How To: Make Ink From Flowers

How To: Make Ink from Flowers

This is by far the most abundant ink I have in my house is that of inks made from flowers. This is the easiest and fastest inks to be made and require the least amount of materials to produce brilliant and soft colors. The inks from flowers can be either stunning and dark, or a lighter and more pale like one would expect from watercolor. Flower inks don’t last as long as inks produced from berries or nuts, and being left in the sunlight will fade their colors faster, but since this ink is so fast and easy to make, it can always be in supply. The shelf life of this ink is about a month if kept in the dark, but this is dependent on the color itself.

Materials:

Glass containers (preferably mason jars or drinking cups)

A pestle or other wooden tool (to crush the flowers with)

Boiling water

Cheese cloth

Rubbing Alcohol or 100 Proof Vodka

Glass storage container

Optional: Gum Arabic

Steps:

First, gather the flower petals of choice for the color desired (note some flower ink isn’t the same color as the flower petals).

Take these petals and crush them into the glass container, stuffing as many as you can in 1/3rd of the container as possible. The more crushed the petals, the more color will come out.

Fill the container with just enough boiling water to barely cover the flower petals. Do not fill the container, as this will dull the ink.

Set this container aside to brew overnight (I actually leave mine in the window to brew for 24 hours).

Strain the flower petals from the liquid, pouring the colored ink into a clean glass storage container.

Add 1 part alcohol to the container and shake gently (do not shake hard enough to form bubbles).

Optional: You may add Gum Arabic to give the ink a thicker consistency.

A recommendations on flowers, I have found that roses and other soft petaled flowers make a stronger ink.

What deck is this from??

Illumination.

Some of my altars….

So exited for Litha! Going to be with my grandparents so I will have to do a *slightly-still-in-the-broom-closet* celebration but I'm sure I can figure it out :)

Celebrate Midsummer

Outside:

Collect Herbs and Flowers

Make Sun Tea

Build a bonfire

Have a sunrise or sunset picnic 

Sunbathe

Leave out honey offerings for the Fae

Cleanse and charge your magical items under the sun

Watch the sun set on the longest day of the year

In the Home:

Let in as much sunlight as you can

Make crystal or botanical suncatchers

Burn incense of sandalwood, frankincense, rose or myrrh

Try fire divination, or scrying with the flames 

Make pressed flower candles

In the Kitchen:

Make Honey Mead Bread

Eat a spread of fresh summer fruits and vegetables

Make Midsummer Mead

Brew Chamomile Tea

Bake Pumpernickel bread

Make fruit & herb infused water

In the Bath:

Soak in a golden honey bath

Scatter sunflowers through your bathwater

Bathe around fiery solar colored candles

Treat yourself to a chamomile Tea Bath

On your Altar:

Represent the sun using colors of yellow, orange or gold

Incorporate solar imagery

Decorate with green stones like jade or emerald

Try decorating with woods of oak and pine

Use golden candle holders and decorations

Incorporate dried or fresh picked herbs

Time of Day for Spellcrafting

•Morning: awakening, new beginning, fertility, life direction. •Daytime: growth, financial gains, good life, generosity. •Midday: willpower, strength, sustenance, perseverance, overcoming obstacles. •Twilight: change, receptiveness, parenting, moving between the worlds. • Evening: camaraderie, spirituality, joy, pleasure, family gatherings, children, play. •Late Night: occult learning: increase knowledge/wisdom, enlightenment, creativity. •Midnight: releasing, recuperation, recovery, closings, endings.

“She is the lover of all things that grow in the earth, and all their countless forms she holds in her mind, from the trees like towers in forests long ago to the moss upon stones or the small and secret things in the mould. In reverence Yavanna is next to Varda among the Queens of the Valar. In the form of a woman she is tall, and robed in green; but at times she takes other shapes. Some there are who have seen her standing like a tree under heaven, crowned with the Sun.”

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion