First, O poured water into 4 test tubes (I bought these on clearance after Halloween...they were filled with gummy body parts in candy jelly, which we threw away).
Then, she squeezed LOTS of food coloring in to each test tube. The tubes were red, yellow, green, and blue (the food coloring was so dark that you couldn't really tell which color each tube held at first).
Our last step was putting one beautiful white Camelia into each test tube.
Within about 3 hours, the petals were already starting to turn colors. This was SO exciting because this is the FIRST year this experiment has worked (and it's our 3rd year doing it!). I realized last year (too late) that it wasn't working because we weren't using enough food coloring.
All of the petals fell off the blue and green flowers after only one day. Luckily, the girls didn't mind. I'm so glad this project finally worked!
16 comments:
Wow--didn't know that worked with camellias! We did that every summer with Queen Annes' Lace picked from the field at the end of our street when I was a girl. It was always so much fun to decide "which color this time?":-))
Wow those are amazingly vivid.
That is beautiful. Too bad our camellias are red!
@The Girl Who Painted Trees, use blue water and turn them purple! Or yellow and make orange.
We have used carnations!
I remember doing this when I was in school. I don't think we used camellias though. I know you can use daisies but I am not sure if they work that quickly. Really I think you can try it with any white flower, it just might take awhile. I know when I did it in school we left them overnight and when we came in the next morning they were colored. Thanks for the reminder, I will use it in a class.
Very cool! I remember doing this when I was younger too, but I don't remember getting results as beautiful as the ones you have made! Thanks for the inspiration, love the test tubes too.
Fun, educational and pretty = a winner.
Very awesome! Another great idea I love!
great experiment! i'd love to try this one day, thanks for sharing!
My mother did this when I was a little girl. A little different method, but same overall idea. Very cool. :0
for really deep food colors, consider Chefmaster Pastes and Gels - they come on small pots or squeeze bottles and you can get some insanely bright colors going. Especially good for play-dough.
and for flowers - maybe orchids? they are really durable. it's really easy to get them here in the nyc area.....
These flowers are beautiful. I love this experiment. I've linked up to your post on my weekly favorites here: http://play2grow.blogspot.com/2011/03/weekly-favorites-for-march-13-2011.html
I LOVE this idea I will have t try this when we get roses this year.
www.ourjoyfulliving.com
you can also use celery stalks, if you use the top piece with the skinny stalks you won't see as much colour in the stalk, but it's there and the leaves darken. The wider base or 'stem' shows the colour better in it's cavity :)
How cool! I wonder if this would work with the white roses we have?
Post a Comment