cara marie piazza Archives - Botanical Colors

Looking Back To Look Forward Botanical Colors 2023 Report

I can’t believe it’s the end of 2023. No really, how did we get here?? It seems a blur, a really exciting but challenging-paced year chock full of the ups and downs of a small business. And we are a small business! Many of you think we are a huge company, but did you know our incredible team is 8 employees strong? We pull off big things and work hard but there’s one thing we couldn’t do without. You. For our 2023 look back to look forward, we wanted to tell you how much we grew because of all of … Read more

A woman with dark hair sitting on a table, surrounded by green plants

Sunday Visit With “Ice Queen” Cara Marie Piazza

For this week on Sunday Visit, we catch up with Cara Marie Piazza, a natural dyer and artisan working in New York City. She creates one of a kind textiles only using natural dye stuffs such as botanicals, plant matter, minerals, non-toxic metals and food waste. She treats her fabrics through alchemical dye sessions, ancient shibori techniques and bundle dyeing, transforming each textile into its very own story. She also teaches workshops on natural dyeing for us at Botanical Colors as well as being our Creative Ambassador! We are so grateful she is working with us. She’s a busy person … Read more

Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Ice Dyeing with Cara Marie Piazza

This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY, (our 50th episode!) was on ice dyeing with natural dye high priestess Cara Marie Piazza. Watch the video recording here: Cara Marie Piazza creates one of a kind textiles only using natural dye stuffs such as botanicals, plant matter, minerals, non-toxic metals and food wastes. She treats her fabrics through alchemical dye sessions, ancient shibori techniques and bundle dyeing, transforming each textile into its very own story. She works with both designers and artists to realize their natural dyeing needs as well as creates custom pieces for private clients. Cara teaches workshops on natural dyeing (including … Read more

Construction Techniques with Aboubakar Fofana: Create a Pair of Stripcloth Trousers

Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Indigo Master Dyer Aboubakar Fofana

This week’s FEEDBACK FRIDAY was with indigo master dyer and multidisciplinary artist Aboubakar Fofana. Aboubakar is based in Mali and France and updated us on his latest projects including cotton cultivation in Mali. He also talked about his indigo farm, exhibits and the workshops he is teaching with Botanical Colors this spring and summer. Watch the video recording here: Shop the Finimugu (Malian Strip Cloth) Aboubakar talked about and showed us beautiful images of here. If you don’t know indigo master dyer Aboubakar Fofana, he is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose working mediums include calligraphy, textiles and natural dyes. … Read more

Video From LIVE FEEDBACK FRIDAY: Cara Marie Piazza

This week, we’ve got video from our live FEEDBACK FRIDAY featuring natural dyer and artist Cara Marie Piazza. Cara took us through her process foraging for and utilizing flower and food waste in Brooklyn. We also just opened up registration for two online classes with Cara Marie Piazza taking place June 6th and June 27th that you won’t want to miss. Watch the recording here: During this FEEDBACK FRIDAY, Cara discussed transforming avocado pits and peels, edible flowers, onion skins, nut shells, and other dye stuffs into dyes. We’ll also talk about how to set up your own home dye … Read more

FEEDBACK FRIDAY: This Week in Natural Dye Questions

Thanksgiving Day Natural Dyeing With Food Waste

Image: Vogue This Thanksgiving Day, why not do what you love and natural dye with food waste while you cook up your mid-day feast? According to Vogue, “With so many color-rich foods on most Thanksgiving menus, Vogue.com decided to get a lesson in natural food coloring, and create a set of eco-chic napkins that can be made in tandem with the holiday meal. As it turns out, the palette procured from turkey-day cuisine is very seventies: Cranberries produce a range of colors from poppy to dusty rose, onion skins tone silk lime and ochre, beet stalks boil into muted moss, … Read more

10 Natural Dye Instagram Feeds We Can’t Get Enough Of

What are the 10 natural dye Instagram feeds we can’t get enough of?? All of these people! We love being inspired by our community and to see who is doing what and where! While some of these feeds are a little new to Instagram, others are seasoned members and continue to inspire. Here are 10 natural dye Instagram feeds we can’t stop going back to but are no means the complete list. Who have we forgotten? Let us know and we’ll add on! And don’t forget to find us on Instagram as well as Botanical Colors! A Verb For Keeping … Read more

Recipe! Food Waste, Indigo and Natural Dyeing With Cara Piazza

This past Saturday I taught a natural dye workshop in the backyard of my friend’s Cyd and Neal’s vintage store – The Grand Street Bakery. A vintage store set in a converted old bakery, fully equipped with awesome vintage threads hanging on repurposed baking racks, stocked with natural apothecary, magazines and generally some of the best vintage buys you can find in New York. They also have an incredible backyard space so I thought a food waste workshop in a converted bakery with vintage oasis? Perfect. Working with donations from Reynard at the Wythe Hotel, and juice pulp from the … Read more

DIY: Indigo Dye with Cara Marie Piazza

Our good friend and Botanical Colors customer, textile artist Cara Marie Piazza, was recently featured in Gardenista using our rich indigo. Writer Sophia Moreno-Bunge caught up with Cara in her studio and wrote: “Indigo is an ancient color, a natural dye extracted from a plant of the same name, and the only true blue dye in nature. It’s been found in ancient Egyptian mummy wrappings and was so valued by the Romans as a luxury product, the story goes, that the only people who knew how to dye with indigo were hidden away in the forest,” says Moreno-Bunge. “Because of … Read more