How to paint with kratom
Use a brush to mix 5 grams of paint with 15 ml of water to form a paste until the paint starts to foam a little. Now you can paint with the brush on paper or canvas.
Tip: Avoid mixing with yellow, this usually gives a rather swampy looking greenish blue
How to dye clothes
- T-shirts and other clothing
T-shirts and other garments achieve the best results when the fabric has a high cotton content, so avoid too much or pure synthetic fiber clothing.
Make sure that the T-shirt is very clean before you start the dyeing process. To get the threads clean, you can clean the t-shirt with soda powder. This process helps to remove the various waxes and oils from the garment.
You need:
- A large non-reactive saucepan or cooking pot (i.e. one without a non-stick coating), should be large enough!
Soda powder also known as sodium carbonate and washing soda.
- Textile detergent or rinse aid
- Your kitchen stove or hob
- A thermometer - Preferably digital, with probe attachment for immersion in the liquids used.
- Good quality rubber gloves.
Keep in mind that dyeing your own fabrics, as simple as it may sound, is not without risks. Be well prepared to avoid accidents.
Use high quality protective gloves, especially when handling warm liquids and when immersing fabrics in the dye pot. Do not use food containers after using the pot to dye fabrics.
Although our natural dye is non-irritating, you may want to use a face mask so you don't inhale fine particles when measuring the leaf powder.
Be especially careful when using abrasive products and make sure you have read all the advice on the packaging.
It is best to work in a well-ventilated work area without small children or pets.
Wear old clothes, aprons and other clothing that you don't mind getting stained or wet.
This is how you clean your garment:
How much water should you use? The fabric should have plenty of room to move and soak in the pot, so make sure you don't dye too much at once. We recommend 2.26 liters of water per 28 grams of cotton fabric.
The recommended amounts of soap and soda vary somewhat from source to source. We don't think exact ratios are very important, but these numbers should give you a starting point to then develop the best technique after practicing.
For even more effective textile cleaning, add between 2 and 3 teaspoons of washing soda (3 teaspoons is a tablespoon) and 1 to 2 teaspoons of detergent per 4 liters of water.
Don't forget to wear protective gloves when handling washing powders, detergents and chemicals. Also make sure you wear appropriate clothing / aprons before you start dyeing.
Once you have added the above chemicals to the water, carefully add the fabric and turn on the heat. Bring the water to a boil, then turn off the heat and leave the fabric there for at least two to four hours.
Stir the fabric to be dyed occasionally with a long wooden spoon to ensure that it is washed evenly. You will notice that the water turns yellowish.
It will be clear that the fabric will be very clean after at least a couple of hours, so when you reach that point, carefully lift the garment out of the pot and drain the water.
Rinse the garment thoroughly with running water for a few minutes to remove any abrasive chemicals. You can use a colander or salad spinner for this step.
From this point, you can proceed directly to the dyeing process with the wet garment or dry it and store it like freshly cleaned laundry.
How to dye your T-shirt with our natural dye:
As a general guideline, use about 100-250 grams of natural dye powder for each batch of T-shirts you want to dye. Add at least 2-3 liters of water (or enough to submerge a T-shirt in a rinse bowl or bucket).
Take 100-250 g of dye powder and add it to 2-3 liters of hot boiling water, which is at least 90 C. Increase the temperature until just before boiling and then let the mixture simmer for at least 30 minutes while stirring.
This allows the dye from the plant material to enter the water.
Turn off the stove and allow the water to cool to a maximum of 70°C. For best results, let the color mixture cool overnight and then proceed with your project the next day.
Once the mixture has cooled, you can strain out the remaining dye powder. This makes it easier to clean your garment after the dyeing process - but it's not essential, as the dyeing material is quite fine and can be rinsed off.
Make sure that the dyeing liquid is placed in a suitable storage container. Place the washed-out T-shirt or garment in the pot and stir gently with a wooden spoon to ensure that all the fabric is submerged.
Turn the stove back on. Bring the water temperature to about 70 °C, be careful, do not burn your hands when moving the garment in the pot.
Process the garment in the dye mixture every 10 minutes for at least 1 hour, squeezing the garment repeatedly to ensure that all fibers are flushed with dye.
For best results, leave the garment in the dye mixture for at least 5 hours or overnight.
You do not need to reheat the mixture during this soaking phase. Most of the remaining color powder should have sunk to the bottom of the container by the end of the process.
In the next step, let the garments drain thoroughly under cold running water for at least 5 minutes and rinse.
At this stage, you can already treat your dyed garment like freshly washed laundry, so you can dry it either in the dryer or on the clothesline.
You can dispose of the used paint powder in the compost heap, as it is biodegradable.
Congratulations, you have now made a unique garment yourself from natural dyes, you can be proud of it!
Dyeing candles with kratom
What do you need to dye candles:
- Candle wax (preferably white)
- Kratom (quantity yes as desired, how strong the coloring should be)
- One wick
- One pot
- A heat resistant vessel for melting wax
- A small stick for stirring
Step 1:
Pour the hard wax into the heat-resistant container. The amount is up to you, depending on how big and how many candles you want.
Step 2:
Make a pot so full of water that the container with the wax can float in it.
Step 3:
Put the pot with the vessel on a stove top and heat the water. Until all the wax is melted.
Step 4:
Now that the wax is melted, we take any amount of kratom and stir it into the wax. The more kratom you add, the more colorful the candle will be later. But don't use too much or the candle will crumble later. The finished mixture you then put into a candle mold.
Step 5:
Now just put a wick in the middle of the candle mold so that it peeks out about 2cm above. Now let the wax get cold and the candle is ready. Depending on the color of the kratom, your candle can be reddish-brown or green.
