Table Mountain Pine Cone Ink

Ever travelled some place and loved it so much, you wanted to bottle the experience for always? Done with buying souvenirs and other keepsakes that just end up cluttering your home on return? Here's a simple little ink made from extracting color from pine cones, which won't clutter your home or cost you more than pennies, will make a forager of you and return you to calligraphy and other crafts using inks. All natural, scented with pine, and you put invasive pines to some small good use, too. Recipe adapted from @pascalbaudar

5 from 1 vote

Print Recipe

Ingredients

2-3 pine cones, the fresher the better
2 cups of water
2 teaspoons soda ash or washing soda (Sodium carbonate)

Instructions

Pick apart the pine cones until you have about a cup’s worth.
Place in a pan with the water and the soda, and bring to a boil.
Then reduce the heat to the barest simmer and cook for about an hour or two—until the liquid is a rich, dark, red-brown, and amounts to about ¼ cup.
Strain, bottle, and use with calligraphy nibs or brushes. Fingers work, too!

Notes

Note that it's important to use fresh pine cones for this recipe, because the trace amounts of pinus gum in them will help create a smoother ink.
If you make any of your own detergents or household cleaning agents, you'll have soda ash or washing soda on hand. If not, it's available on Amazon.
You can try this recipe with other color-giving barks, too; Tanner's Cassia/Aavaaram is next on my list!