After breakfast around 9:00 am, our staff will take you to the place of the workshop: the beautiful house of Aini is located in the paddy rice fields down in the village. Please note that we’re happy to arrange this activity according to your trip schedule and adapt the starting time (according to availabilities).  

Aini will give you a small house tour and you will immediately be amazed by the beautiful organic garden. Aini is putting a lot of efforts into it and she is committed to not use any chemicals! You will learn more about Indonesian plants and flowers growing in there but also about their coloring properties. You will hand-pick all the ingredients you need to make your eco print fabric: plants, leaves, flowers, roots, barks… everything you need to make natural plant-based dye and botanical pattern. 

Aini will teach you everything you need to know about the natural dyeing and eco printing techniques: how to select the ingredients, how to place the leaves and wrap the fabric, how to get natural colorings… You will create your own unique design. Place the leaves and flowers on your piece of cotton bandana to create your own design. Then you will steam your eco print fabric with a steamer for 1.5 hours. Some amazing local women who are leading this project will help you in the process. They will teach you the different techniques of treating the eco print fabric: you will learn more about scouting and mordanting. While waiting for your eco print to be ready, enjoy a fresh herbal drink from the garden and some local snacks. Then it’s time for the last step: the reveal of your piece of art! You will go through the fixation process so that the colors will stay on the fabric longer. At the end of this workshop you will of course take home your own hand-crafted eco print bandana! 

This course is open for anyone, whether you are solo travelers, families with children or groups. The perfect activity to reveal your inner artistic skills, powered by nature!

If you’d like to see the other natural dye and eco print items local women are making, Aini will show you the shop before leaving! You can buy some of the amazing APES Eco Print products directly there. It is your way to support even more this amazing initiative led by local women.

Then a tuk tuk will come to pick you up and bring you back at the entrance of Bukit Lawang. You will then need to walk for 15 minutes on the path along the river to go back to our guesthouse (you will already know the way). You should be back around noon if you start at 09:00 am and after 4:00 pm if you start at 1 pm.