Food Coloring Flowers

May 22nd, 2008 by Marie

Whenever we had white flowers in the house growing up, I’d give them the food coloring treatment. It’s always fascinating to see how this process works with the flowers. I’ve found the Carnation flower works best for this cool science project.

I bought a $4 bunch of white carnations at the local Walmart. Then we got out our flower vases ready with water. Don’t use the flower food it may come with, I did once and it didn’t work as well. Then pour in about 10 or so drops of your desired food color. We chose blue for the big bunch and tried a little red one too. I only used about 5-6 drops of red color for the small vase. Cut your flower stems off a few inches and place in the water.

It only took a few hours before we were seeing a hint of blue. By the next morning, the colors were all throughout the flower. They made a pretty border in blue and red.

My kids loved it and were amazed when the white flowers started to gain a touch of color. We have also done this project with food, celery works great. It’s fun to watch science in action.

Posted in Kids Crafts | 33 Comments

33 Responses to “Food Coloring Flowers”

on 22 May 2008 at 5:05 am1 Aimee

I’ve been meaning to try this.
on 22 May 2008 at 9:45 am2 Amy

What a fun project- I bet the kids would love that!
on 22 May 2008 at 10:13 am3 Angie

I wake up in the morning thinking what fun thing can I do with my kids today? Then I click on your site and TA-DA! There is my answer. Thanks so much! Keep the great ideas coming!
on 22 May 2008 at 11:24 am4 Wendy

This is great! I’ll definitely be doing this with my son.

I think I tried something similar with a carrot when I was a little kid…
on 22 May 2008 at 2:02 pm5 Karen C.

my mom used to do this with me and we used peonies that were growing in the back yard. watch out for the ants though.
on 22 May 2008 at 2:48 pm6 liz

I just recently started reading your blog, and this is a perfect example of what I love about it. We used to do this as kids, it is fun and easy, but I had never thought to do it with my children — now I will. I dusted off my air-popper a couple of weeks ago, at your suggestion, and my kids didn’t even know what it was! Now they prefer that method to microwave popcorn. Thanks for helping me ward off mom burn-out.
on 22 May 2008 at 3:10 pm7 David

You could also try cutting the stem in half or quarters (about half an inch above the base) then put each piece of the stem into different colored waters and get multi colored flowers.
on 23 May 2008 at 7:10 pm8 Marne

NEAT! I am trying this one for sure.
on 24 May 2008 at 5:33 am9 Aimee

We did ours yesterday; the kids think it’s pretty cool. It was good to get to talk about how things work inside the plant.
on 25 May 2008 at 6:37 pm10 Liz

Be sure to help your kids understand WHY this happens: the water molecules’ attraction to each other (surface tension) is stronger than to the pull of gravity, so the dyed water basically “climbs” up the tubes in the stem of the plant - it’s called capillary action.
You can help your little ones see surface tension by using eye droppers to drop small drops of water onto pennies (lay them flat on the table.) The water forms a dome on top of the penny because the water molecules hold on to one another. Just be sure to drip the drops from close to the penny - not from way up above. Surface tension is also why those little bugs are able to walk on top of the water instead of sinking…
on 28 May 2008 at 11:12 am11 David

You can also see capillary action if you place two glasses next to each other one full of water and one empty with a piece of cloth draping from one to the other after a while the empty glass will have some water in it, this is a good way to water your plants if you are going away for a few days, try it and see.
on 28 May 2008 at 11:32 am12 David

Also about water tension, if you fill a glass to the brim with water then add pennies to the glass, the water will seem to form a slight bulge over the rim of the glass, when it has done this drip a small drop of detergent into the glass and the bulge will be destroyed due to the action of the detergent which breaks down the surface tension, this is how detergents can remove dirt and grease, if you remove surface tension water and grease molecules have two similar attractors which will bind together in the absence of tension and so water will bind with the grease and dissolve it.
on 28 May 2008 at 2:01 pm13 marta

oh my. i love all of your make and takes. i can’t believe you are going strong throughout your pregnancy! congrats.. you are my inspiration. loving all the unique things you are teaching your kids. so so fun.
on 29 May 2008 at 9:17 pm14 Heather

You can also do this with celery!! I did it with my preschool class today!
on 11 Jun 2008 at 9:11 am15 Cindy

I did this with white peonies years ago, did them all in rainbow colors, then put them in a huge vase with ribbons tied around them Martha Stewart style, sat them on the patio table. Many neighbors commented on them. They are neat.
on 21 Jun 2008 at 5:15 pm16 Paula

This is cool! I’ll give it a try.
on 22 Jun 2008 at 1:56 am17 Maykat18

You can do this with celery as well my mom used to do it for me when I was a child.
on 01 Jul 2008 at 4:22 pm18 Yemek Tarifleri

Thanks for this. Article who your writen was so important for me. Thanks again :)
on 09 Jul 2008 at 1:02 am19 Tice

It works with tulips also perfect. : )
on 14 Jul 2008 at 4:23 pm20 monique

I think it will be fun to see how the flower changes colors. I’ll give it a try to see how it turns out!
on 19 Jul 2008 at 11:27 am21 loran

how long dose it take for the color to get to the pedal?
on 20 Jul 2008 at 5:19 pm22 Marie

Loran - It should only take a few hours before you start to see a few streaks of color. But overnight, it should be through most of the flowers veins and bright. I did this the first time and didn’t get enough color coming through, so I had to up the drops of color. Good luck and I hope they turn out bright for you!
on 16 Aug 2008 at 3:09 am23 Cassandra

I have done this with Queen Ann’s Lace–which I think is technically a weed. I now live in western Canada and you have to pay for Queen Ann’s Lace at a florist shop because it doesn’t grow here!
on 25 Aug 2008 at 1:17 pm24 sarah

how long does it take for them to change colors? i work in a child care lab and i need an activity but i only have one day!
on 28 Sep 2008 at 12:51 pm25 Daniel

I’m a 7th grader and I’m doing a science project on this same topic. I took some bean plants and planted them in some soil. I watered one plant with regular water, and another with water that had purple food coloring in it. They just sprouted 3 days ago, and the plant being watered with purple water isn’t turning very purple…

Anyway, hope you don’t mind if I use this cool site on my Bibliography…?
on 02 Oct 2008 at 11:50 am26 bellla

this is so cool im doing a project about it in school right now so this helped me understand how to do it better! THANKS
on 02 Oct 2008 at 11:52 am27 bella

i was also wondering what other flowers you cou use?
on 15 Oct 2008 at 1:49 pm28 kristine

i think i’m gonna use this projectfor the science fair at my school =) thanx alot =)
on 15 Oct 2008 at 1:56 pm29 shikawanaka (seriously-thats my name)

oh wow! i think this idea is way awesome…..i’m gonna use it for school, if its ok? ok…..whatever….bye ;-)
on 22 Oct 2008 at 6:10 am30 edith

Very interesting, thank you.
on 26 Oct 2008 at 3:56 pm31 kristine

hello again, i used this 4 my project at school…and i used carnations, lilies, and daisies…and the daisies & lilies died, but the carnations are still alive. why did the other flowers die and the carnations live? =\
on 02 Nov 2008 at 1:14 pm32 Lauren

i was in a play and all they had was white flowers so i used yellow die and it worked really well
on 04 Nov 2008 at 5:04 pm33 tomas

i’m in high school and got a cool idea for a science project that would be little work but a lot of fun. i havn’t done it yet, but i’m going to turn some white flowers yellow, and some blue, and then put the yellow ones in blue water and see if they turn green and the same with the blue ones in yellow water. i think it’ll be pretty cool