of the finished pillowcase that I dyed with Linden leaves. It's a very simple folded tie dye pattern and just what I wanted for my bed 👌🏽 . It was such a fun little project - I might overdye all my old white pillowcases with different plants ✨ . The Linden leaf dye really darkened over a few days and made a delicious warm amber colour 🍂 . I used leaves from Linden trees that I can see from my bedroom window and the tree is known to help induce peaceful sleep... I can't wait until the flowers bloom - maybe next week! 🌼 . What are you dyeing/making/dreaming about right now?
  • I've been playing with petals the last couple of days 🌺 ~ simply squeezing and smudging petal juice onto fabric. After the heavy rain yesterday, there were lots of dahlia petals scattered over my balcony from my small potted plant I have outside. Immediately after I picked them up, they began to stain my fingers purple. Of course I couldn't let the colour go to waste, so I began to press the flowers into fabric and paper and make patterns. This was at about 7:30 in the morning, before breakfast even, with my baby in the carrier. I was totally buzzing with excitement! 😆🌺✨ . I wrote more about this in my newsletter that I sent out today. Did you receive it? 🌺 If not you can still get it by joining my mailing list (via the link in my profile) and you'll receive a link to my latest newsletter. . Of course this flower play is inspired by @samorn_sanixay who does a lot of incredible things with pounding flowers into fabric (and has actually written a tutorial for the next @plants_are_magic magazine 💕). But I didn't do anything special with these petals... they were simply pressed and squeezed so the coloured juice transferred into the fabric and onto the paper (swipe across to see the third photo). I'm a bit hooked now and wondering what else I can print/paint with! . I've ironed the fabric to help set the colour and then I'll leave it a few days before rinsing to see what colour remains. It worked beautifully on paper too, which doesn't need to be washed. So it's literally painting paper with petal juice. I think I know what I'll be doing more of this weekend! . What are your plans for the weekend? Do you have any craft projects on the go?
  • I've just come back from a walk with a bagful of these linden ("lime tree") leaves for my dye pot, and a peacefully sleeping baby 👌🏼 . There are several of these trees right outside of my home in our shared garden. I dyed with linden flowers last summer but I really wanted to try the leaves on their own. . If the colour is pretty, I'll dye this white pillow case. Our bedroom windows look onto these the linden trees, and I just feel compelled to dye a pillowcase for our bed with these leaves. Sometimes it's nice to just follow our instinct and do what feels right. That's my favourite kind of dyeing... Also linden flowers can be used as a tea to encourage peaceful sleep, so it seems fitting to dye a pillowcase with this plant 💚 . Over the weekend I sent the @plants_are_magic magazine file to the printers 🎉 When the proof comes back there will be another round of revisions and checks, but it's almost there! I really can't wait to hold it in my hands for the first time, and share it with you soon 🌿 . I'm going to put these leaves out on my balcony now as there are lots of creepy crawlies that need to escape! . How was your weekend❓Do you have any making/dyeing/crafting projects on the go❓
  • This lovely photo of my book was taken by @pilar_bear who is going to begin her own botanical dyeing journey very soon 🌿🍃🌾🌼🍂🌸 . I remember the sheer thrill when I started natural dyeing - my eyes had been opened to this whole new world and the feeling of excitement has never gone! When we work with nature's gifts, the inspiration is infinite and ever-changing. There are secrets to be discovered in so many plants around us. . I wrote Botanical Colour at your Fingertips (first released as an eBook and later in paperback form) to show you how easy it is to start natural dyeing - we have colour potential all around us just waiting to be unlocked! It can be as simple and intuitive as cooking. Once we learn a few basic principles, we can start to experiment and develop our own palettes of natural and local colour 💚 . What was the first plant dye that you used❓ I began with powdered dyes and my first one was madder, then a few years later my first whole dye plant was the alder cone. Then I soon became enamoured with avocado dye. To be able to put my avocado skins and stones to good use and make pink dye was mind-blowing! 😱✨ Which plant made you fall in love with natural dyeing ❓

Delivery  –  FAQs  –  Terms & Conditions   –  Privacy Policy  –  Wholesale

Copyright Rebecca Desnos © 2018