Make Your Own Natural Inks

When I was a little girl living in Iowa, my brothers and I discovered a huge Black Raspberry patch up the road.  I don't know how we found it, we must have been just exploring and happened upon it.  We had to tramp through a large grass field, down a hill and hidden from view was this - what seemed enormous to us kids - undiscovered Black Raspberry patch.  We would follow our path trampled through the field everyday with plastic pails for a day of picking.  We went everyday until the pickings were slim.  My mother must have been up to her eyeballs in berries.  I'm sure she gave a lot away or maybe she secretly threw them in the compost bin or for the birds.  We took great pride in coming back with full pails of these big juicy berries.  

So what can you do with Black Raspberries?  Eat them plain, put them on ice cream, put them on cereal, bake muffins, bake cakes, make jam, freeze them for later, make a pie ....  How about making a natural ink with them?  

NATURAL INK

Materials Needed:

• Berries
• vinegar
• sieve
• spoon
• measuring spoons
• measuring cups
• bowl
• water
• salt
• jars

Steps:

• measure 1/2 cup of berries into a sieve put over a bowl
• squash the berries with the back of a spoon so that the juice flows into the bowl underneath
• add 1/2 Tbsp. of salt to the juice
• add 1/2 Tbsp. of vinegar to the juice
• mix well
• pour into jars

Now you are ready to use the ink.  Use a feather to write or draw with the ink and see what your kids can create!

Have fun and be careful of stains.