We have brambles all along the back of our garden and there's a glut of blackberries at the moment. The many that have fallen from the branches are not fit to be eaten so we thought we'd try using them another way yesterday.
We talked about how dyes and paints used to be made, which we've occasionally seen discussed by Mr Maker - thank you CBeebies. Then Jessica collected a few handfuls and then pounded them in my pestle and mortar to make a lovely squelchy mess!
We probably should have passed it all through a sieve before using it and Jessica would have enjoyed doing that but I didn't think about it at the time. It was fascinating stuff to use because it went on red and dried to a lovely deep purple. Amazing magical ink!
This was a lovely process. We enjoyed it so much that we're now trying to come up with other ideas for making paints from nature. I'm thinking that marigold flowers may work pretty well. I'll let you know!
