a beetroot mishap

23rd October, 2008

The sun is shining it's warmth all through our home this week. Warming our bones & brightening the dusty corners. It lifts our moods & inspires us to create, to do & to imagine.

Priority number one on our family list is to redesign our sleeping routine after reading Elizabth Pantley's wonderful book. (More on that process to follow). 

Which of course is an excellent opportunity to also redesign our sleeping room. 

I wanted to create a cocoon effect. A place of calm & welcoming. The heavenly colours of soft blues & pinks to encourage a gentle drift into dream land. 

So I began to gather supplies in my mind....

Then a quilt cover, over & over I went, around & around. We are trying so very hard to not purchase new unless there is not an alternative. Especially items like cotton which are so costly to grow.

Then I remembered. An old quilt cover in the cupboard. Unbleached cotton from many moons ago. All but forgotton. Perfect.

I hung it on the line & filled a spray bottle with beetroot juice ~

"Nudey Painting" little M called it. 

'Avoiding pink stains all over our clothes'  I thought.

What a fun way to spend the afternoon. How joyful for him to create the art under which he would sleep. And all natural, all recycled. Perfect.

Then after it had dried in the sun for two days. I washed it.

And do you know what... not one single pink beetroot blemish was left on that entire cover. What did I do wrong? Every time I've ever splashed beetroot onto anything it stains. 

What went wrong?