all natural dye

Red Onion skins:   I've been working in produce at a little, family owned grocery store for about 5 years now off and on, and surprisingly i get a lot art ideas from work. I like the forms, shapes, textures, etc found in nature in produce. When restocking the red onions today, a lot of the loose skins were left in the bottom of the box. I had heard that an older lady used to collect them from us around easter to use them to make dyes. I took a bag of onion skins home (everyone thinks i'm such a weird art girl) to experiment making a dye. 

I boiled them for about 5 minutes and instantly it turned the water brownish red then as it boiled it turned into a nice maroon. I strained it and let it cool. I probably should have let it boil or sit longer but i really wanted to see how it looked on paper. I used it like watercolor paints and gave some paper a red wash. As it dried the dye turned green!? 

Completely dry, the red dye turned into a brownish green...  weird, right? I'm sure if i did some research, there would have been a right way of doing all this but i honestly just wanted to get my hands in it. The green color was actually really nice and i'll still use it but it was just a surprise. 

So, if you'd like a green, all natural dye... boil red onion skins.