Weird Wood Stains 3
Today I am doing something fun – experimenting with stains from natural food products. All of these were prepared in my kitchen with ingredients from the grocery store!
1) Avocado Skin (pink)
To make this stain, I peeled an avocado, boiled the skin and pit, and strained it. The stain looks light pink, but turned the wood a honey oak color. It actually turned out very beautiful.
2) Onion Skin (yellow)
Boiled onion skins make a bright yellow dye that is often used for Easter eggs. Unfortunately, I found that the yellow was not as bright on wood as it is on eggs. This stain was rather disappointing.
3) Crushed blueberries (purple)
For this stain, I simply crushed a small bowl of fresh blueberries. The mixture looked very dark, but the intense color did not transfer well to the wood.
4)Pomegranate (pink)
For the pomegranate stain, I also simply crushed the fruit and used the juice. This stain did not disappoint. Definitely the most dramatic of the day, it resulted in a bright pink color.
5) Red Cabbage (blue)
If you boil red or purple cabbage, the resulting stain is a dark blue color. This is a well-known dye, but did not do much on wood.
6) Red Cabbage + vinegar (red)
Through this experiment, I learned that if you add vinegar to cabbage dye, it turns red. The change is instant and fascinating to watch! However, I did notice that after they dried, there was very little difference between the two cabbage stains.
So the winning stain for today? The pomegranate was definitely the most dramatic, but I think my favorite was the avocado skins. This stain produced a natural honey oak color that I really like!
By the way, while we’re talking about stains, don’t forget to check out my past videos:
