Eco-Friendly Lifestyle News — natural dye RSS



Nature Bag Sponsors Natural Dye Workshop

The early morning Northern Laos sky was a brilliant blue as an European, an American and 10 Lao gathered on a point of land at the base of the massive Kuang Si waterfall for a workshop on using nearby forest products to add color to Earth’s Greenest Bag™. After exchanging greetings and sharing fresh organic coffee grown 500 km south in the landlocked Southeast Asian nation, the group moved into the surrounding jungle to find the bark of a special tree that would be the source of the color for the first natural dye.  The temperature was comfortable thanks to a thunderstorm an hour earlier.  The smell was sweet from a multitude of Lao jungle flowers. As the roar of...

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Nature Bag Crafter's New Experiences with Natural Colors

  The Netherlands Senior Expert Ineke Poort-Van Eljk, Bag Crafter Pa Sa, Consultant/Volunteer Vandara, Bag Crafter Som confer before a workshop session.   For Nature Bag crafters Pa Sa and Som, the 5 day trip to learn about using natural colors in the stain-resistant JungleVine® fiber of their bags was a major life experience.  Although the journey from their rural villages to near UNESCO World Heritage Luang Prabang took only a day, neither had ever been so far away from home or away from home for so long. Pa Sa had traveled 80 km (64 mile) to a Khmu village near her provincial capital of Oudomxai 6 years ago to be a bag crafting trainer for a United Nations Industrial...

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